Post by michelle4laughs on May 8, 2018 15:28:12 GMT -5
This query has given me fits for years. I appreciate anyone who wants to tear it apart. It has two main characters and dual POV which makes the query more difficult--and really long.
In noble Aurum society, Countess Marguerite Navarre prefers being overlooked. When she stays in the shadows, it’s easier to protect herself and her younger sister from suitors grasping after their title. Insignificance is little help when a deadlier foe appears: human-like creatures covered in feathers and with swords for hands, killing anyone with sun-gold eyes. As her parents and sister are massacred, Marguerite falls off a wall into the Silvers’ section of the city.
Jorge is born with a magical gift, inherited from his mother, which should have led him to power and greatness—if he wasn’t a Silver and therefore subservient to the Aurums. Instead he fosters cynicism, hides his gifts, and uses his talents to avoid the Aurums’ curfew in taverns with as much drink as he can afford. Then comes the night his magic takes him to a frightened Aurum girl, providing the golden ticket to escape his life.
Jorge convinces Marguerite to head to the emperor with a warning about her silly feathered killers, taking Jorge and some friends along for the ride. It’s a perfect plan until all-too-real blackbirds try to kill Marguerite a second time. From the way they eliminate any Aurums, it seems the creatures are someone’s plan for genocide. None of his business, until Jorge lets his guard down one bloody minute and accidentally vows an unbreakable promise to get the girl to the capital—alive. When it’s time to return her to the nobles, he’s forced to face real feelings for the first time in his life.
Marguerite has never met a Silver who treats her with such impertinence. Besides suspecting he’s a smuggler, Jorge harbors more secrets than a twice-done debutant and lies as easily as he breathes. But she needs this Silver and his ability to sense the murderous blackbirds, even if it does come with too much flirting, as the emperor has only bad news. With Jorge she forms an ancient magic called Heartsouls, a long-lost soul joining that bridges the races. It should let her throw balls of sunfire—if there was an inch of trust between them. To save her kind, Marguerite must allow herself to commit to their changing relationship and Jorge’s very different values, or she can go back to the shadows and bow before the censure of her kind, sticking with her own class as the world burns.
In noble Aurum society, Countess Marguerite Navarre prefers being overlooked. When she stays in the shadows, it’s easier to protect herself and her younger sister from suitors grasping after their title. Insignificance is little help when a deadlier foe appears: human-like creatures covered in feathers and with swords for hands, killing anyone with sun-gold eyes. As her parents and sister are massacred, Marguerite falls off a wall into the Silvers’ section of the city.
Jorge is born with a magical gift, inherited from his mother, which should have led him to power and greatness—if he wasn’t a Silver and therefore subservient to the Aurums. Instead he fosters cynicism, hides his gifts, and uses his talents to avoid the Aurums’ curfew in taverns with as much drink as he can afford. Then comes the night his magic takes him to a frightened Aurum girl, providing the golden ticket to escape his life.
Jorge convinces Marguerite to head to the emperor with a warning about her silly feathered killers, taking Jorge and some friends along for the ride. It’s a perfect plan until all-too-real blackbirds try to kill Marguerite a second time. From the way they eliminate any Aurums, it seems the creatures are someone’s plan for genocide. None of his business, until Jorge lets his guard down one bloody minute and accidentally vows an unbreakable promise to get the girl to the capital—alive. When it’s time to return her to the nobles, he’s forced to face real feelings for the first time in his life.
Marguerite has never met a Silver who treats her with such impertinence. Besides suspecting he’s a smuggler, Jorge harbors more secrets than a twice-done debutant and lies as easily as he breathes. But she needs this Silver and his ability to sense the murderous blackbirds, even if it does come with too much flirting, as the emperor has only bad news. With Jorge she forms an ancient magic called Heartsouls, a long-lost soul joining that bridges the races. It should let her throw balls of sunfire—if there was an inch of trust between them. To save her kind, Marguerite must allow herself to commit to their changing relationship and Jorge’s very different values, or she can go back to the shadows and bow before the censure of her kind, sticking with her own class as the world burns.
