...in which Skyborne is a Young Adult paranormal romance:
Shiloh used to think the stories of Abraxas were only that: tales from old books, tucked away deep in her high school's library. It seemed no one else even knew of them. Until the books opened on their own, and created a path to that other world, letting through something horrific. Abraxas's gods of conquest, betrayal, and destruction have decided they want Earth as their new home, and Shiloh may be the only one who can stop them.
Too bad she has no idea how. Tasked by several of Abraxas's other gods with binding the dark gods back into their books, Shiloh finds herself in far, far over her head. The dark gods plan to enact a ritual on the winter solstice that will cast their influence across the entire world, with Shiloh's school as the ritual site.
On top of all that, Shiloh's just been asked to the winter formal . . . by Alexi, a girl from the dance team, sparking feelings Shiloh didn't quite know she had. This only grows more complicated when Alexi reveals she's originally from Abraxas. She's not sure how she came to Earth, but intends to return home once the gods' problems are solved, and would love to take Shiloh back with her. Among Alexi's people, fighting together signifies a kind of marriage, and Alexi is just itching for a battle.
The dark gods' influence quickly spreads throughout the student body -
violent classmates patrol the corridors, the student council ousts the
teachers and staff, and every parent or authority figure Shiloh can find has fallen under the influence of a web of lies. What little Shiloh is able to figure out from the books of Abraxas suggests a magical way to stop the ritual, but Shiloh has no magic. Doesn't she?
Now, with the dark gods' ritual drawing near, Shiloh must figure out how she truly wants to handle things. Should she destroy the Abraxas books, and hope that ends the dark gods' influence? Should she give the three gods what they want, and escape to her beloved fantasy world? Or should she take a stand, and fight back against the dark gods, with only Alexi to help her? Time is running short, the dance on the winter solstice is coming soon. . . .
And everything changes when Shiloh learns to fly.
It should be clear by now that I have no idea how to write a Young Adult paranormal romance. I came up with this after reading some tweets from Juliana Haygert wherein she talked about the issues with writing summaries for different genres of books. I thought it would be interesting to write a pseudo-query for Skyborne as something very different from what it actually is.
Curious to see what people think of this. And if nothing else, I laughed a lot writing this. High school is bloody ridiculous on its own, adding some vengeful gods might actually be over the top. Heh!
