Hey all, this will be my first post here. Hopefully everything is properly formatted; this is also my first attempt at a query for my first manuscript. Any and all criticism will be greatly appreciated, and thank you!
Query:
Albie Richards is a rather unremarkable, if slightly undersized, twelve year old boy living in London during the Blitz. When his house and family are obliterated in a night-time air raid, Albie finds himself utterly alone, corralled onto a train with other war orphans, destined for a countryside orphanage named King's Port.
Despite its idyllic setting, an undercurrent of menace runs beneath the orphanage. Its director, an eccentric philanthropist known as the Doctor, affords the orphans with decent food, numerous activities, and guaranteed placement with good families. No one questions when children go missing in the middle of the night, other than Albieβs newfound friend Lillian, who has been conducting a clandestine investigation of her own.
The beneficent faΓ§ade of the Doctor and his odd companions is shattered one night, when Lillian includes Albie in an infiltration of the Doctorβs private study. They discover the dark secret beneath the orphanage, uncover the insidious powers behind it, and decide to steal a mysterious map that supposedly leads to an all powerful weapon that could turn the tides of the war.
Albie and Lillian, along with an unexpected escapee, find themselves swept up into an adventure they could not have conceived of in their wildest imaginations. They meet guardian giants, visit living libraries, delve into haunted caves, infiltrate the Tower of London in the middle of a Luftwaffe bombing run, and fight alongside brave Corgi warriors and their fairy riders on a quest to obtain the spear of a god and save England from utter destruction.
Zach Lowe goes in on the Pelicans in his podcast, at around the 1:19 mark: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1YmoIQtcyBJemeQpPMdXGb?si=a57762dbd7564e61
He went on to talk about how the Pelicans did not address their defensive identity issues with any of their trades.
Later, he brought up how the end game of "player empowerment" is a player choosing to take the qualifying offer, and Zion might be one of the first players in a position to do so. Interesting listen.
