Face-Lift 1422

The Two Ravens

No one submitted a fake plot for this title, so no Guess the Plot

Dear Evil Editor.

Some dead people don’t know they’re dead. [Spoiler alert: For instance, Bruce Willis.]

Most people won’t notice these miserable, lost souls as they wander through dimensions. [If the ones who weren't miserable to begin with don't know they're dead, why are they now miserable?] But for sixteen-year-old psychopomp Raven, they can be a downright nuisance. Who [Nobody] wants to be ogled by an audience of impatient spirits as you [they] make out with your [their] boyfriend on the settee? [Having looked up "psychopomp," and discovered it's a "creature, spirit, angel, or deity in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife," I'm wondering if psychopomps would have time for boyfriends. It doesn't sound like a job for a teenager.] [I mean, when I die, I don't think I want my escort to wherever to be some teenager who starts every sentence with like or so or I mean.] [Do you mind if I just shorten that word to "psycho" from now on? "Psychopomp" sounds like a new genre of loud bad music.] [So, when did Raven discover she was a psycho? How did she know how to guide dead people to the afterlife?]

When Raven’s parents die in an accident, she is packed off to live with her grandfather in an enormous old manor house, Dunham Hall.  [Like, did she pomp her parents to the afterlife?] [Did her parents know she was a psycho?] But old manor houses come with their own share of ghosts.

Raven finds herself drawn to Saul, the strangely familiar son of the hostile housekeeper. As their relationship grows, Raven begins to have disturbing flashes when she touches him. In her visions, they are both adults. Saul knows more about these memories than he’s letting on, [These sound more like precursors or premonitions than memories. Are they memories of when they knew each other in a past life?] and Raven is determined to find out what he’s not telling her. [Kind of like we're determined to find out what you're not telling us.] 

But to win their freedom, Raven must learn more about their problems, [Coming after a paragraph about Raven and Saul, it's not immediately clear that "their" doesn't refer to Raven & Saul.] and what help they need before they’ll rest in peace. [Maybe all they need is a psycho to get up off the settee and guide them to the hereafter.] It won't be easy. Someone is trying to steal the souls that she’s trying to help, ["Steal" meaning "kidnap"? What do you do with a soul once you've stolen it?] and she certainly didn’t expect to come face-to-face with herself in the afterlife.

THE TWO RAVENS is a Young Adult Paranormal Romance complete at 89,000 words with series potential. It will appeal to readers of Mary Lindsey’s Souls series and The Haunted by Danielle Vega.

I thank you for your consideration.

Notes

Is Raven the only psychopomp in the book? Is she human? Do you have to train to become a psycho?

If Raven died in a past life and was chosen to be a psycho, wouldn't they just train her and send her back instead of making her spend sixteen years of hell growing up?

Maybe start with paragraph 3: When sixteen-year-old psychopomp Raven loses her parents in a tractor accident . . .  That doesn't explain what a psychopomp is, but maybe I'm the only one who needed to be told. I'm not sure we even need the Saul paragraph. He can be worked into the 1st paragraph: When sixteen-year-old psychopomp Raven loses her parents in a tractor accident, she is packed off to live with her grandfather in an enormous old manor house, Dunham Hall. Not the worst possible fate, especially when she meets the housekeeper's hunky son, Saul. But old manor houses also come with ghosts. 

The manor has ghosts, the ghosts need help, Raven wants to help them, someone else is keeping Raven from helping them. What's her plan? What's the danger?