Guess the Plot
Keepers' Valley
1. Once you enter the Keepers' Valley, you may never return. Rebecca learns this the hard way when the Keepers chain her to the Monolith of Chained Bones.
2. In a post-apocalyptic world, an army seeking a place to conquer comes upon Keepers' Valley, so called because its residents keep the records of the pre-apocalypse world. If they can't conquer a bunch of historians, what a pathetic army they are. As usual, it's up to one woman to stop them.
3. The Finders went exploring, named exoplanets, asteroid belts, solar systems, etc, etc. But now that it's down to the nitty gritty, the Keepers own everything. That's where Joe comes in: protecting a dinky little crevice between mountains in a backwater corner of a galaxy no one else cares about.
4. Keeper settled the Hidden Ranch Valley two years after the pandemic, hopeful to find a plot of land to tend to away from the chaos of society & government. But strange things have been popping up in his valley lately. Ever the independent, Keeper keeps his secrets safe in his valley. When he meets Ayana Strongthold on one of his few trips to town, will he have the heart to let her in and risk her safety? Or will he entrench himself further in his isolation?
Original Version
Dear Agent:
KEEPERS’ VALLEY is an adult low fantasy adventure set in a quaint post-apocalyptic North America. [Rarely is anything in a post-apocalyptic world described as "quaint."] I believe this novel is a good match for your representation because (relate to agent’s MSWL or current stable)
Allie Francoeur’s courage has always outpaced her judgement. [judgment] So, naturally, when her village is invaded, Allie allows herself to be captured. [When soldiers invade, they don't want to drag all their captives from skirmish to skirmish. So much easier to just kill them.] The second step in her plan, where she is going to orchestrate [orchestrating] a daring escape for her people, well…that doesn’t go as anticipated. Now held in the dormitory of the school where she used to teach young healers, Allie’s half-baked plot has landed her in a battle of wits against the invading general, Reginald Gray. Worse, Gray believes he can use her magical gifts to aid his quest to conquer the valley she calls home. [Her magical gifts couldn't even get her out of a school dormitory, but this guy thinks she's the key to conquering the valley? What are her magical gifts?]
As Gray strives to unravel her secrets, Allie is devising an agenda of her own. She saved the life of the general’s second-in-command, Thomas Landen, when they were children. She knows his heart (and his real identity), but she can’t make sense of his devotion to the silver-tongued general who controls his every move. [Obviously Thomas is an undercover agent who infiltrated the invading army and is now afraid Allie's flawed "judgment" will blow his cover before his own not-half-baked plan saves the valley.]
Allie must decide how much she can reveal about the true calling of her people to bring Thomas over to her side. [The true calling of her people is revealed below in your note to EE; it would be nice if it were mentioned in the query.] If Allie’s judgement is right, [which it seldom is, as it's "always" outpaced by her courage,] her new alliance will be the key to ridding her home of its invaders. [Because history shows when an army invades a village populated by historians, the invaders flee if their second-in-command betrays them.] If she’s wrong, Allie will have given Thomas, and the general he serves, exactly what they need to claim the valley for their own.
KEEPERS’ VALLEY combines the magic-entwined war setting and lost family themes of The Book of Thorns by Hester Fox with the reimagined science, anti-colonialism threads, and stomach-turning villain of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Alternately heartwarming and dark, KEEPERS’ VALLEY is complete at 118,000 words and stands alone with series potential.
Sincerely,
[The title refers to the Valley where the story is set, and the people who live there call themselves "Keepers" because they have been tasked with preserving humanity's accomplishments from before the fall of civilization.]
Notes
My sense is that when an army invades a valley and captures people, the army's general has better things to do than engage in a battle of wits with one of the captives. They delegate battles of wits to their trusted lieutenants, who order their sergeants to kill the captives, especially if they think the captives have the power to turn them into frogs.
Most of my comments will prove irrelevant if you fill us in on the magic. As historians normally have no chance of defeating armies, if you want us to believe that's not the case, we need to know what the historians have going for them. Is Allie the only resident of the valley with magical gifts? Where would you place her on this list of people with magic powers:
Dr. Strange
Gandalf
Merlin
Elphaba
Samantha Stephens
Penn & Teller
Also, it probably seems like it would require magical gifts, but if you could trim about 20,000 words from the book . . .