Face-Lift 1512

Guess the Plot

Bogshephards of Elmbloom County

1. Rowena is sick of being a bogshepherd. She dreams of opening a bed and breakfast, preferably one no one comes to so she can live in solitude. Then she meets Kal, and love is in the air. But is Kal a friend, or has he infiltrated her life solely to destroy her dream?

2. A story of sheep, told by sheep.

3. The annual competition between the bogshephards of  Elmbloom County and the moorshepherds of Westmeath County is in danger of being cancelled. Only one 14-year-old girl can save it, and she's gone missing.

4. Peat bogs were sentient long before mankind took its first bipedal steps, but no one noticed until a 100-year old retired bog farmer realized the bogs had been slowly spelling out words in his dreams. The farmer becomes the first bogshephard and fights a losing battle trying to convince the world of his discovery.

Original Version

Dear Agent,

Rowena, pointed-eared Sylph and dedicated bogshepherd, [I was thinking that should be pointy-eared, so I looked up the difference, and apparently "pointy" is more informal than "pointed." More playful. So when applied to the ears of a sylph or an elf, I'd go with "pointy." When applied to the ears of a Vulcan, "pointed."] [When applied to the ears of a bogshepherd, it's not clear.] [When you spell "bogshepherd" two different ways between the title and the first sentence, someone's gonna think one of them is a typo.] wants nothing more than a few seconds [day] of peace, alone. But operating her late grandmother’s rural farm keeps her on the tips of her wind-affinited toes every day of the week. So when her business partner (and only friend) proposes a new venture that could allow them to make enough coin [That settles it, "pointy."] to afford them time to relax, Rowena accepts. The idea? Turning the working farm into a charming, countryside inn. But they’ll need a helping hand, and not just from each other. Between finally meeting the townsfolk she’s so purposefully tried to avoid since her grandmother died and training the mysterious newly-hired help, Rowena might be deeper in the muck than she thought. 

Kal, a half-blooded pyro-fae, desires nothing more than a life free from his pureblood, faerie family’s business: a rural bed and breakfast. [The things your main characters want "nothing more than" seem remarkably attainable.] So when he’s recruited by two strangers to help open a rival inn he takes his chances in hopes of a new start. [He wants nothing more than a life free from his family's bed and breakfast business, so he starts a new life . . . at the bed and breakfast across the street?] But so does his family, who ruthlessly desire to come out on top in Elmbloom County’s hospitality market. They make him a deal: infiltrate and disrupt the enemy, and they’ll work their magic to get him the far-away city job of his dreams. But his plans rapidly halt when he meets Rowena, [If Rowena was one of the two strangers who recruited him, they'd already met.] a prickly, jaded Sylph that, despite what she argues, might be the first person that has ever truly accepted him as his true self. [She's arguing that she doesn't accept him? Or that she's not the first person to accept him? Or neither? Is "argues" the right word?]

As the two of them bond over hosting fantastical overnight guests, stubborn swamp animals, and endearingly peculiar townspeople, Rowena begins to question her beloved [desire for a] future alone [--until she learns of] Kal’s initial intentions[.]  right before [With] the inn’s Equinox Festival [approaching, she] retreats into the [withdraws into an earlier] version of herself when her grandmother died: broken and alone. But with the success of the festival on the line, Rowena has to make a decision [must decide]- does she leave her new passions behind, returning to a familiar life of stoic isolationism [solitude], or does she finally risk being vulnerable enough to enjoy a future of friendship, belonging, and love?

BOGSHEPHARDS OF ELMBLOOM COUNTY is a 65,000-word cozy fantasy novel. It combines the fantastical, small-town slow-burn of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst with the enchanting, dreamlike world of Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao.

[Reasons for choosing this agent here.] Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

Is Kal the the "mysterious newly-hired help"? If not, no need to mention the the mysterious newly-hired help, as you don't bring them up again. If he is the the mysterious newly-hired help, he can't be that mysterious, as they recruited him, and he shouldn't need a lot of training, having worked in the business already. You also don't mention Rowena's business partner again after they suggest turning the farm into an inn. As the query is a bit  long, we could cut the first paragraph down to:

Rowena, pointed-eared Sylph and dedicated bogshepherd, never gets a day off from operating her late grandmother’s rural farm. Her solution: convert the working farm into a charming, countryside inn. But she’ll need a helping hand, as she has no experience running an inn.

This takes us into Kal's paragraph:

Enter Kal, a half-blooded pyro-fae, who desires nothing more than to escape his pureblood, faerie family’s business: a rural bed and breakfast.

This is where you deviate from the tried and true plot in which Kal has always wanted to run a farm, and they live happily ever after. Your Kal wants out of Elmbloom County and into the city where he'll be eaten alive. Oh well. You need a villain, and who better than the ruthless elderly couple running a quaint family-owned bed and breakfast?

I'd like a better idea of what the fae magic can do. Apparently it can get Kal the job of his dreams in the big city, but they need Kal to infiltrate the enemy because their magic isn't able to disrupt the new rival business. It seems like this story would be the same if the characters were all human. 

There was a time when one's attempt to beat the competition involved improving your service or lowering your prices. Sending in a spy to figuratively or literally burn the other business down was a last resort. No longer. I blame it on Trump.