The Writer's Voice

Query

For as long as she can remember, sixteen-year-old Quinn Hardwick has been dreaming of England. So when the opportunity to visit London with the school band comes up, Quinn will do anything to go – including working at Tudor Tymes, a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant, to earn the money for her plane ticket.

Buckingham Palace is finally in her sights and everything is falling into place. At least until Wesley Boyle – amateur magician and former childhood friend – is hired to work with her. 

Five years have passed since Quinn last saw Wesley, but she hasn’t forgiven him for ruining her life. His big mouth is the reason her parents are divorced. And without her mom to keep him in line, her dad’s gambling addiction has spun out of control.

Quinn is infuriated that Wesley has weaseled his way is back into her life – including joining band and hijacking her trip to London: a trip that she is no longer going on because her dad needs help paying off his bookie.

Her savings account depleted and her dream dashed, Quinn decides to focus on the root of all her problems:  Wesley Boyle. If she can just get him fired, she is certain some balance will be restored in her universe. But getting back at him isn’t as easy as she anticipates, especially when she starts to fall for him. Now, Quinn is forced to choose between righting a wrong or letting go of the past and following her heart. 

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW is a 50,000 word Contemporary YA novel.



Chapter One

King Henry VIII won’t shut up.

He’s been talking at me for the past five minutes, even though it should be clear from the platters of food I’m holding that I’m on my way to a table. My arms are starting to ache from trying to keep the heavy silver trays balanced - each one is weighted down with a rapidly cooling turkey leg, tiny potatoes and butter-glazed carrots, long green stems still attached. All of which our customers are invited to enjoy with their fingers instead of silverware, because knives and forks weren’t used in the fifteenth century. At least not in King Henry’s court.

Tudor Tymes management insists we hold true to the little details, even though it means we go through, like, five thousand paper napkins a night. Somehow the fact that paper napkins didn’t actually exist in the Middle Ages was overlooked.

“Anne. Everyone always blames me for what happened to Anne,” King Henry – aka Alan Rickles, retired weatherman/local dinner theatre actor – says, shaking his head sorrowfully.  “That’s all anyone remembers me for.” 

Of course that’s what we remember him for. Henry had two of his wives beheaded. Not something people easily forget, even five hundred years later.

“What about all the good I did for England?”  Alan strokes his thick brown beard. I’m convinced it’s the reason he got the gig in the first place. That and the thirty extra pounds he gained for the role.