You have to trust your book-and, by extension, yourself-and that can be a hard thing to do sometimes. To a high degree, things are out of your hands. If you’re out on submission, I think the key is to prepare yourself for that, to brace yourself. I wanted to make them love my book, and it was so hard to know how to do that. Sort of “This isn’t for me,” or “Not the right time right now,” or “I just didn’t connect, but good luck!” Everyone was very nice, but I felt so powerless. Editors would pass on your book, and frequently the only feedback given was vague. I found submission to be the opposite of this. The obsessive part of me was happy to gobble up everything I could, to arm myself as well as I could.

When you’re trying to get an agent, there’s so much information out there: so many lists on what your query should say, so much advice from the agents themselves, so many people willing to help give you a polish. When I was out on submission, though, I found it really frustrating. I can’t tell you that being out on submission is the hardest part of the process, because it’s all the hardest part of the process, because the truth is the process, from beginning to end, is just hard. Agent: Andrea Somberg, Harvey Klinger Inc.So you finish writing a book, and you feel like a million bucks.īut then you get an agent, and you feel like a million bucks.Īnd then the book goes out on submission. But Ben and Selkie's riveting adventures and touching mutual loyalty, along with a strong cast and central romance, keep this series opener engaging.

Dorset's story doesn't quite set itself apart in the urban fantasy genre%E2%80%94the plot, in which a faerie who has grown up believing herself human involves herself in a plot against the Seelie Court, closely echoes that of Holly Black's groundbreaking Tithe. Dorset is at her best constructing a beautiful and ruthless world where 'ugliness is ferreted out and destroyed.' Selkie's potential makes her a target for the Seelies, but when her lifelong protector, Ben, is captured, she is honor-bound to infiltrate the court to rescue him, facing down the mother she's never met. A complex group of prophecies predicts that Selkie will bring down the rule of the powerful Seelie court, where the elite forget anything unpleasant while using the power of faerie names to destroy the weak. Dorset's debut follows 17-year-old Selkie Stewart as her life is turned upside down by the revelation that her mother is an evil faerie.

The Girl Who Never Was by Skylar Dorset