I spent much of today preparing my completed chapters for a public unveiling in an online critique group. I had to draft a bit of set-up text – something like the teaser you might read on the back of a paperback novel. It needs work, but this is what I came up with:
In one line:
A haunted Midwestern family discovers its own secret heritage after one member dabbles in new-age spirituality.
In three paragraphs:
Lizzy Rickart Robideau – thirty-three years old and sixteen years married – has everything her extended family ever wanted for her: a snug house in picturesque Arden, where generations of Rickarts have grown up. Two bright, well-behaved children. An adoring, ambitious husband. Worthwhile hobbies like knitting, scrapbooking and gardening. Lizzy knows she should be content, but lately a disturbing lassitude has been creeping into her actions and – worse – into her outlook.
One September evening, on her weekly night out, Lizzy’s childhood fascination with the paranormal is rekindled. In the days that follow – inspired by books about new-age witchcraft and spurred on by her suspicion that her century-old house is haunted – she develops an eclectic, idiosyncratic practice of the craft for herself. Her magickal efforts meet with surprising success, but unintended consequences arise. The minor paranormal phenomena which initially concerned her intensifies. Tensions develop in her relationships when her occult interest is dismissed, even mocked, by her most trusted confidants.
As the haunting begins to physically affect her and the children, Lizzy – feeling more isolated than ever before in her life – is forced to seek instruction from an experienced witch as she struggles to control her own abilities, while also excavating her family’s heritage for clues to the identity of the spirits that are threatening to tear apart everything she has built.