Hi - Here’s a pitch for my unpublished book!

 THE UNDER LAKE is a 61,000-word MG fantasy about intergenerational stories come to life (WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER); how addiction radiates through family (HEY, KIDDO); and the joys and dangers of magical escapes (RULES FOR STEALING STARS).

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Charlie’s older brother had a story about where dreams go at night. “Straight into the mouth of a dragon,” he would say. “A flying, twisting, swirling dragon.” 

By the summer Charlie turned 12, though, he didn’t believe a word out of his brother’s mouth—he was sick, an addict, and lied more than he told the truth. But when Daniel comes home early from treatment, Charlie discovers that every lie is a story, and every story contains a truth. The dragon is real—Daniel has met her. And when Charlie goes to her watery kingdom beneath Lake Erie, she agrees to help his brother… on one condition.

Together with his fantasy-obsessed best friend Sam, Charlie must seek out a mysterious sorcerer and convince him to return home. But when the perfect escape of the Under Lake proves too tempting, Charlie makes a deal with the sorcerer instead—a deal to fix Daniel and allow them to stay in the dream world, forever.

Between matching wits with the creatures of the Under Lake and discovering the extraordinary connection between the sorcerer, the dragon, and the world she created, Charlie and Sam must battle their own desires to escape their problems at home and learn what Daniel never did—that it’s OK to be sad, that friendship is the best medicine, and that not every problem has an easy fix.