QK Agent Round 1: Shalom Sasquatch, YA Contemporary Romance

Entry Nickname: Shalom Sasquatch
Title: Sasquatch, Love, and Other Imaginary Things
Word count: 77K
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Samantha Berger is pretty sure most nice Jewish girls aren’t forced by their families to compete in Bigfoot hunts, especially on national T.V. Just when Sam thinks she couldn’t be more humiliated by her parents’ hobby, she meets the competition: a team of snobby anthropology students from Yale who are set on wiping the floor with her amateur “Squatch” hunting family.

The captain of the other team, Devan Mehta, is impossibly cute in a Bollywood Romeo-meets-Sherlock Holmes sort of way — until he opens his perfect British mouth and calls her family a bunch of low-class wankers. Sam’s no longer just embarrassed. She’s livid, and determined to beat the ascot off Devan and his crew. After all, the prize money will allow her to study pre-med at the college of her dreams, far from Yetis and Yaleies.

Thrown together by the producers, Sam and Devan bond over family pressures, geek out over fantasy fiction, and learn how to rely on each other. In a moment of honesty, Devan admits he may be kicked out of his anthropology program if his team fails and Sam worries about paying for college if she doesn’t win. Before they know it, understanding turns into attraction and a steamy snogging session. But if Sam doesn’t want Devan kicked out of Yale, she’ll have to help him win. Now, as the competition heats up, Sam must choose between her ridiculous family and Devan, who might be perfect for her. Suddenly, finding Bigfoot is just one of Sam’s hairy problems.

First 250 words:

On a good day, my parents were just mildly embarrassing. The day the camera crew came to our house was not a good day.

I squinted at the bright lights illuminating our dingy living room, and turned to my older sister, Sophie. “Hunting Bigfoot in private isn’t bad enough?” I whispered. “Now Mom and Dad have to humiliate us on national television?”

Colin, the producer of a new TV show called “Myth Gnomers,” stood behind our scratched up coffee table shooting pre-interviews with my parents, me, and my two sisters. All five of us squished together on our stained, saggy brown couch, smiles frozen in place. At least our butts hid the holes in the upholstery.

The awful title of this lame reality show should’ve served as an obvious warning we were about to do something ridiculous, but nope, it sure didn’t.

“Checking. Checking one, two. Your mics should all be on now.” Colin peered over the camera at my parents’ matching neon green shirts that read, “Ohio is Bigfoot Country.”

My mom’s smile tightened. She glared and gestured at me until I put on a Northern Ohio Bigfoot Society hat like my sisters. Each Sasquatch club designed their own logo. My tacky trucker cap had a cartoon footprint and a motto on it in Latin— which probably translates to “We have nothing better to do.”

I pulled the brim down over my eyes, and sunk down, wishing I could join the pennies and crumbs hiding in the crevices of the sofa.