Query Letter after Query Shark


Dear Mr./Ms.

Twelve-year-old Riley Mason was daddy's little girl until she witnessed her father commit violence during a family vacation, changing their relationship forever.  Haunted by memories of him in handcuffs and covered in blood, she isolates herself as she attempts to resolve her feelings about the event.  Unfortunately, her father deploys back to Afghanistan before she can fix the rift between them.  He never returns

Feeling guilty and confused over her father's death, Riley follows in his footsteps hoping to understand him better.  She attends West Point, conducts combat operations in Iraq, and becomes one of the first women to earn the coveted Green Beret like her father before her.  Throughout her military career she is challenged by sexism and trusts it will be different once she reaches the ranks of the elite.  She is wrong.

Pushed to the sidelines of the Afghan war, she is forced into an administrative job.  Angry at her lot in life, she finds solace by reading her father's journal and learning about his last days fighting in Afghanistan.  Using insight from the journal and her own initiative, she dedicates herself to supporting other Green Berets on the front line and ensuring they return home alive.
           
Finally, after proving herself to her commander, Riley is given the opportunity to lead a Green Beret team into combat.  Just before the team launches, she discovers her father wasn't killed by enemy fire, but by an American traitor.  Arriving in the same base where her father served his last days, she wrestles with combating the enemy and keeping her men alive.  All the while, she tracks her father's killer in order to bring him to justice. Or maybe she'll just kill him herself.

The Soldier's Journal is a 90,000-word military thriller that explores the relationship between a military family torn apart by the war in Afghanistan.  Additionally, it features a woman protagonist breaking the glass ceiling of Army Special Operations.

I am a new author from Texas and served 25 years in the Army as a Green Beret with numerous tours in South America and the Middle East.  I have a BA in U.S. History and a MFA in Creative Writing.

Thanks for your time and consideration,


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