Afterworlds - Softcover

Westerfeld, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 2266256289 ISBN 13: 9782266256285

Publisher: POCKET JEUNESSE, 2015

Synopsis

Darcy Patel, dix-huit ans, a mis l'université entre parenthèses. Elle vient de signer un contrat pour publier son premier roman, Afterworlds. L'histoire de Lizzie, une ado qui échappe de justesse à une attaque terroriste en simulant la mort. Tandis que Darcy écrit et plonge dans l'effervescence de la scène littéraire new-yorkaise, Lizzie passe de notre monde à un monde intermédiaire, un lieu entre la vie et la mort, où elle va dénouer les secrets de son passé... et rencontrer le garçon de ses rêves.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Westerfeld est né au Texas. Il est l'auteur de cinq romans de SF pour adultes, dont L'I.A. et son double, déjà paru en France, et le space opéra en deux parties paru aux éditions Pocket : Les Légions immortelles et Le Secret de l'Empire. Scott Westerfeld écrit également des romans pour jeunes adultes, dont la série Uglies (parue chez Pocket Jeunesse). Il vit aujourd'hui entre New York et Sydney.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Afterworlds CHAPTER 1

THE MOST IMPORTANT EMAIL THAT Darcy Patel ever wrote was three paragraphs long.

The first was about Darcy herself. It skipped the trifling details, her dyed blue-black hair and the slim gold ring in her left nostril, and began instead with a grim secret that her parents had never told her. When Darcy’s mother was eleven years old, her best friend was murdered by a stranger. This discovery, chanced upon during an idle web search, both shocked Darcy and made certain things about her mother clearer. It also inspired her to write.

The second paragraph of the email was about the novel Darcy had just finished. She didn’t mention, of course, that all sixty thousand words of Afterworlds had been written in thirty days. The Underbridge Literary Agency hardly needed to know that. Instead, this paragraph described a terrorist attack, a girl who wills herself to die, and the bewitching boy she meets in the afterworld. It promised skulking ghosts and the traumas that haunt families, and little sisters who are more clever than they appear. Using the present tense and short sentences, Darcy set the scene, thumbnailed the characters and their motivations, and teased the conclusion. This was the best of the three paragraphs, she was later told.

The third paragraph was pure flattery, because Darcy wanted very much for the Underbridge Literary Agency to say yes to her. She praised the breadth of their vision and paid tribute to their clients’ genius, even while daring to compare herself to those illustrious names. She explained how her novel was different from the other paranormals of the last few years (none of which had a smoldering Vedic psychopomp as its love interest).

This email was not a perfect query letter. But it did its job. Seventeen days after pressing Send, Darcy was signed to Underbridge, a flourishing and respected literary agency, and not long after that she had a two-book deal for an astonishing amount of money.

Only a handful of challenges remained—high school graduation, a perilous decision, and parental approval—before Darcy Patel would be packing her bags for New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: POCKET JEUNESSE
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 2266256289
• ISBN 13: 9782266256285
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: French
• Number of pages: 671