When two men disappear from twelve-year-old Helena Oakwood’s 1920’s Texas town, legends of a local river monster resurface. Dreaming of becoming a naturalist, Helena sets out to discover a new species. With her nose to the magnifying glass she investigates tracks and interviews witnesses still shaking in their boots.
But when Daddy is the next to disappear, and Helena’s little brother runs away to find him, her mission shifts from monster hunt to manhunt. A moonlit rescue ride becomes a fight to save her own life as she comes face to face with the truth behind the disappearances and the legend. It’s up to Helena to reunite her family and expose secrets that will change her town, and science, forever.
•The Summer of Moons & Monsters is a 57,000-word middle grade historical fiction adventure for fans of the secret drenched waterside in Candle Island by Lauren Wolk. Readers of Light Comes to Shadow Mountain by Toni Buzzeo will enjoy the STEM elements.
•Winner of the Writer’s League of Texas Manuscript Award
Check out my mood board and one minute manuscript trailer below!
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In depression era Texas, twelve-year-old amateur geologist Asa Rayburn isn’t sure whose head is more full of rocks, his or his conman uncle’s. Stuck with his scheming uncle after a mysterious accident spared his parents’ lives but cost them their minds, Asa is desperate to heal them. With no clues other than a haunting song they play on their fiddle and harmonica, the trail seems cold.
But when his uncle convinces a local oil prospector that Asa can divine for oil, he finally catches a break. A roughneck at the rig site storms out of a midnight poker game and into the woods only to lose his mind and find a shadowy beast. A beast that whistles the same song Asa’s parents play. Asa’s hunt for answers is upended when his real geological knowledge and fake divining skills lead to an oil field gusher. It’s up to Asa to put a furry face to the whistle in the dark and restore his parents’ sanity before word of his “gift” spreads and everyone wants their own pot of Texas Tea.
Up next…
- Something fishy from the gulf coast
- Something sweet from the Texas Hill Country
Victoria Tatum 