Groupmind feedback, please

[deborahjross]

I need help coming up with a snazzier product description for the Kindle edition of Northlight. I'd put up a paragraph I'd written back in the mid-90s because I thought the publisher's back cover copy was too long. So, here's a new version, plus the old plus the back cover copy. I could really use some feedback on what might be most effective in getting internet buyers to "pick up the book," read a sample chapter, and hopefully nab a copy.

Here's the new one:

She's a Ranger, a knife-fighter with a tortured past, determined to get help in finding her partner who's lost on the wild northern border. He's a scholar who sees visions, eager to escape the narrow confines of city life and the shadow of his charismatic mother. What begins as a rescue mission turns deadly as together they unravel the secret that lies beneath Laurea's idyllic surface...a secret that threatens everything they hold dear...a secret that will test each of them to their very limits...

Here's the old one:

Under its idyllic surface, uneasy forces stir in the land of Laurea. Tensions with the savage north escalate sharply when a charismatic leader falls to an assassin's knife. Kardith, knife fighter and Ranger, joins forces with young scholar Terricel. With her sharp steel and his transcendent vision, they struggle against both old hatreds and new tyrants. But to do this, Kardith must make her peace with the personal horror she has buried deep within her soul, while Terricel uncovers the ancient secret that threatens not only Laurea, but the entire world.

Here's the publisher's description:

Kardith the Ranger...exiled from her own people, she'd found a new home, family, and purpose among the Rangers, patrolling the borderlands known as the Ridge to protect the people of Laurea from invasion by the northern barbarians. So when Aviyya, her closest comrade-in-arms, mysteriously disappeared into the badlands, Kardith had no choice but to journey to the capital to win permission to venture into forbidden territory on a desperate rescue mission.

But all Kardith's hopes were struck down when an assassin's blade claimed the life of Laurea's beloved leader, Pateros. Determined to save Avi even against orders, Kardith joined forces with her friend's younger brother, Terricel, heir to one of the most powerful women in the government yet treated by his mother as little more than a clerk. With Laureal City in turmoil, the two had only each other to turn to for help, and together they set off into the wilderness in search of Avi, thus beginning a dangerous odyssey which would take them into the heart of enemy territory to uncover a secret beyond their wildest imagining...

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I like the middle one best, I think. Lots that sounds intriguing without too much given away. (I must own up, though, that the phrase 'tortured past' is one of those that is a direct turn-off for me.)

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Would "haunted past" or "shadowed past" work better for you? Or "dark secrets from her former life"?

[rosehelene.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough,I also prefer the middle one and also have a problem with that phrase. It feels overdone, like you're trying too hard. I'd tone it down a bit to "Kardith must make her peace with her inner demons" or the like - enough to indicate that it's pretty bad, but not enough to make it melodramatic.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

'Dark secrets from her former life' works for me, as it doesn't make her sound too angst-ridden. Having read too many bad urban fantasies for reviews has left me with a low threshold for overtly traumatised heroines and I thus tend to avoid anything which might contain one. Which means I miss a lot of good books.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I like yours best--it's tight, but I would cut the last two sentences, which are cliches without actually telling us anything unique--make it sound like too many other books. Suggest end with idyllic surface.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Your new one, that is.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I prefer your new version, myself.