Nest Pitch DM 1: THE TROLL DIARIES

Category/Genre: Upper MG/Fantasy

Word Count: 47,000

Pitch: Thirteen-year-old River’s a misfit troll prince seeking his father’s acceptance. An enemy fairy reveals a dangerous truth: River’s really one of the Fae, making the prince a main ingredient in his mother’s famous bone-bread.

Egg: I would be a green organic vegan tofu egg; just don’t eat me, ‘cause, you know, issues.

Excerpt:

I know what you’re thinking. Trolls; nasty, ugly creatures that live in caves and under bridges. And you’d be right, for the most part.

I come from a long line of proud, ugly bridge trolls. It’s what we do. We guard bridges, take tolls, and occasionally grind bones to make our bread.

I’m kidding.

Well, sort of.

See, I’m not really a normal troll. I guess you could call me the black sheep of the family. Maybe not a sheep though, since my family eats those. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to eat me. I’m a vegetarian, which doesn’t sit well with them at all.

My mother is considered to be the best bone-bread maker in the whole forest of Mystwood, or at least here in the Hob, our home. It’s really the truth. Of course, the last troll who challenged her sort of disappeared. Permanently. I tried to eat bone-bread once. Not by choice, mind you. My brothers Bog and Mud held me down and forced me to eat a whole loaf. It was kind of dry… and crumbly, like you would expect bone-bread to taste, I guess.

I prefer to eat things that didn’t scream in fear when they died. Like berries, and mushrooms, and whatever I can poach from the farmer’s crops at the edge of the forest. I’m not proud of stealing the food, but at least I’m not trying to eat the farmer. One night I took my baby sister, Ivy, with me, and things got a little ugly. She’s three, and big for a troll of her age. Anyway, the farmer’s dogs chased us out of the tomato patch, and, well, my sister was hungry. Let’s just say the farmer has one less dog now.

I won’t make that mistake again.