I'm the author of this query letter, and you can imagine my surprise when I logged on to read this blog and my letter was posted. Thanks for all the great advice and comments! I've been working on new revisions to my book all summer, and I'm really excited about it. Your advice will be helpful as I move forward and hopefully snag the attention of some super agents like the ladies at KT literary!

Thanks!

RLA

::sheepish grin:: (I wish you could edit comments here.)

To be more specific about the writing, though, I thought some of the sentences just didn't flow well, yet I hesitate to say an English teacher doesn't know what she's doing! I think part of the reason is that the longer, more complicated (and perfectly executed) sentences jarred with the overly simplistic "telling" of:

Kate finds it easy…

Kate quickly learns…

…she finds herself alone…

Kate realizes…

And then, other sentences I just can't figure out what they mean, like this one: "Kate quickly learns to overlook the perks…"

I also think the writing could be stronger, yet simpler in a number of places. To me, it kind of gets bogged down in long, complicated sentences. Instead of "When her mother dies, he shuts down, throwing himself into basketball as a way to cope with his grief, leaving Kate alone in silence," it might work to say something like, "When her mother dies, he gives his basketball team the attention his children once had." That is, again, more concise, doesn't tell the obvious "grief" part, and is also more specific about what "in silence" means.

And then, instead of, "she finds herself alone, unable to share her fears with anyone, those at the school too engrossed in their own lives and uninterested in helping her," it could be said, "she finds that no one is interested in helping her." That's 1/3 the length, much easier to follow, and shows that she feels alone, rather than telling than showing.

Anyway…this is just a query, so perhaps none of this matters. But it does make me feel that the novels is probably full of long sentences that would probably make it difficult for me to slip into the world of the writing.

But perhaps an editor would help cut all the extra words out? Or maybe this is just a difference in my style versus hers? ::shrugs::

A suggestion: instead of "Kate realizes that she needs" why not "Kate needs"? I think it's understood that she realizes it. You have her deciding, learning, finding, realizing–it gives the impression that she stands around quite a bit, pondering. That may be the case (I enjoy pondering, myself!) but stronger, quicker structure helps in a query, I think. Wordy queries make the reader fear that the manuscript will be similarly weighed down.

The teaching and education experience paragraph is nice, but I'd cut that down to a sentence or two. I'd love to hear from Kate if this even affects her opinion of a query/querier at all.

I also want to know more about the player who "violates her trust," "the corruption," and how "her brother is placed in a position that might possibly take him away from Kate forever" ("might possibly" is redundant, by the way). All of these references seem to be alluding to the same event, but in the first paragraph it sounds as if one of the players on the team rapes her while the second suggests that it has something to do with her brother. Clarifying that will definitely help.

On the whole, though, it's a pretty good query letter. Best of luck with it.

I'm a little unclear about what the corruption actually is–what the antagonist (whether a person or idea) that she's fighting is. The query may be stronger if you clarify that just a tad more.