Looking for beta(s) for a YA/NA genre portal-ish fantasy

Hello!


I am looking for a beta reader (or readers) for a Young Adult (New Adult, more likely) portal fantasy, where a computer programming genius 17 y/o girl named Beth Stranger is dropped deep in the bad part of a fantasy world several dimensions removed from our own, called Urth, where slavery is normal, resurrection exists and is a highly controlled resource, and Beth’s future is a Venn diagram between these two spheres. If she succeeds and becomes an immortal resurrectionist for the Church of the Three, they’ll let her get away with almost anything, maybe even her own freedom. If she fails, her future is as bright as Urth’s medieval-dark nights.


First Person PoV. Serious-ish tone, but Beth tries to keep optimistic (and witty) through her anger and sadness. Urth is not a great place for those living there, and Beth experiences this first hand in a few horrible ways. There’s offscreen rape. There's onscreen slavery and murder. I think I have handled these well, but a beta reader would have more to say than I.


The intended audience is anyone who likes high-magic (with rules, though) portal fantasy and smart characters, who wants to watch the MC push back on what the world wants to make of them. 18-35 age group. Escapist, but not wish fulfillment. There are monsters and dungeons and wholesale slaughter and some courtly intrigue. There is Zero Romance. It’s an easy genre read, with literary emotion here and there.


If you like Seanan McGuire’s style you might like this ~92k word novel.


I am currently ripping through a list of present-day YA/NA books in order to better place my novel in the current market, and as such I doubt I have time to do a proper beta swap. Though I might. I don’t know. Eh… We can talk about that if you want to.


What I'm looking for is whatever you want to give me. Big picture, comments as you go along, thoughts at the end of each chapter— It's all good.

It's already been beta'd once before, and that fantastic person did much weed-whacking to clean up my garden of a novel, so hopefully you will have a good a read as you would have in any published novel.


Please PM me if you wish to beta. Thank you!

I probably should have included a sample in my original post. Here is that sample now, from the beginning of chapter one.

----

( : one : )


It started off complicated, and then got worse.

Mom was driving. I was gazing out the side window. Winter was unusually heavy, leaving white piles in the shadows of buildings and under the larger trees, but Town Square was in full bloom. Red, yellow, pink, little pastel flowers, like boats on a vibrant green sea, waving in the lazy breeze. This was not normal; it should have been dead. It was dead the last time I saw it. And then I saw her, hovering above the garden— a tiny, tiny person, ringed in a pale glow that shone even in full sunlight. She wore armor, like one of the anime figurines in my brother’s room. She was about that size, too.

Who was she? What was she? I did not know.

Therefore: I was absolutely enamored. Starstruck.

Crazed.

Fairies shouldn’t exist, but right there, floating forty feet away, was obviously a fairy.

Mom rolled the car to a stop at the red light on the corner. I, however, launched myself at my window. I needed to get out of the car for a better look, but the door wouldn’t open for some reason. Mom yelled something I can’t remember. She yanked me back into my seat, still yelling, her hand clenched at my dress like I was going to fly out of the car and never come back.

“There’s a fairy!” I turned to her, shouting, “Did you see it?”

I still remember the look in her eyes. Worried, but so beyond that simple emotion that to call it ‘worry’ was to call an ocean a puddle of water. Her eyes darted to the traffic light, to a blazing blue dome above the red-yellow-green that had never been there before. She looked to Town Square, then back at me. Worry vanished. She was mad, but more flabbergasted-mad than angry-mad.

“What’s gotten into you? Miss Apricot isn’t one of those terrorist fairies.” Mom relaxed, saying, “Lord above, Elizabeth Priscilla Stranger! You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Terrorist fairies? What the fuck?

The light turned green. The blue light stayed blue. Mom drove.

I turned to the window to see ‘Miss Apricot’ (if that was her real name) talking to a woman who was meandering through the garden with her stroller and her dog. The mother laughed; it was a comfortable scene for them. It was not a comfortable scene for me. I had no idea what was going on.