Barb, I'm so brain dead and I read it so long ago. What happens exactly? I can't really work with just that.

In general, for YA I think you want something hookier, not just harder. Like (and this is just an example, not based on your proposal): He's dead. She's not. But they're in love ...

You know what I mean?

Barb, my brain packed up a while ago, but maybe something like:

Love may never die, but the person you love can. What happens when he/she does? Where does the line between life and death lie and what happens when you cross it?

A fatal betrayal sends Matthew and Emily on a journey that traverses the boundaries between life and death. Combining elements of The Sixth Sense and The Time Traveler's Wife, A Single Haunted Memory explores themes of destiny and fate, guilt and retribution, and asks the question, where does the line between life and death truly lie?

_____________________________

A mortal betrayal irrevocably binds the fates of Matthew and Emily -- even beyond the bounds of death itself. But is their love strong enough to conquer bitter guilt, vengeance and the laws of destiny?

It's a little florid and breathless, but...

Yeah, we don't need florid and breathless. We need punchy, elevator pitch.

Barb, I'm so brain dead and I read it so long ago. What happens exactly? I can't really work with just that.

Yeah, sorry about that-- wanted to see what would happen with just the blurb because I know the story so well--

In a nutshell: Story starts out in 1991-- Matthew is in a car accident caused by his dickhead best friend Tucker. Matthew dies. Something weird happens where his soul accidentally touches that of a baby being born, Emily.

Emily grows up and as a teenager finds refuge in her art. There's one image that's haunted her, her entire life that she has kept drawing, attempting to perfect it, until one day, it comes to life-- Matthew.

Only person Emily can share this knowledge with is her best friend, Ginger. Oddly enough, Ginger can also see Matthew.

Story follows girl and boy fall in lurve tropes with the added goodness of Matthew wanting to exact revenge on his old friend Tucker, who left him to die, way back when. Ultimately, Matthew has to make a life and death choice of his own: take revenge on Tucker or save Emily. It's at this point that Ginger is revealed to not only be a ghost, but be a guardian angel of sorts for Matthew, prompting him to make the right choice.

Emily lives, the rewind button is hit, Matthew dies again, except this time his soul continues on into the body of a newborn baby boy.

Seventeen years later, a boy and a girl meet, the way they always were meant to, while Ginger watches over them, the end.

Hmm. That's complicated.

Let me think on it for a few.

Wait, so Emily and Matthew don't end up together then?

They do... sort of. The baby boy Matthew's soul winds up in meets Emily at the end and there's a sort of instant recognition thing. Or something to that effect.

But then aren't they seventeen years apart? Or am I confused?

No, that was the rewind bit, right?

I would try something along the lines of:

She gives him a second chance, and he gives her the love she's always dreamed of. But life -- and death -- are more complicated than either of them expects ...

Then fill in with comparisons, etc., a la In the tradition of The Sixth Sense and [more teen oriented movie than Time Traveler's Wide], this is the story of two kids who have to make the hardest choice you can face.