writing the pitch paragraph

Kristen at Pub Rants posted her insights into the growing importance of getting your query pitch paragraph just right. You can read her blog post at Pub Rants: Another Reason to Nail Your Query Pitch Paragraph.

I recently got the chance to work on my pitch paragraph for Gems in the Rough. Okay, I didn't so much as get the chance as I couldn't reduce my novel synopsis down to one page for an upcoming conference, so I wimped out and went with option 2, a paragraph pitch, which turned out to be more than a paragraph. I imagined the task as writing back cover copy for the novel. It's still rough, and I keep going back and forth about whether it should be written in present tense and give away major plot points. I'm gathering from comments on Kristen's post that most authors are okay with cover copy that doesn't contain any spoilers past the first third of the book.

I'd appreciate any feedback. If you read this pitch for a YA book, would it spark your interest?

Pitch Paragraph: Gems in the Rough by K. M. Smith YA Paranormal Romance

Sisters are special.

Twin sisters – twice as nice.

Demon twin sisters . . . ?

Summers on easy-going Annabel Island, Florida have always been a breeze for seventeen-year-old twins Ruby and Pearl Pryce. Impulsive, warmhearted Ruby has agreed to help run her beloved Aunt Mandy’s gift store, The Golden Dolphin. Smart and competent, she’s got everything in control – if only she could get her trend-setting, increasingly-irresponsible twin sister Pearl to stop ducking out.

While Ruby runs The Golden Dolphin, her father, city commissioner Tim Pryce, runs Leon Beach and mother, Laurel, plans her daughters’ up-coming eighteenth birthday celebration. The summer before college is underway. But this summer the sisters are in for the shock of their lives. Nothing they have ever known could’ve prepared them for the mysterious relative come to reveal family secrets, the latent powers that dwell within them, and the handsome stranger sent to hunt them.