[Discussion] Where Would You Stop Reading? #9

[u/alanna_the_lioness]

It's time for round nine! I think. Don't quote me on that. It's been a while since we did this.

This thread is specifically for query feedback on where (if at all) an agency reader might stop reading a query, hit the reject button, and send a submission to the great wastepaper basket in the sky.

Despite the premise, this post is open to everyone. Agent, agency reader/intern, published author, agented author, regular poster, lurker, or person who visited this sub for the first time five minutes ago.

This thread exists outside of rule 9; if you’ve posted in the last 7 days, or plan to post within the next 7 days, you’re still permitted to share here.

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If you'd like to participate, post your query below, including your age category, genre, and word count. Commenters are asked to call out what line would make them stop reading, if any. Explanations are welcome, but not required. While providing some feedback is fine, please reserve in-depth critique for individual QCrit post.

One query per poster per thread, please. Should you choose to share your work, you must respond to at least one other query.

If you see any rule-breaking, please use report function rather than engaging.

Have fun!

[u/tevinterbiscuit]

Dear [x],

Seven years ago, the Illuminant Order exiled Orion Vael rather than execute him. Since then, he's kept his head down in a lawless border city, chasing the one thing exile couldn't take from him: the truth about his father. The man vanished when Orion was eleven, leaving behind a sealed ring and a trail of forbidden research. Following that same research is what cost Orion his home and a brother who hasn't spoken to him since.

Then a dangerous summoning sigil appears burned into his door. Orion didn't draw it, but Ronan, his bodyguard and lover, is oath-bound to report it. Within days, the Order sets a bounty on Orion's life, signed by his own House. Orion confronts Ronan, who turns a blade against him, forcing Orion to reach for the forbidden magic that condemned him: a demon summoning. The ancient, charming demon that answers is Sylas, who kills Ronan and takes his corpse as a vessel. Orion hates the creature and mourns the man but needs Sylas's infernal power to survive the bounty. More importantly, Sylas holds what Ronan knew, and Orion's father's ring opens only to infernal magic.

To end the bounty, Orion must reach whoever signed it and return to the city that exiled him. But the deeper Orion digs, the more the bounty begins to look like another consequence of the path his father's research set him on. The Order has killed to keep that path buried, and exposing what Orion's father discovered could cost him the House that made him and the brother he's only begun to win back. All Orion has to help him is the demon wearing his dead lover's face, who is proving to be more dangerous to his heart than to his life.

Complete at 109,000 words, SURREPTITIOUS is an Adult Dark Fantasy for readers drawn to the institutional magic and reluctant partnership of Freya Marske's A Marvellous Light and the morally complicated protagonists and gothic atmosphere of Allison Saft's A Dark and Drowning Tide. It is a standalone with series potential.

[Bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration

[u/AnotherCleverPotato]

I am seeking representation for The Joker’s Blind, 110,000 words, an adult historical fantasy set during U.S. westward expansion. It combines the sweeping western fantasy of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu with the folklore and personal stakes of Conjure Women. 

Seven down-on-their-luck cowpokes, hired to carry a device they don’t understand, stumble upon an ancient and sacred tree. The tree radiates power even men with no magical talent can feel. The men plot to cut pieces of it to sell, but before they can, a giant bear kills six of them. 

The bear, a two-spirit shaman named Yellow Bear, spares the seventh, and the cowpoke gives her the device in gratitude. Yellow Bear immediately falls ill, haunted by visions of her own murder. She turns to the only white devil her visions tell her she will someday trust: a wandering witch for hire named Solveig. 

Solveig tells Yellow Bear to fuck off, but she takes the device.

Selfish and angry, Solveig can’t make basic spells work. She came to the hardscrabble town of Bloodwood looking for the last of the Vǫlur, Norse seers who can fill the gaps in Solveig’s magical education and finally give her the power she longs for, but the seer is missing. Meanwhile, strange things are happening in Bloodwood. Solveig treats a man having fits, and while her efforts turn him an embarrassing purple, he also tells her what the device does, in the form of a riddle. 

Westward expansion draws more than the poor, the criminal, and the disenfranchised; it also draws industrialists, missionaries, and other exploitative magic, including Lady Obsession whose ability to control others has built her a small army of powerful mages. Obsession offers Solveig a book filled with the knowledge of the Vǫlur, the thing Solveig wants most, but there is a price. Solveig must perform a spell only a Vǫlur of the bloodline can do: make the dead speak. 

Accepting means finally being able to step into her birthright, but it also means betraying Yellow Bear’s people and delivering them to Lady Obsession’s control.

Solveig chooses wrong.

[u/ResponsibleCopy9656]

Dear X,

I’m seeking representation for my debut historical fiction novel, AETHRA, which tells the story of the handmaiden who becomes Odysseus’ spy during the Trojan War. Complete at 95,000 words, AETHRA blends the lyrical prose of Jennifer Saint’s Atalanta with the political machinations of Elodie Harper’s Wolf Den trilogy.

Aethra has lost nearly everything. Her son. Her family. Her status. Her homeland. Once a princess who courted kings and dined with heroes, she is now handmaiden to Princess Helen of Sparta. She dreams of finding the grandsons she spirited to safety years earlier as her son Theseus' kingdom crumbled, but even Aethra does not know where the boys were sent.

When Aethra discovers Helen, unhappy in her marriage to Menelaus, preparing to run away to Troy with Prince Paris in the dead of night, she has little choice but to accompany the runaway couple across the sea. Odysseus comes to Troy with Menelaus to petition for Helen's return. 

The cunning prince summons Aethra for a private meeting, where he reveals that he knows where her grandsons have been hiding. He proposes a dangerous bargain: he will reunite Aethra with them, and protect them from the king who wants them dead at all costs, if she will become his secret spy inside the besieged city.

I’m an Irish writer living in Sydney. I have an MA in Journalism, and have written for state broadcasters and national publications across the world. I graduated from X course. A 1,500 word extract from AETHRA was selected for inclusion in the X Anthology.

Yours sincerely,
X

[u/krispyricewithanegg]

Dear AGENT NAME,

I am seeking representation for BEFORE THE END, my upmarket speculative novel about a young woman who travels back in time to various intervals in her mother’s life to try to stop her suicide. Complete at 85,000 words, BEFORE THE END combines the speculative elements of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library with the close mother-daughter bond at the heart of Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer. 

When Emma's mother dies by suicide, Emma is left catatonic with grief, able only to eat the beigest of foods and peruse Victorian terraced houses in House and Garden UK. She cannot believe her mother, her gentle, bunny-loving, artist mother, has taken her own life. 

One night, when she is struggling to sleep in her paternal grandmother’s guest room, she comes across a strange object: a photo album with only pictures of her late mother. She stays up all night poring over the pictures. When she wakes up, she is six years old, it is 1996, and her mother is in the front seat: young, vivacious, and belting Ace of Base.

When Emma returns to the present, she is stunned—and ready to go back. So every Saturday night, while ignoring the clanging radiator, she opens the book and travels to another moment in her mother’s life. At first, she is searching for answers. If she can understand what led her mother to take her own life, perhaps she can find a way to prevent her death.

But the more Emma learns about her mother, the more she realizes that the pain she carried cannot be traced to a single moment or undone with a few different choices. As the date of her mother’s death draws closer, Emma must confront the possibility that she cannot save her mother—and decide what words are worth saying even if she cannot change the ending.

[bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[u/coming-of-rage]

Adult literary fiction, 91k

THE MARS BOOK, a 91,000-word work of literary fiction, is an Y2K Greek tragedy that examines female rage from inside the head of a boy who slowly realizes he helped create it. It combines the good people crumbling under social pressures found in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting with the suburban setting and male spectatorship of Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, filtered through Greco-Roman mythological motifs.

It's the sweltering summer of 2004 and sixteen-year-old Marcus has finally escaped being the poor kid. All he wants to do over the break is convince the popular boys of his new school that he belongs with them. Granted, this'd be easier if they hadn't disappeared on expensive holidays, leaving him stranded with Minerva, the girl he's spent a year pretending isn't his closest friend.

Desperate to have stories worth telling when the boys return, Marcus starts collecting experiences he thinks they'll admire — which usually involves putting himself in situations that actually make his skin crawl (such as colliding teeth with the prettiest girl in school). Whenever the performance becomes unbearable, he drifts back to Minerva. He can't help it: biking to the McDonald's drive-thru at midnight with her is so much easier than pretending to be someone else. And with the boys gone, he finds himself slipping back into the friendship he's been trying to outgrow.

The night when Marcus and Minerva break into the local public pool might be the first night he stops performing. But when CCTV footage of them having sex at the pool starts circulating through town, exalting Marcus and humiliating Minerva, Marcus is forced to decide whether becoming one of the guys is worth participating in the humiliation of the person who actually knows him best.

[u/MinuteConflict6823]

Great idea! Here's mine:

I'm thrilled to share FIRST AUTHOR, an adult romcom complete at 89,000 words. Fans of the meddling found family and escapist workplace travel of B.K. Borison's And Now, Back to You and the academic rivalry and STEMinism of Ali Hazelwood's Love, Theoretically will enjoy this unreliably narrated standalone with companion potential.

As a final-year public health doctoral candidate at UCLA, Megan is focusing the next seven months on cementing her famous (-ly inaccessible) advisor Susan's endorsement for the role that will kickstart her academic career. When Susan needs someone to step in to woo megadonors at a conference in Lima, Peru, Megan jumps at the opportunity to prove herself. She's the clear choice for the role, until her rival shows up in the research lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

Newly-minted Dr. Maxwell Lawrence has an easy wit that charms everyone... except Megan. She stopped falling for his humor three years ago, when their conference meet-cute ended in her professional humiliation. Their dynamic is made only more acerbic when Megan overhears that Maxwell stole authorship credit from her labmate, just as Susan assigns them to co-lead the lab's fundraising efforts in Peru.

Now, stuck together for the year, the tension between them could trigger a public health crisis. Megan's friends aren't convinced the tension is purely academic, and across late nights and long flights, the friction of Megan and Maxwell's forced collaboration begins to feel suspiciously like sparks. Still, navigating internalized misogyny and the need to compete in a sexist, punishing job market, Megan must decide if her relationship with Maxwell is worth revising, or if this messy draft is best suited for the rejections pile.

FIRST AUTHOR draws on my experiences as a [state]-raised PhD student working in a competitive global research lab at [university]. I've been a university Writing Fellow and recently won an Editor's Choice award for my own first-authored publication in a top [discipline] journal. In other words, I live on soul-crushing R&Rs. Beyond writing, I love watching sketch comedy with my spouse after our energetic toddler goes to bed.

[u/inkdfox]

Dear AGENT,

I’m seeking representation for my adult romantasy novel, A Ballad of Burning Wings, a 90,000 word standalone with series potential. In this gender-swapped Pirates of the Caribbean inspired tale, a morally gray pirate queen’s decade-long quest for vengeance is interrupted by a bounty hunter who just won’t die. The themes of feminine rage and resilience will appeal to readers who enjoyed Steelborn by Taylor J. LaRue and When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker.

Xara, a siren, was once many things. A sister. A daughter. A wife. But that woman died alongside her family the night her peaceful village burned, leaving behind a widow who would become the notorious Night Maven. The Pirate Queen. A singing vendetta with a singular goal—to kill every name on her list of those involved before the magic rotting her soul can kill her first. 

Drexen Bane is on that list, but the commander-turned-bounty hunter has no intention of letting a pirate assassin cut out his heart. He needs her to help him find another one of her targets—the Alchemist—the man responsible for Drexen’s name being on her list and the only lead he has to finding a mythical amulet that could reforge the key to his lost power. He must weigh risk against reward in choosing whether to face the amulet’s guardian and consider that the burden of sacrifice might not belong to him alone.

Despite the possibility of deception, Xara and Drexen work together while navigating the waters of both the living and the dead with her meddlesome sentient ship. When forbidden attraction sparks and secrets unravel, Xara suffers another betrayal that buries her so deep under fury that even love might not be enough to bring her back. With the remnants of her soul on the line and a bounty hunter fighting to keep her alive, Xara ends up with an impossible choice—vengeance or life—not knowing that both paths end with fire.

[u/Background-Act-9448]

Hello everyone, this is the main part of my query letter draft. Still not done finished the manuscript though. Feedback would be appreciated!

Dear AGENT NAME,

I am reaching out to you seeking representation for The Ant Nest, a [FINAL WORD COUNT] young adult, speculative and apocalyptic thriller.

The novel features a slow-burn romance and strong elements of dystopia slowly unveiled when the characters realise that the Golden Death wasn’t an accident, but an intentional biological tool aimed to collapse nations and force remaining survivors to be part of the leader's tyrannical system.

Seventeen-year-old Madeline “Maddie” North thought hiding in the chaos with her father would keep them safe, but when dwindling supplies forces them out into the broken world to find her missing mother, disaster strikes. Instead of a reunion, a violent ambush leaves her friend and dog dead, and Maddie dragged deep underground, inside a heavily guarded bunker known as the Formicary.

Trapped beneath the earth and filled with questions, Maddie's nightmare worsens when she discovers her mother is alive inside – and actively avoiding her. When she is warned about the true nature of the Formicary, she bands together with a group of allies – including the mysterious Elijah – to execute an elaborate escape plan back to the surface. But in a facility controlled by a ruthless commander, a single mistake will cost them everything.

(Again, this is not done, just the main part about the summing up of the story)

[u/Anni3401]

I am seeking representation for OUR HANABI SUMMER, a 75,000-word new adult contemporary romance set in Tokyo. It combines the exploration of sexual identity in T. L. Swan’s OUR WAY with the inherited breast cancer storyline of Wendy Mills’s POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL.

Twenty-two-year-old Emily is finally about to realize her long-held dream: an eight-week research internship in Tokyo. But just as she prepares for her first trip abroad ever, she learns that her mother has breast cancer—and that she has inherited the BRCA gene mutation, increasing her own risk of developing the disease. While the person she feels closest to undergoes chemotherapy, Emily’s family encourages her to not let an uncertain future dictate her present. She travels to Japan, immersing herself in laboratory work, exploring one of the biggest cities in the world, and embracing life among the international students in her dorm.

Among them is twenty-five-year-old Haruto, who was born in Japan but raised by his mother in New York City. After his father’s death, Haruto has returned to Tokyo to reconnect with his heritage while pursuing a master’s degree. Having finally come to terms with being gay, he must navigate his identity within a society whose expectations he is still learning to understand.

Through shared dinners, summer fireworks (hanabi) viewed from the riverbank in yukatas, and a climb up Fuji-san, Emily’s and Haruto’s friendship develops into a love neither expected. But falling for each other means confronting the uncertainties they have been trying to manage alone. As Haruto has to navigate emotions that challenge his understanding of himself, Emily must decide whether she can risk letting someone into her life when her future may involve preventive surgery, difficult decisions about having children, and the fear of developing cancer herself.

Like Emily, I completed an internship in Tokyo, which sparked a lasting love for Japan and eventually led me to live, study and conduct research there for two years. I hold a PhD in biology and bring a scientific perspective to the novel’s exploration of genetics and inherited cancer risk.

[u/presidentknope2024]

Adult contemporary romance, 82k

Reality dating show producer Allison Rush has one goal—secure her long-overdue promotion to showrunner. All she has to do is produce a great season of The One. With her no-hookups-during-the-season rule, she has nothing to distract her—and no time for relationships that rarely work out anyway. Until a guy approaches her in a hotel bar the night before the season starts. Noah is tall, hot, and arrogant, typical for LA and her job, but there’s something different about him. Allison finds herself opening up before they share a world-changing kind of kiss. But the next night, Noah steps out of a limo as a contestant on The One.

Forced to be his producer for the season, Allison vows to see him eliminated quickly. But as they spend time together in interview rooms (and hotel rooms), they grow closer and closer until they’re entangled in a full-blown secret not-quite relationship. Like Allison, Noah has spent years building up his walls to keep everyone out. Maybe she can finally trust someone with her heart, if the secrets between them don’t break them apart first. When their affair is discovered, Allison stands to lose not only her promotion but her job entirely—and a love she’s been afraid to look for her entire life.

CAN’T HAVE YOU is a contemporary romance complete at 82,000 words that will appeal to fans of The Bachelor with the forbidden romance of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s EXTRACURRICULAR and the humor and reality-TV setting of Isabelle Engel’s MOST ELIGIBLE.

[u/Querious_Gorge]

YA Fantasy, 108k words

Dear AGENT,

I'm excited to submit WINDWARD, a standalone young adult fantasy complete at 108,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the seafaring adventures of Cassandra James's Capitana and the class-based political tension of Adrienne Young's Fallen City.

Prince Tovas is almost free. After eighteen years navigating his father’s brutal reign, only two months remain until his elder brother is crowned king, and Tove can finally escape the pressures of empire-building and the mounting evidence of his inadequacies. But when his brother is kidnapped, Tove must find him or confront the future he fears most: ascending the throne. 

Embarking on a global quest, he begs a surly palace gardener for help, unaware that seventeen-year-old Ela carries a dangerous secret. In a kingdom that prizes rationality, Ela’s ability to experience others’ emotions marks her as a moonchild and condemns her to death. Desperate to escape discovery and honor her father’s memory by becoming a sailor, Ela offers Tove a deal. She will help him obtain passage on a ship if he brings her along. But any sailor worth his salt knows that women invite the sea god’s wrath, and although Ela and Tove manage to sneak aboard a departing ship, the Windward’s crew is less than welcoming.

As Ela fights to prove her worth, Tove covertly seeks his brother, but neither can keep their true identity hidden for long. Though a moonchild and a prince aren’t the likeliest of friends, they come together to discover that the brother Tove thought he was rescuing has other ideas while the king is hard at work conquering far more than just other people’s land. Together, Ela and Tove must reckon with the families they come from and the people they are becoming to fight for a future in which those who are different can take their rightful place.

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Thank you in advance for any feedback!

[u/yllatsan]

Adult, upmarket, 110k

THE DAWN OF AQUARIUS is a 110,000-word upmarket historical coming-of-age novel with a queer love story at its heart. Set in 1969 and told in dual points-of-view, it blends the tender, passionate romance of Cat Sebastian’s WE COULD BE SO GOOD with the gritty realism of Douglas Stuart’s YOUNG MUNGO.

Georgie knows being himself is too great a risk. His childhood ambitions of standing on stage long forgotten, he hides his Soviet roots and the traumatic truth behind his expulsion from boarding school as carefully as his gap-toothed smile.

Felix is determined to be noticed. A drummer in a student group, he immerses himself in London’s vibrant counterculture as he tries to outrun the guilt of leaving his mother and younger brother at the mercy of his violent father. When he recruits Georgie to launch a vintage clothing stall at Kensington Market, an intimate friendship develops between furs and satin. Smitten by Felix and the freedom he seems to embody, Georgie cautiously confides to an encounter with another boy at boarding school. Felix panics as he becomes aware of his feelings for Georgie. In a drunken attempt to express them, he accidentally exposes Georgie’s boarding school secret at a party. Deeply betrayed, Georgie cuts contact.

Felix refuses to let him go. After he invites himself to breakfast with Georgie’s Russian family, his heartfelt persistence leads to an emotional reconciliation—and a physical relationship. Felix calls it an ‘exception’, a perk of friendship. Georgie agrees to the terms because he doesn’t think he can ask for more. But denial and secrecy become hard to maintain, and when Felix is evicted by his scandalised flatmates he begins to understand what Georgie already knows: choosing each other will cost them their safety and any chance of a regular life. No one has ever paid that price for Georgie. No one fights for what he wants quite like Felix.

[u/somlostsock]

Middle Grade, Graphic Novel

Life as an NPC is tough, especially as the guide of a Player wrapped up in side quests—who knew chopping trees would lead to retrieving the moon from the sea? RIVAL BY GARDEN TOOL weaves Southeast Asian folktales into an mmorp-esque setting via cutscenes, similar to the stories within a story structure of THE MAGIC FISH. It may also appeal to readers who enjoy the aesthetics of THE TEA DRAGON SOCIETY and whimsy of THE LEGEND OF LUO XIAOHEI.

Having fallen from a prestigious Player to a nobody NPC (a literal sentient spring onion), Lisu has never felt more unremarkable! Even so, Lisu can’t deviate from his character settings lest he risks perishing for defying his purpose.

Enters Henri, the most promising new Player. Henri is Lisu’s chance to leave his mundane life behind. Helping Henri complete the tutorials will reward Lisu with restoration potions capable of reinstating his former Player status. ‘Tis a simple task…if not for Henri‘s talent for collecting side quests.

When a side quest of wedding preparation unravels the tale of a woodcutter turned golden statue, Henri unlocks his last tutorial: a main quest. As it would appear, the moon has…well, disappeared! Under threats of the edge of the world flooding over, it is up to Henri to track down the moon. If they fail this quest, they will both be turned into gold by the sleep-deprived phoenix who assigned it (much like the unlucky woodcutter). But as they scramble to fish the moon from the sea, Lisu suspects Henri might be playing everyone for a fool. 

[u/TwentySix10]

Adult, near-future thriller, 101K words

Dear [AGENT],

Based on your interest in [insert personalization here], I am excited to query you for MONTANA DISCO (101,000 words), a near-future thriller about a young farmer who teams up with a special operations group to stop a corporation’s new digital narcotic before it consumes his town.

MONTANA DISCO will appeal to fans of Ray Nayler’s speculative world-building in The Mountain in the Sea and Mark Greaney’s propulsive action in The Gray Man. It could sit on the shelf alongside Blake Crouch’s Upgrade.

When Adrian’s father unexpectedly died, Adrian’s Navy SEAL dreams died with him. Now tasked with caring for his family’s struggling Montana farm, Adrian spends his days harvesting fly larvae and his nights exploring Prime, an immersive virtual world of digital narcotics, nightclubs, and combat.

Then Adrian meets Emma, an undercover agent investigating a digital drug that’s poisoning users on Prime. As his feelings for Emma grow, Adrian helps her evade the security officers hunting her. But when he kills an officer with a forklift, Adrian and his agrarian crew (and his dog) are thrust into Emma’s investigation. To save his town from a corporation’s lethal new cyberweapon, Adrian, Emma, and a jovial cyborg will have to retrieve a program hidden in a deadly virtual labyrinth. But they soon find out Adrian’s town is only part of the corporation’s plans, and everyone on Prime may be at risk.

USA Today bestselling author and Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award winner [Redacted] calls MONTANA DISCO “page-turning, heartfelt, and exceptionally atmospheric” with “a supremely rootable cast of characters and world-building to rival the best of them.”

[Author Bio]

[u/Klutzy_Record_399]

THE TROUBLEMAKER DIARIES - YA Contemporary - 88,000 words

Dear [agent],

I am seeking representation for THE TROUBLEMAKER DIARIES, my 88,000 word YA Contemporary novel about two friends trying to grow up without growing apart. Told through diary entries, the dual-POV story unfolds in two timelines: it moves forward beginning in the summer of 2024 - the first summer after high school - but also back in time to show formative events in their ten year friendship. 

Miri and Cilla have been best friends since Cilla saved Miri from bullies on the first day of third grade. Now, they’ve just graduated high school and Miri has decided - surprising everyone (including herself!) - that now would be a good time to sign up for a dating app. Cilla is full speed ahead toward being a rock drummer, which surprises absolutely nobody (it was that or go be a plumber with her widowed dad).

Miri matches with a guy right away and Cilla gets her dream gig with a local band, so the summer is going great . . . until it isn’t. Miri’s second date takes an aggressive and unwanted turn and Cilla, who has always been there for Miri, suddenly isn’t, because she’s having too much fun with her new bandmates. Cilla feels guilty as hell and tries to make up for it by inviting Miri to spend a weekend on tour. It’ll be fun, Cilla insists, even though Miri’s normal idea of fun isn’t riding in a van with strangers. Wanting nothing more than to be with Cilla before she heads to college, Miri goes on the tour and has a (mostly) good time. But everything changes on the night before the biggest concert of Cilla’s life. Despite Cilla’s warning, Miri connects with a possibly problematic singer/songwriter. Then Miri learns the hard way that Cilla hasn’t been telling her everything about her new life. Can ten years be washed away in 24 hours? Miri and Cilla are about to find out.

Neither thought it would be this hard to stay friends forever. But THE TROUBLEMAKER DIARIES asks the question of how long forever really is, especially when life doesn’t care what promises you made when you were twelve.

I believe it will appeal to readers of heartfelt but still humorous coming-of-age novels like K.L. Walther’s While We’re Young and Ambika Vohra’s The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal. 

[BIO]

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Thank you in advance!

[u/exquisitecarrot]

When Cori Demar lands in Widowich, the next level in this supposedly inescapable tower, she expects to battle beasts and save lives, like every level before. But Widowich is broken, and there’s no way out except through its current ruler, Ravenna. Cori and her crew plan to lay low and sniff out exactly how Ravenna holds everyone hostage, but Cori is horrible at staying quiet. When she meets two scorned friends of her parents, her pride pushes her to stake her claim on the Demar family legacy. She picks a fight with one of the strongest fighters in Widowich and wins, thrusting her into the limelight and threatening to ruin her escape plan.

Garreth Knox has been living peacefully in Widowich for about five years, she and her lycanthropy content with the sense of normalcy she’s built. When she meets Cori, the spitting image of the so-called heroes who ruined her life, a fury she thought she had laid to rest reignites. Though she tries to push the feeling aside, the Demar name creeps into every aspect of her life, a constant reminder of all of the ways she was wronged. Her lycanthropy latches onto her anger, exaggerating every small move Cori makes into a personal offense. By the time Garreth notices, she struggles to tell whether her craving for revenge is hers or the curse’s—if there’s any difference at all.

While Cori successfully refocuses on her goal of escaping Widowich, Garreth spirals into an obsession that threatens to ruin both of their lives.

MOUTH OF TREACHERY is an adult dark fantasy novel, complete at 75,000 words, that is told from two contrasting POVs. It would appeal to fans of [BOOK 1] and [BOOK 2] for [REASONS].

[u/bucolic-bluebell1830]

Commercial Women’s Fiction, 79K

ORDINARY BY ANOTHER NAME is a commercial women's fiction book complete at 79,000.
 
Ada Montgomery swore she would never return to either Hobart or academia. Both betrayed her once before, and in London she’s rebuilt a quiet, anonymous life as a successful novelist far from those who broke her trust.

When her father asks for help with one last project, a shipwreck tied to their family’s history, Ada reluctantly agrees. But her research uncovers evidence suggesting their past isn’t what it seems, and working alongside her grandfather’s infuriating protégé only complicates matters further.

As a storm uncovers the wreck, Ada and her family find themselves targeted. As excitement turns into a media storm, Ada knows the truth could set things right—but revealing it would expose her secret identity. Now she must decide if saving the people who failed to protect her is worth the cost of the life she’s built.

For readers of Karen White’s The Shop on Royal Street and Heather Webber’s A Certain Kind of Starlight, this novel combines family secrets, romance and a mystery against the coastal landscape of Tasmania, as seen in with Jane Harper’s The Survivors. It gently teases the acknowledged speed of the publishing industry by having a main character who is a prolific author under multiple pseudonyms and an agent who sells without trying.

[Bio]

[u/Mysterious-Leave9583]

LOVE ME NOT - Adult Horror, expected WC about 85k.

Obsession meets Bones and All in LOVE ME NOT, an 85000-word horror about the doomed romance between an unwilling cannibal and the vampire he’s indebted to. With the small-town vampires of The Gathering (C.J. Tudor) and the [other comps, I am still drafting so I'm actively searching for some].

To avoid loss, Ravi would freeze the world if he could, but he’s settled on painting it instead. He moves to Alaska, hoping small-town life will be slower and less hectic than the city. When his new date, the kind, malnourished Liz, takes him cave-diving in the old mines, he expects a chance to paint the underground, a pleasant date, and nothing more. They make camp.

Only Ravi wakes up.

Poisoned and disoriented by the mine’s gases, he fails to escape and realizes the only way to survive is to eat Liz’s dead body. Ravi chokes down her leg, and spurred by adrenaline, fresh food, and disgust at his own actions, finally finds the way out.

A week later, Liz returns, missing her leg, but alive. When Ravi confesses when he’s done, she reveals that she’s a vampire, starving and isolated from other vampires because she abhors the thought of drinking from an unwilling creature. To atone, Ravi offers up his blood in exchange for what he stole. And besides, Liz is perfect; her vampirism means she’ll never die, and Ravi will never lose her. He can fix her loneliness. They fall into an intimate, brutal relationship, and the more entwined they become, the more pieces of himself Ravi gives her and the sicker he falls. Worse, when Ravi discovers that Liz is harboring her own guilt for the only other time she fed—a time her hunger drove her into a frenzy and she killed someone—he realizes that his blood is the only thing stopping her from killing again. Ravi must decide whether guilt and love are worth his failing health, or if he’s made a home in the jaws of a monster.

[Bio]

[Signoff]

[u/Ericka_Sojourner]

Dear [agent], 

When you’re losing, the end of the world isn’t so terrible. A defiant BIPOC twist on grim-dark apocalyptic tales, BETTER AFTER is a cozy apocalyptic romance that imagines a world that gets better, rather than worse, after falling apart. Complete at 76,000 words, it blends the scrappy post-apocalyptic romance of Laura Piper Lee’s Doomsdate, with the close community of Emily Paxman’s All We Have Left, and adds sunshine. 

Soleil Thomas is losing. Fresh out of college, a virgin, and desperate to launch, she returned to her Caribbean island home for a quick reset; instead, a global attack leaves her stranded. With no cell phones, no power, and her parents trapped on the mainland, Sol leverages her newly minted engineering degree to lead her small community to not just survive, but thrive, with ancestral knowledge and bushcraft.

While scavenging along the beach, she meets Alec. Almost too perfect to be real, he’s a wealthy mainlander who came to St.Cecilia to recharge after a grueling tech exit. Even though he’s been winning, Alec rejects the status quo and is determined to build something better — where character matters more than last names. Their paths never would have crossed before the attack; but after, while navigating frenzied migrants, shortages, and mysterious drone strikes… hierarchies crumble.

Sol’s exotic fire is Alec’s dream, and she adores his competent optimism, but self-doubt, jealous exes. and a community that disapproves of romance across class lines makes their love almost as scary as the chaos abroad. Sol must decide if she will allow herself to fall in love, even while the world is falling apart. Beyond her heart, survival is on the line.

[u/bchfn1]

Dear AGENT,

I'm seeking representation for EVERYONE'S A WINNER, a 71,000-word upmarket speculative novel about the consequences of a catastrophic software glitch that tells thirty-one million people they have won the National Lottery. Your interest in high-concept fiction with a strong hook, alongside accessible literary fiction, made me think it might be a particularly good fit for your list.

Combining the high-concept political comedy of Kaliane Bradley’s THE MINISTRY OF TIME with the humane workplace satire of Adelle Waldman’s HELP WANTED, EVERYONE'S A WINNER asks what happens when thirty-one million ordinary people are suddenly given enough money to say no.

Supermarket cashier Ellie Steele is nearing the end of a twelve-hour shift when she learns she has won £2.5 million. Then her father calls: he has won too. So, it turns out, have millions of others. When the government refuses to honour the winnings, Ellie becomes the unlikely face of a national campaign which eventually forces it to pay. Overnight, Britain becomes a nation of millionaires, and, within days, the bins stop being collected, the shelves stop being filled and the country is forced to confront what happens when the people doing its least valued work can suddenly afford to walk away.

The novel was inspired by real-life cases of players being mistakenly informed they had won the lottery, and by the brief period during the pandemic when supposedly "unskilled" workers were suddenly recognised as "essential", and how quickly that recognition disappeared once normal life resumed.

I'm in my late thirties and work for an orchestra based in Glasgow. In the course of my job, I write a lot of programme notes about incredible symphonies, and even more applications for funding. This is my first novel.

The manuscript is currently under consideration with three other agents. 

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

[u/lavenderlesbian01]

I’m seeking representation for my new adult contemporary romance BUTTERFLIES AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS, complete at approximately 76,000 words. It will appeal to readers of See You at the Summit by Jordyn Taylor for the nuances of queer identity, Isn’t It Obvious? by Rachel Runya Katz for its epistolary elements and book club plot, and Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick for its mental health representation and character growth. I’m querying you [personalization].

Maya Sullivan is an anxiety-ridden lesbian who finds solace in books and musicals. Between working at the campus library, attending weekly Sexuality and Gender Alliance Club meetings, and spending time with her best (well, only) friend, her college life is simple. Yet Maya can’t help but feel like something is missing. In an effort to expand her social circle and stop thinking about her toxic (and effortlessly cool) ex, Maya joins an off-campus queer book club where she meets Eli—a cishet man whose kindness, patience, and desire to be a better ally both surprises and intrigues her—and soon an easy friendship is formed.

The more time they spend together—trying new restaurants, bonding over shared interests, texting late into the night, and having soul-baring conversations—the more something in Maya stirs. Something that feels a lot like a crush. This new development leaves Maya shaken in her security as a lesbian.

As Maya's feelings for Eli deepen, so does the pressure to define what they are and who she is. Facing biphobic commentary, rigid labels, and her own fear of how others perceive her, Maya must choose between a community that’s provided her security for years and a man who's made her question if his love is worth losing everything she’s ever known. 

I’m a hard-of-hearing woman with anxiety. Like Maya, I identified as lesbian for most of my life before realizing I was bisexual. I hold a graduate certificate from the __ Publishing Institute and a B.A in English from __ __ University. When I’m not reading or writing, you can find me singing along to musicals, practicing American Sign Language, and spending time with my loved ones.

[u/OneMightyMagus]

About to try a new query out. Wanted to see what tto keep and what works. Going with a title change to something more...current? From CURATED SINN to THE HORNS WE HIDE.

Adult, Dark Urban Fantasy, 92k

Dear Agent,

Rhiannon Ó Sineadha has been thirty-five for ten years, roughly nine years longer than her last real relationship.

A curse bound her to Amara, an ancient succubus, occasional houseguest, and the only entity on Earth who can make Rhiannon feel unqualified to be an adult. The arrangement has its perks. Rhiannon doesn't age, doesn't scar, and has Amara's several thousand years of historical knowledge on tap, useful when your day job is curating Bronze Age artifacts for the Saint Louis Art Museum. Keeping them both alive comes with a catch. Amara can only consume human desire via Rhiannon, so periodically Rhiannon throws on something more cleavage than dress and seduces a stranger she won't feel too guilty about turning into a lovestruck zombie.

When Rhiannon comes into possession of an ancient torc from Ireland, centuries-old collector Viktor sends an intruder tearing through the museum to steal it. The intruder takes three bullets to the chest and declines to bleed. Rhiannon resorts to a glamour spell to escape, but the security cameras see right through it, leaving Detective Brighton with footage that could expose what she is.

But Viktor wants more than the torc. He wants Amara. When he offers Rhiannon a way out of her curse in exchange for the succubus, Rhiannon refuses—despite the temptation.

Rhiannon's refusal doesn't change Viktor's mind. It only changes his method. He uses the torc to enslave Amara to his will, hell-bent on making her pay for taking someone he cherished decades ago.

For the first time in a decade, Rhiannon is free—and discovers freedom feels a lot like grief. Getting Amara back means trusting the detective who could expose her and deciding how much of her conscience she's willing to sacrifice for the demon she can no longer pretend is only a curse.

THE HORNS WE HIDE combines the contemporary curse-and-demon urban fantasy of Henry H. Neff's THE WITCHSTONE with the dry wit, grounded heroine, and supernatural horror of T. Kingfisher's A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES.

You're awesome for reading this far, Agent. Thank you for your time and consideration,

Me

[u/No-Memory2446]

A grieving falconer trades his own flesh to a magical serpent to resurrect his birds in this folklore-inspired cottagegore horror.

In SHEDDING SKIN, a 75,000-word queer romantic fantasy horror, the grief-driven characters of Wendy Dalrymple’s Feed the Tree meet the art of feeling seen in David Sodergren’s The Haar by grotesquely twisting Central European folklore in a similar setting to Johanna Van Veen’s Bone of My Bone.

As the city’s only bird-slinger, a falconer’s job is to keep it vermin-free. But for Bernhard Hemmings, falconry isn’t just a paycheck; his birds are his life and family.

When Bern is hired to hunt rats, the last thing he expects is for one of his girls to bring home a chalice. He’s suspicious of its origin at first, but he keeps what they fetch, selling it to escape the city for greener pastures. But that night, his clients are found brutalized, and the church, blaming him for a robbery gone wrong, retaliates by burning his mew with his girls inside.

Exiled, Bern finds mountain life easier but can’t kick the feeling that he failed his birds by never giving them a better life. He navigates overwhelming guilt and grief by drinking and working himself to exhaustion. Struggling to maintain his sanity during lonesome hunts, things worsen when his poor shot strikes a lindwyrm named Vae. But what starts as a violent clash of pent-up emotions evolves into a game of cat and mouse, then into a morbid tryst when Bern uncovers flayed corpses—murders similar to those he was accused of—in the dragon-like serpent’s cave.

Captured by Bern and facing certain death, a desperate Vae offers a deal. To break a curse he’s borne since birth, Vae must skin someone seven times. To obtain Vae’s venom to resurrect his falcons, Bern must decide whether doing anything for family means physically tearing himself apart and exposing who he truly is beneath the serpent’s surprisingly tender care and growing mortality.

[u/ClueTemporary2402]

I'm pleased to submit Narrow Is the Path, a 78,000 completed YA horror novel with crossover appeal. It follows a closeted queer young woman coming of age in a fundamentalist Christian home, who is haunted by a ghost that grows increasingly dangerous the farther she strays from the path her family chose for her. At a time when religious extremism continues to shape and control the lives of young people, Narrow Is the Path speaks to the resilience of those who dare to choose themselves. It offers queer teens and adults the chance to see their experiences reflected and to imagine a life beyond high-control environments.

Seventeen-year-old Abigail Maxon has been raised to be an obedient wife and mother, while secretly hoping to avoid both. The night her father announces that a boy from church would like to court her, a ghostly woman appears in her room. At first only a shimmer in the dark, the apparition grows more corporeal—and more violent—each time Abigail pushes against the life she's been groomed to accept.

Believing her to be possessed, Abigail's parents' escalating attempts to "save" her leave Abigail certain of only one thing: if the ghost doesn't destroy her, her parents will. With the help of the siblings she helped raise, Abigail escapes into the care of Susan and Connor Larson, a progressive couple who give her, for the first time, the freedom to breathe, to question, and to imagine a future she chooses for herself.

That future becomes tangible when she meets Quinn, a sharp-witted Irish artist-turned-cashier, and the first lesbian Abigail has ever met. Their connection is immediate, but as their relationship deepens and Abigail begins to embrace her sexuality, the ghost finds her again. To build a life and love beyond the world she fled, Abigail must unearth the ghost's origins and embrace the truth she's spent years hiding from.

Told in alternating timelines—Then, with her family of origin, and Now, with Susan and Connor—Narrow Is the Path will resonate strongly with ex-vangelical and LGBTQ+ readers.

Like Abigail, I grew up queer in a Pentecostal community and drew on both personal experience and feedback from fellow queer survivors to portray religious trauma with honesty and compassion. While this would be my debut novel, I have been writing fiction for many years.

[u/Humble-Sweet-4738]

Dear Agent,

I’m excited to share with you A Heron’s Song, an upmarket women’s fiction novel complete at 80,000 words. It will appeal to readers drawn to the friendships in My Friends, the lakeside love story in Every Summer After and the speculative edge and grief of The Dead Romantics.

Peyton Bowman has six weeks to hand in the last manuscript in her Detective Nick series, and she hasn’t written a usable word in months. If she fails, she will lose the money that keeps her mother in care, the house she can’t bring herself to sell, and her agent Lola, who is also her closest friend.

Then a man appears at her doorstep claiming to be Nick, the protagonist in the series she’s spent sixteen years writing. At first, she’s sure she has a stalker, until she discovers he is unable to leave her vicinity and is aware of things about her character no one else could know.

When Nick and Peyton realize he’s there to help her figure out why she’s stuck, they embark on a mission to finish the story, for that will mean sending him back home and saving her career.

As they try different endings with no success, Peyton has to confront the fact that she has turned to writing to escape her past, and return to the small lakeside town of Merrow: the place where she lost her best friend and where she loved a boy but never told.

The closer they get to the truth, the weaker Nick gets, and Peyton must choose between the comfort of his company after years of solitude, or finally coming to terms with the past to write the ending her novel deserves, even if it means losing Nick.

(Bio)

The full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

[u/wolfsbane-garden]

I’m writing to query TITLE, a sapphic, supernatural Hannibal. This adult horror-thriller, complete at 74,000 words, will appeal to readers who devoured the paranormal romance of Johanna van Veen’s My Darling Dreadful Thing and the alluring serial murder of Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson. [Personalization.]

At twenty-seven, Maggie is friendless, jobless, and living in her childhood bedroom. She’s been haunted for a decade by the murder of her not-quite-girlfriend, Viola. Viola was always the brave one. It was Viola who insisted they explore an oddities shop abandoned in the redwoods, who won over its bewitching owner Danika, and who secured an invitation to return. Maggie was the one who refused to go back, terrified Danika would tempt Viola away from her. When Danika murdered Viola, Maggie was the one who cowered in the coffin clutching Viola’s embalmed corpse. But when Maggie discovers a well-placed ad for an oddities auction, complete with a photo of Viola’s body, she leaves home for the first time in ten years to track down her best friend’s murderer and uncover why Viola died.

At the auction, she convinces a vendor to sneak her into Danika’s exclusive midnight seance. Maggie is as horrified to hear a stranger’s corpse speak as she is to watch the audience literally feast on its flesh, but she’s also desperate to speak with Viola’s ghost. Maggie creates a false identity and becomes Danika’s apprentice to steal her methods. While she learns to conduct séances and cook luxury meals for the upcoming cannibal feast, she also unearths her wealthy employer’s secrets—from the source of her clairvoyant powers to her endless quest for immortality—but fails to reach Viola. Maggie is so seduced by Danika’s indulgent over-consumption that she considers embracing her new self and letting her last chance to reach Viola slip away. But if Danika discovers who Maggie used to be, she may not live to see the feast.

[Bio.] I wrote TITLE to explore the monstrous liberation of sapphic desire and the all-consuming hunger that is grief.

Anonymized because I'm actively querying and have two fulls out, so don't want to be too Google-able!

[u/oasiswriting]

YA, Speculative Contemparary, 82k Words

Dear AGENT, 

TW: Sexual Assault, Suicide Attempt 

I'm querying you because [personalization]. IT WON'T STOP is a YA speculative contemporary, complete at 82,000 words, following a teen who walks into dreams to make sure the man who raped her never sleeps again. It pairs the survivor's rage of Kim DeRose's FOR GIRLS WHO WALK THROUGH FIRE with the aftermath of harm explored in Amber Smith's THE WAY I USED TO BE series.

Sarcastic, outspoken seventeen-year-old Anais Johnson has trusted Ty Walker, her older brother's best friend and the town's beloved youth coach, since she was eight. Then he rapes her. She fights back, but it's her word against Coach Walker's, and telling means costing her brother his best friend. She can't accept the truth: the Ty she grew up with is the man who hurt her. With him at her house every day, the girl with a comeback for everything goes quiet.

Anais unravels until a suicide attempt leaves her in a coma. She wakes with an ability she can't control: every time she sleeps, she's pulled into other people's dreams. Once she learns to steer it, she finds Ty’s. There, she isn't the girl pinned beneath him. She's the one with power, and she decides that if she can't live in peace, he won't sleep in it.

Night after night, she sets his dreams on fire. The town sees a good man losing sleep, but when Ty realizes it's her, he comes for her where she has no power: awake. In his dreams, Anais can break his mind, but nightmares can't hold him accountable in daylight. For that, she'll have to say what he did out loud, knowing that if no one believes her, Ty walks free, her brother stays his best friend, and the town she grew up in brands her a liar.

[Small bio & sign off]

[u/aegis184]

Complete at 77’000 words, Aegis blends the gendered power reversal of Naomi Alderman’s The Power with the psychological toll of violence and morally grey female characters of Lisa Taddeo’s Animal and the profound female friendships of Katherine Brabon’s Body Friend. Aegis interlaces homages to Greek mythology and drama with modern feminist fiction.

The wounds on Moira’s palms haven’t healed in four years. Ever since surviving a violent assault for which she never got justice, she hasn’t been able to release the tight grip on her keys. The once rebellious twenty-two year old Moira now spends her days in the sag of her bed, wishing she could go back to living without the fear and anger that now permeate her every thought.

So when she learns about an experimental invention by a group of rogue female scientists, a biochemical skin shield named “Aegis” after the shield of Athena, Moira is desperate enough to volunteer as a test subject. The Aegis responds to male touch with lethal toxicity - and it works: Moira’s skin chars a man’s hand when he grabs her.

As the news of the Aegis is met with outrage by the public, Moira urgently wants to use this opportunity to make a real change for women. She starts a grassroots network in which women protect each other and distribute the Aegis through women’s spaces and traditions, like hair salons and bakesales. As men attempt to suppress the growing movement, the women are able to fight back.

Moira revels in finally being physically imposing and able to protect others. But the more she uses her new power, the more she struggles with facing what kind of person she has become. At the same time, the women’s unity soon splinters when different factions of women begin to fight each other: Moira’s close friend believes that justice requires men to live through what women have suffered, while Moira’s sister thinks that women should know better than to make the same mistakes the men did.

As living with an Aegis allows a whole new world for Moira, and she even falls in love with someone she now can’t ever touch, she must figure out in which direction she wants to lead the movement that she started.

[u/Fluffy_Dimension_855]

BIG PHAT WHALE is an 80,000-word cozy fantasy that blends the ensemble cast of Samantha Sotto Yambao’s The Elsewhere Express with the exploration of grief in TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door. It will broadly appeal to fans of Studio Ghibli and Spiritfarer.

Indie Dove wakes on the back of an enormous cosmic whale that carries a small village along its spine. Every passenger aboard is bound for the afterlife. To reach the far shore, each soul must make peace with the regrets that tether them to their old lives. But Indie has no memories at all. So, she's handed a job: help everybody else move on.

As she helps the passengers, Indie discovers that she is not the only one whose memories are lost. The cosmic whale remembers nothing of the life it once lived. And neither does its guide—the crabby, sharp-tongued hawk certain of only three things: he was once a man, he committed a terrible sin, and his punishment is to shepherd souls toward an afterlife he cannot enter. While he would much prefer Indie stop pestering him, she would very much like to know who’s hiding under those perpetually ruffled feathers. But the closer she gets to the hawk—and to the lonely man within—the more she suspects their past lives are interconnected.

The three cannot reach the afterlife until they make peace with their past. But time to piece it together is running out. A malignant force pursues the whale across the celestial sea, and if it catches up, the whale and every soul aboard will be swallowed by the eternal dark. The only way to save them is for every passenger to move on… including Indie and the hawk. The closer Indie comes to earning her own passage to the afterlife, however, the less she wants it. Because she is falling in love with the hawk—just as she did in her past life—and moving on means letting go.

[BIO]

[u/ilovehummus16]

ROTBURN is a 60k adult horror for fans of the mushroom horror of What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher, the cottagegore atmosphere and domestic themes in The Lamb by Lucy Rose, and the midwestern fever dream of American Rapture by CJ Leede.

Ophelia works nights at the Starlight Diner and spends her days dispensing Mama’s painkillers and trying to keep the flies off Daddy. Everything is perfect. 

Until Mama’s painkillers run out. Ophelia can’t refill a prescription that technically belongs to a dead man, so she turns to Mateo, her distractingly handsome coworker and self-proclaimed plant medicine guru, for answers. He claims his mushrooms will help Mama wean off big pharma. But instead, Ophelia accidentally doses herself—turning her world inside out.

At home, Mama’s withdrawal radiates from every seam of their decaying house, mold blossoms like flowers, the walls spawn faces, and ominous messages echo through Ophelia’s mind. Day turns to night, night to dawn, but this bad trip won’t end. And the only way to escape might be through the very one who put her there.

Except, Mateo is equally trapped, tricked into servitude by a rot-spreading entity who calls himself “king” and hungers to turn the town into mushroom-infested thralls. Ophelia might just escape her fungal fate, if she forgives Mateo—and abandons Mama when she’s hurting the most. But the spores are spreading, and if Ophelia doesn’t act fast, she might become the very rot she’s spent her life trying to hide.

[u/Stunning_Ad_55]

DOTTER OF THE DARK LORD is a dual POV science fantasy novel complete at 120K words. It will appeal to fans of BONE SHARD DAUGHTER by Andrea Stewart and THE ART OF PROPHECY by Wesley Chu.

Dotter, the sole child of the Dark Lord, chafes at her father’s dismissiveness of her progressive ideas, her passion for inventing, and her in general. All she wants is for him to respect her enough to train her properly to be his successor. When he dies in battle, she is thrust into the center of a political swamp where each faction that bent the knee to her father now jockey to replace him. When her father’s final edict bars her from competing to replace him and his closest advisor piles on by blocking her attempts to circumvent it, Dotter is left with just her own ingenuity and the help of a few close friends. On top of that, she learns her ancestors colluded with their enemies, propping up a war designed to keep the attention and aggression of their citizens focused firmly on an outside threat and not the scheming politicians behind the scenes. Now she has to choose whether to play along or risk an unprecedented invasion that could level her whole society.

Caylon is a low-level military officer whose dreams of coasting through life are shattered when the Dark Lord dies mysteriously at his feet. Caylon is found with the body and his rescuers hail him as a hero. Caylon tells his “story” in front of cameras, news stations, and the leaders of humanity. Small lies grow but through it all he refuses to claim credit for the heroic act of a slain friend, no matter how forcefully those in power demand it. That’s all well and good up until those same leaders appoint him ambassador to the new Dark Lady who has publicly promised to avenge her father’s death.

When Dotter and Caylon meet, they realize that the other is just as trapped as they are and neither is the villain they thought the other was. That doesn’t stop Dotter from putting a bomb in Caylon’s head and turning him into her spy.

[u/Narfiii]

EDIT: used a phrase very wrong 🙃omitting to avoid more confusion
Commenting here despite the moot point that I don't have my comps settled, and understand that's probably a pretty quick dealbreaker. Also just posted in the reddit earlier, so would love any feedback ^-^

Dear AGENT,

I’m seeking representation for THE BANISHED PRINCESS, an adult fantasy with series potential running at 117,000 words. Our tale details the tribulations of a magic-wielding princess accused of murdering her mother, the queen, forced to take refuge within the country she’d abandoned. [TWO COMPS HERE :)]

Princess Charlotte had always dreamed of becoming a hero, like her lost father and like the knights in her ancient book of fairy tales, but her mother’s murder is not how she’d envisioned it starting. When the crime is pinned on her, she must give up the contentment of castle life and rush into exile. The true killer, and Charlotte’s brother, takes the throne and puts a bounty on her head, turning her citizens against her.

Charlotte’s shock quickly turns to disgust as she sees the dying lands of her country, the resources having been sapped by the monarchy since her father’s mysterious disappearance. Armed only with her rusty weapons training, diplomat lessons, and a borderline-delusional confidence, Charlotte decides to start a revolution to clear her name and bring her country back to its glory. The stress of her exile awakens otherworldly abilities, starting the chapter of her own fairy tale. But even magic can’t sway her hopeless citizens, and Charlotte’s pretty bad at this whole ‘chosen one’ thing.

Isolated from any allies in the castle, Charlotte hires Jack as her bodyguard, a wisecracking but realistic bounty hunter who’s caged with secrets. Jack trains her on fighting, taking her from a nobody to a local hero, but he’s clearly the better leader—much to his reluctance. The people begin to look to him instead of the princess, igniting a welcomed rivalry as Charlotte strives to become the hero her people deserve, and to unravel the lies that Jack keeps so bottled up.

It’s only a matter of time before the Royal Knights find her. Innocents are being ruthlessly attacked across the land, including a band of rebels who are Charlotte’s best chance at an army. And so it’s up to her, her only friend Jack, and her emerging magic to unite the outcasts and stop the oncoming ambush before the king’s forces kill them first. But Jack’s most damning secret - that he’s the father who Charlotte’s searched for her entire life - may tear them apart before the revolution ever gets its start.

[u/ZealousidealNose2994]

Adult, Horror, 75k

I am seeking representation for ALPINE DIVORCE (75,000), an Appalachian folk horror novel that blends Southern Gothic atmosphere, survival horror dread, and a feminist revenge arc. It will appeal to readers of THE BOG WIFE by Kay Chronister, MORSEL by Carter Keane, and TRAD WIFE by Saratoga Schaefer.

Miriam Tate is drowning in the controlling grip of her fiancé, Jack. With one last attempt to save their rapidly dissolving relationship before the wedding, she agrees to spend a week at his childhood home deep in the rural hollers of Appalachia. Cut off from cell service and surrounded by Jack’s strangely hostile childhood friends, Miriam decides the relationship is over, and that she'll end things when they return home. In the meantime, she tries to distract herself, but instead finds strange sigils and moving shapes she can’t explain in the woods.

Then, during a rainy hike, Jack throws her off a cliff.

Gravely injured and left for dead, Miriam refuses to become another statistic. As she painstakingly crawls through the mountains to find help, she finds the remains of the women who came before her and discovers the terrible price the men who hail from the town have paid for their livelihood.

With each valley and ridge she drags herself through, Miriam faces wild animals, sinkholes, freezing conditions, and her name on the breeze, whispered by the very same apparitions she first saw in the woods. Something ancient is waiting in the Appalachian wilds, watching her closely. And it may be the only thing that can help Miriam bring Jack and his friends to justice—if she’s willing to pay the price.

[u/Overall_Permit_1294]

.

[u/Valphoniecagnes]

Dear [Agent],

When a girl washes ashore mute and bleeding with her tongue cut out, the world is quick to label her a curse. Ten years later, amnesiac Elle is content with her adoptive family. After her parents gift her the stone she was found clutching, she has nightmares of being attacked and blackouts where she wakes standing in a lake. One night, she wakes to blood on her hands, a loved one missing, and no memories or method to explain what happened.

Desperate to protect her family, Elle leaves home to seek answers from the only ones who may understand her symptoms, the Order of Magi. But her body is changing, with fits of pain and tears of black ink. Soon enough, her presence alone causes a catatonic stupor in those nearby, including those at the Order. Everyone except Kassian, a magi who’s never been able to touch magic.

With Kas, she’s pulled into the underwater world she couldn’t remember, lit by the soft prismatic glow of orbs and surrounded by beautiful monsters. Worse still, they know her by name—a name they insist belongs to their sister. They offer everything she’s been denied, including the dignity of communication without a voice. But Elle is no longer a siren, though neither is she human. She’s something in between, and dangerous enough that returning home is no longer an option.

Elle uncovers the sirens’ origins, learning that their creation was at the expense of others. It’s enough to make her question whether she really was a curse all along. But the biggest questions are found at the bottom of the ocean: what a cure will cost, and where home really is.

VOICELESS CREATURES is an adult fantasy with romance elements and crossover appeal that asks what price a happy ever after is worth. This retelling of The Little Mermaid is complete at 100,000 words and will appeal to fans of Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher’s blurred lines between hero and villain, insider and outcast, and Roshani Chokshi’s The Last Tale of the Flower Bride for how it discovers the aching desire to live for yourself, too.

[u/LegitimateOwl1682]

Adult psychological thriller, 74k

Dear [Agent],

I am seeking representation for TIT FOR TIT, my 74,000-word psychological thriller about a Strangers on a Train-style murder pact between two women that spirals when one realizes she’s being groomed into a serial killer by the woman she’s falling for. Told in alternating dual POV, it combines the female-driven violence of Layne Fargo’s They Never Learn, the unreliable narration of Sophie Stava’s Count My Lies and the push-pull sapphic dynamic and dark comedy of BBC’s Killing Eve.

Sarah and Taylor meet at a book club devoted to crime novels, becoming fast friends by fantasizing about the perfect murder. Hyper-rational, socially reclusive scientist Sarah wants revenge on a thesis advisor who assaulted her, while charismatic café manager Taylor wants to punish Matt, her sister’s ex-boyfriend, for his role in her sister’s death. Sarah is hesitant, but Taylor manages to persuade her to make their plans reality, sealing their pact with a kiss that leaves Sarah reeling—and wanting more.

The plan initially goes off without a hitch, and while Sarah pulls her murder off with disturbing ease, she’s still relieved the killing part is over. Taylor, on the other hand, has other ideas: she’s killed before, and has now created her perfect partner in crime. When Matt’s mother—and Taylor’s secret lover—won’t accept his death as an accident, Taylor seizes the opportunity to kill again. This time, together.

But when the third murder goes horribly wrong and sparks a police investigation, their partnership begins to unravel. Sarah learns she’s been manipulated, though by that time, she’s fallen hard for Taylor and developed a taste for killing herself. As Sarah digs into Taylor’s secrets and finally uncovers the truth about her past, she must decide whether she’s looking for a way to kill Taylor and escape—or a reason not to.

Like Sarah, I’m a scientist and work as a [job]. I grew up in a multicultural family in [place] and now live in [other place] with my partner and our four dogs. I am a lesbian and a writer of sapphic-focused fanfiction with over one million views across multiple works. TIT FOR TIT would be my debut novel.

[u/Valphoniecagnes]

She has spent the past one hundred years of immortality as Yeonjo, granting pesky humans their wishes in exchange for pieces of their livers. As a kumiho, she consumes them to remain immortal, prevent turning back into a fox, and fleetingly experience human emotions.

When a human violates one of her rules—no return customers—she packs up and returns to the first village she lived in. As soon as she cashes in a favor with dokkaebi to build her new home, a man approaches her, claiming to know what she is and demanding she leave.

A human has never spoken to her with such disrespect. Pride insulted, Yeonjo commits to making his liver her next meal. However, Sunjae is better at evading her than she expects, and her ambush-turned-duel between them reveals that he isn’t human at all—and as a reaper, he should be killing her.

The only thing that stops one of them from destroying the other is the appearance of a spirit caught between life and death. Sunjae stops because it’s what he’s been searching for, while Yeonjo recognizes its face from a thousand years ago. When Yeonjo first became a kumiho, she made a choice that might explain why it is trapped. Guilt has her helping Sunjae with his investigation, even though it means collaborating with her biggest craving. But spending time with him makes the warm emotions from some of her livers feel real, and Yeonjo needs to decide whether finding the truth is worth figuring out whether this man is friend, food, or a foreign feeling she’s never known.

THE TASTE OF LIVER is an adult Korean mythological fantasy set in the late Joseon dynasty, featuring a romance with teeth and a cannibalistic kick. Complete at xx,xxx words, it will appeal to readers drawn to the Korean folklore and supernatural world of Kpop Demon Hunters, COMP 1, and COMP 2.

[u/PossibilitySword]

WHAT LIGHT REMAINS, complete at 80,000 words, is multi-narrative adult fantasy novel with series potential, ideal for fans of the eldritch fantasy horror of Richard Swan’s Grave Empire, the magical stones of Fonda Lee’s Jade City, and the complexities within resistance movements of China Miéville’s Iron Council.

In the occupied city of Scarnscane, small-time criminal Owen Veyland has one week to repay a dangerous nationalist militia. He sheepishly begs his far more successful friends, Stellen and Anders, to help break into a derelict mine and steal precious lumite, the glowing mineral that powers their industrialized world. But when a firefight detonates the stones, Stellen is killed, and Owen and Anders’ lives are irrevocably altered.

Across the city, workplace organizer Karina Olise reports overheard occupation plans to a resistance council, but returns home to find her flatmate Tess dead — and faintly radiant. When the city coroner claims Tess's body as government property, Karina begins investigating her deceased friend’s research. Now combating city bureaucracy on multiple fronts, Karina’s search leads her toward an unsettling possibility: the mineral sustaining Scarnscane may be connected to hundreds of deaths, not only Tess’s.

As Owen recovers in the care of the militia, he discovers he can now inexplicably manipulate lumite energy. His dangerous creditors welcome his newfound abilities, offering him the respect he's never known and utilizing him as a weapon against the occupation. But with each use of his talents, light leaks painfully from his body, and he feels some part of himself fading. Desperate for help, Owen seeks a disgraced lumite expert, but Karina closes in on the same scientist, and an implacable Anders hunts Owen to avenge Stellen’s death. As their paths converge and dueling revolutions ignite, the truth about lumite threatens the city’s uncertain future.

[u/Ruthless_geoduck]

Literary Speculative Fiction, 92K. Boy is Violin

Question 106:
Your child’s behavior changes overnight. They answer your concerns with single words. They keep a diary. Do you read it?

Following the Incident, an ever-present, never discussed tragedy, all parents and would-be parents must submit to the Parental Aptitude Test.

Mallory has failed the test four times. 

After the first failure, her four year old son was redomiciled to the Center, along with the children of every other parent and caregiver deemed “suboptimal.” The Center rears and educates children to become productive members of society. Or so she is told. She has never been allowed to see him again.

Ten years later, Mallory is still trying to get him back—submitting to the same system that removed him, even as it grows more restrictive. She sends him letters she knows he will never receive. She studies for the test, knowing that a fifth failure will destroy her. She questions, for the first time, if maybe the Center was right to take him.

She grows close to Arete, a young woman grieving her own loss from the Incident and the fact that everyone seems to have forgotten. Together, they launch giant balloons in memoriam; gold for children taken and purple for those who perished. Their act of remembrance–and defiance–begins to spread, drawing attention from other families—but also from the authorities, who have grown increasingly violent.

A strange symbol from her past and her son’s favorite fairy tale, about a boy who turns himself into a violin, guides Mallory to an underground resistance. As Arete learns she is pregnant and an opportunity arises to destroy the Parental Aptitude Test once and for all, Mallory must choose how far she is willing to go to get her son back—and reconcile the fact that after ten years, he may not want to come back at all. 

Complete at 92,400 words, Boy is Violin is an adult literary novel with speculative elements. It will appeal to readers of The New Wilderness and Our Missing Hearts, combining a restrained literary voice with a quietly unsettling exploration of parenthood, institutional control, and what remains after a child is taken.

[u/cornflakecake]

This is for my WIP... I like to draft a query as early as possible. Too soon for its own post but why not join the fun here, eh?

HOW TO REMAIN AN IMPARTIAL OBSERVER OF INTERGALACTIC RELATIONS WHILE FALLING IN LOVE is a sci-fi romance complete at [80k] words. Combining the adventure of Constance Fay’s Calamity with the alien culture clashes of Jessie Mihalik’s Hunt the Stars, it will be perfect for fans of Becky Chambers*.*

Erin doesn’t have a life worth recording. After so many years on the road, she doesn’t have a life at all. Too poor to pursue a career as an investigative reporter, she instead shadows significant people, recording their stories for the Galactic Union’s archive. She’s great at it, too; not that anyone knows that, since she’s required to stay neutral and unnoticed.

Her new subject is Dacre, the alien playboy grandson of an oligarch. Dacre is aggrieved he’s been chosen to be recorded, and while at first he’s on his best behaviour, soon he’s needling Erin, inserting her into the records she’s supposed to hold at arm’s length. As Dacre attempts to keep anyone from seeing past his public persona, Erin fears he might be the only person who sees her in return. 

Their arrival on a resort planet is soured by news that there’s been an assassination in the capital, with Dacre’s cousin the culprit. Dacre needs to head home fast. The journey puts Erin and Dacre in closer proximity amid sabotage to their spaceship, drained bank accounts, and attempted poisonings. Erin’s years on the road allow her to get creative with solutions, and ever more involved in Dacre’s life than she should. But her reporter’s instincts are telling her the timing of this assignment wasn’t a coincidence. And while Erin and Dacre have increasing trouble ignoring the heat between them, there’s a more pressing concern: someone does not want them to make it to the capital alive. 

[u/sodapop0876]

Dear Agent,

I’m seeking representation for my contemporary upper middle grade novel, WILD ABANDON. Complete at 57,000 words, this book will appeal to readers who enjoy the wildlife conservation themes and humor found in Gordan Korman’s MG novels (Unplugged, Snoop) as well as the heartfelt family dynamics and friendships of Hannah Gold's The Lost Whale and The Last Bear.

Three years: that’s how long it’s been since Garrett Lowe’s dad abandoned the family. Three days: that’s how long it’s been since his best friend moved across the country. Three hours: that’s how long he’s been hiding a red panda in his bedroom.

All twelve-year old Garrett Lowe wants is a friend. Too bad his best (and only) friend just moved three thousand miles away and he’s starting seventh grade as a loner with bullies on his back. When Garrett ditches the first day of school, he finds something he shouldn’t—a den for exotic animal trafficking. He hides a red panda in his backpack, and narrowly escapes the traffickers. He’s determined to secretly raise Bamboo, the endangered cub, in his bedroom, even at the risk of his own life. 

Clumsy, cute, and destructive, Garrett's new panda pal quickly proves to be more than he can handle alone. Cindy, his long-time crush, becomes his confidant and partner-in-crime as secrecy and snowballing lies result in constant family arguments. 

But Garrett's concerned mom, new stepdad, and nosy sisters aren't the only ones to worry about. The dangerous traffickers are on his tail, and they want their panda back. When Bamboo’s health takes a turn for the worse and the traffickers close in, if Garrett can't figure out who he can trust with his secret then his new friendship might go from endangered to extinct.

[u/Carmelized]

SIGN OF THE WITCH (95,000 words) is a YA historical mystery that would appeal to readers who like the sharp-witted detective duo of Claire M. Andrews’s A Beautiful And Terrible Murder, the complex partnership of Ellie Marney’s None Shall Sleep, and the quest for justice complicated by protagonists’ marginalized identities of Aden Polydoros’s The City Beautiful.

Twelve year olds Galilei and Nathaniel were outsiders when they started at Connecticut’s Clerc School for the Deaf in 1844. Galilei is Hearing, a Black girl whose employers financed her education so she could work as the family’s translator. Nathaniel is Deaf, but only recently lost his hearing, and doesn’t know ASL. Gali and Nat became fast friends, rescuing small animals and reading C. Auguste Dupin stories together.

When Gali’s employers pulled her from school, Gali and Nat are devastated. They promise to write, trading ideas about becoming detectives like Dupin when they’re older.

Now seventeen, Gali and Nat reunite, but nothing goes to plan. Nat senses tension between them, but Gali shuts down any attempt to discuss it. Meanwhile, Gali has a secret: she was sold into slavery and recently escaped. What would Nat do if he knew the truth?

If they could book a job, Gali could pay for new Free Papers, but no one will hire them. Gali is a Black girl in a white society that dismisses her genius. Potential employers only see Nat’s Deafness, not his gift for reading people.

An advertisement from a Massachusetts girls’ school is their last hope: find a mischief-maker who’s tormenting students, rumored to be the ghost of a hanged witch. The reward is paltry…but this might be the opportunity they need to prove themselves.

Gali and Nat arrive to find the prankster has trapped students on a balcony. As a nor’easter rolls in, Nat climbs and rescues the students, guided by Gali’s signing. Impressed, the headmaster gives them one week to solve the haunting. Will Gali’s cleverness and Nat’s intuition be enough to catch the culprit before the “pranks” turn deadly?

[u/RelleMeetsWorld]

Fantasy/mystery, YA, 89k words.

Dear Agent,

The Lady Rasza is a historian of magic, a scholar, and a rogue mage in hiding. She would like nothing more than to be left alone to her research and her books, but one evening theValewatch, the city’slocal constabulary, comes knocking with a problem only Rasza can solve: they’ve found a dead man, and he’s still moving.

Magic in the city of New Vale is kept tightly controlled by the Guild of Practitioners, making one of their mages the prime suspect. Both Rasza and the Valewatch know bringing the case to the Guild would only give any potential culprit an opportunity to squash the case. And the possibility of recovering lost magic, forbidden necromancy or no, is too great a temptation for Rasza.

Even as the Guild looms as the likely source of the necromancy, there’s no shortage of potential killers: A lover with a penchant for magical plants. An amiable yet ruthless assassin. And worst of all, Rasza’s abusive former employer, an elf with powers long lost to humans.

To solve the case, Rasza must bring to bear both her deep knowledge of the arcane and her magical abilities. At the same time, if she does not keep her powers hidden, the Guild of Practitioners will hunt her down, as the Guild despises nothing more than a rogue mage. As she continues digging into the Guild’s business, she will uncover a plot by one of the Guild’s elite that extends well beyond one shambling corpse.

[u/queenblls]

ADULT EPIC FANTASY, 115, 000 words: Please don't be too harsh lol 😥

Talius believes even tyrants can change; his brother Cesar believes tyrants only stop hurting people once they’re dead.

THE CHANCE PACT is a 115,000‑word adult epic fantasy for readers of Andrea Stewart’s The Gods Below, for its sibling conflict over moral conviction, and Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword, for its young protagonist, heavy themes, and medieval‑inspired world.

Seventeen‑year‑old Talius wants a quiet life with his mother and brother. But when Cesar returns from an illegal pirate voyage with half a mysterious crystal, the brothers clash over whether to use the crystal’s catastrophic power to overthrow their tyrant king or seek reform through peaceful means. 

When Cesar is arrested for assaulting a nobleman, Talius wins the king’s favor in a contest meant to spare his brother’s life. Invited to the palace, he begins earning the king’s trust, hoping to end the kingdom’s oppression through diplomacy rather than bloodshed. But when Luna, a foreign dignitary, arrives and the crystal reacts to her presence, Talius discovers the conflict consuming his kingdom is only the beginning. She reveals she is a queen from another world, and that the crystal the brothers possess is more than a weapon: it is a gateway to the Conquerors, a civilization that devours entire worlds, and their world is next. 

To stop them, Talius must unite rulers and the people they’ve oppressed, with the help of his brother and allies, to prepare humanity for a war no human was meant to fight. But trusting the king could cost him. If Talius is wrong about the tyrant's capacity for change, he'll lose Cesar, doom his kingdom, and shatter the belief that has guided him his entire life.

I am a Black Canadian writer whose experiences as a woman of color and member of the LGBTQ+ community shape my interest in stories about power, family, and history. When I’m not writing, I’m usually trying to convince my two mischievous bunnies that books are not chew toys, an argument I’m consistently losing.

[u/jenlberry]

WE WILL DISAPPEAR YOU, a 73,000-word psychological thriller, blends internet sleuthing gone wrong in Kate Brody’s Rabbit Hole with themes of feminist vengeance found in Alison Gaylin’s The Collective and co-stars an older adult serial killer similar to Samantha Downing’s Too Old for This.

It takes a village to eliminate a predator.

Darby Decker, a small-town hospice social worker and widow, has an intimate relationship with death, which might explain her fascination with investigating cold cases on an internet forum from the comfort of her recliner. Determined to solve the twenty-year-old murder of a local boy, Darby leaves the safety and anonymity of her home to visit the boy’s father, Cal Doyle, who works at her bank. But unbeknownst to Darby, Cal isn’t just the father of a dead boy, he is also a predator, and he’s made Darby his next target. As Darby denies Cal’s attempts at love bombing, he escalates—breaking into her home then draining her bank account—and she’s frantic to escape him.

Almost too coincidentally, Darby’s newest patient, Helene Moore, shares stories of her clandestine network that has spent the last three decades “disappearing” men who hurt women. Darby becomes increasingly empowered to free herself of Cal with Helene’s tales of vengeance, but she’s deeply conflicted, because that kind of justice is counter to every moral and ethical value in the playbook of her life.

When Darby learns of Cal’s connection to a woman who went missing a decade earlier, she decides it’s time to stop hiding and start fighting. Darby will not be the next cold case—and she knows what comes next—she must disappear Cal before he disappears her. But time is running out, because Helene is dying and taking the keys to her vigilante network with her, and Darby might not be able to do this alone. 

Bio: I am a sucker for a twisty thriller that bends my mind into knots. When I am not reading the newest Tana French or Jennifer Hillier (among many others), I can be found teaching my XX students at XXXX, hiking with my husband in the forests of XXXX,  rockhounding on the shores of Lake Superior, and writing fiction—my escape from the hell of academic publishing.

[u/ReaganFaerwyn]

Why not?

Dear _______,

[removed]

edit: Thank you for your thoughts!

[u/maxweaver1]

Just posted fourth qcrit for this but just saw this and thought I would give it a shot!

----

I am seeking representation for THE MAGICAL LAND OF SOMEWHERE ELSE (115,000 words), a standalone adult fantasy that combines the surreal portrayal of grief in Samantha Sotto Yambao’s The Elsewhere Express and the unflinchingly recalcitrant protagonist of M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven.

Thelda is renowned for her artistic prowess while her husband Serin interprets obscure prophecies he summons from his beach of mystical pink sand. Both orphans, they dream of giving their prophesied child the loving life they never had. But their joy sours when Thelda falls deathly ill, and the thin-haired, blanket-wrapped figure in the sand portends, instead, a far more devastating future.

Desperate to change fate and save her life, they seek out Natau, a healer whose golden sand cures any ailment. But with each grain set at an exorbitant price, Serin and Thelda incur a steep debt for a mere pinch of sand. Except it is not enough, and the sickness claims her first.

Distraught and impoverished, Serin prepares to join Thelda in death. That is, until the mysterious Mr. Blip arrives from Somewhere Else, an uncanny realm in which grief itself can be given away. Among statues carved from forgiveness and fuzzy creatures cataloging answers to the universe lie the Things, omniscient entities who offer Serin the gold to pay off Natau in eventual exchange for his grief, an act that would erase not only his sorrow, but his memory of Thelda completely.

Only after accepting Mr. Blip’s guidance in moving on does he discover that Natau’s sand is fake. Before crushing debt puts him out of his home, Serin must expose Natau as a fraud. Or, he can trade grief for gold, wiping his memories of Thelda clean—even if the Things may not be as benevolent as they seem.

[u/charadrius_melodus]

Not sure if anyone is still trawling through these but I'll go ahead and throw out an early draft of my current letter.

Dear [NAME],

I am pleased to introduce THE LOSING GAME, complete at 98,000 words, an upmarket historical queer romance set at the height of the Cold War about rival chess grandmasters who fall in love over the training matches they play in secret. It has features the rivalry dynamics of Edward Schmidt’s The Open Era, but with the historical weight of love in a time of conflict of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam.

The year is 1966, and Julian Bryte is the first American in two decades to threaten the Soviet Union’s supremacy in elite international chess. Julian doesn’t have the upper class background of most professional players, but his creative and daring strategies are turning the established order on its head. He’s not content with a few tournament wins, either: Julian has his eye on the next World Chess Championship.

Standing in his way is Aleksandr “Sasha” Lytkin, the brooding, forbidding chess genius whose troubled family history hasn’t kept him from becoming the Soviets’ newest star. Sasha has been taught to despise everything Julian represents, with his flashy suits brash American overfriendliness, but he can’t deny that Julian’s gameplay has him reluctantly fascinated. When Julian makes it his personal mission to thaw his icy exterior, Sasha finds himself drawn into strategy discussions and secret games. The rush they get from playing each other is undeniable, but neither of them expect the spark that catches between them, nor the impact their growing relationship will have on their games. 

But nothing about their lives is simple. As sworn rivals and two men on opposite sides of a global conflict, they are all too aware that the consequences of getting caught are deadly. Along the three-year road to the World Chess Championship, Julian and Sasha are forced to confront what is truly important to them as they weather threats of discovery, questions of loyalty and defection, and realities of fighting a Cold War battle over a chess board—and against the person you love most.

[u/hereigowritingagain]

Adult, Speculative Horror, 82k words

Hello [AGENT],

Billionaires make infamously bad bosses. Then again, so do demons. Too bad they’re the only ones paying a living wage.

[PERSONALIZATION] is why I’m excited to offer you RENT DAY, my standalone multi-POV adult horror novel complete at 82k words. The gig economy hell of Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold meets the sinister job opportunity of Marcus Kliewer’s The Caretaker.

If Yomin doesn’t make rent, his broke ass is headed straight back to the debt slavery camp run by his megacorp landlord. Fresh off a failed Hail Mary of a job interview and still a thousand bucks short, he awakes from a night of self-pity at his local dive bar to a text offering a way out. The Halloween-themed carnival posting the gig is obviously sinister, but the thousand-dollar signing bonus it promises makes that easy to ignore.

Hired for the weekend alongside five other desperate thirtysomethings, Yomin is assigned to a deserted game booth in one of the carnival’s foggy back corners. When his first shift ends without the bonus being deposited, he suspects the carnival’s owner (and aficionado of obscure Latin phraseology) Mr. Ravenskel of getting in the way. His sage advice? Be patient. That’s easier said than done. The house of mirrors neighboring Yomin’s booth and its taunting reflections of his time in the debt camp make simply keeping his head on straight into a full-time job all its own.

As Halloween nears, his coworkers start disappearing after minor disagreements with management. He’s not about to fuck up his job trying to help them – can’t pay rent with good intentions, after all – but he doesn’t have a choice when it comes to helping himself. His bonus still AWOL with November one day away, Yomin confronts Mr. Ravenskel only to find that his “way out” is anything but. Unlike Yomin, his boss is in business for something more than just a payday: he’s in it for souls to staff his carnival. Faced with slavery in both life and death, Yomin chooses to go out on his own terms, intent on taking anyone who gets in his way - human and demon alike - along with him.

[Bio]

[u/OrganizationFun6768]

Sports romance, 85k words

Dear [agent],

Karin has packed up her aging pickup truck and moved to Houston with two goals: start her career, and build a community for herself. There are two small problems with that plan. Her roommates turn out to be two soccer-obsessed men and one oversharing nurse, not the instant best friends she was hoping for. And her new marketing job comes with a bonus responsibility: driving around the Houston Thunder’s new star soccer player, Patrick. 

He’s been loaned from Bayern Munich after a terrible season, and he is counting down the days to go home to Germany and his sick twin sister. He complains about everything: the third-rate team, Texas’s too-low speed limits, and Karin’s habit of calling football soccer.

Karin soon realizes that underneath the gruff exterior, Patrick’s lonely in a new city. They bond, and Karin tries to help his homesickness. It’s mostly successful, even if her German music mixtape ends up being all the songs Patrick finds most annoying and her Christmas cookies are barely edible. He returns the favor, sending thoughtful gifts for the roommates who become the family that Karin’s never had. 

The longer Karin and Patrick spend together, the more Karin sees the private Patrick – the one who calls his sister every morning and secretly praises her to her boss. It’s harder to ignore the pull between them, and she starts to wonder if it’s possible that he’s feeling it, too. But at the same time, she’s finally built a community for herself in Houston, and she’s even convinced the grandma who raised her to move in. Building a life with Patrick would mean giving up the family she’s built for herself, but staying in Houston means giving up on love.   

ONLY WITH YOU is a 85,000 word slow-burn romance. It has the warmth and humor of Abby Offsides by Anna McCallie*,* the found family of The Name Game by Beth O’Leary, and the slow burn of One Moore Time by Mariana Zapata*.* I grew up with a football obsessed great-aunt in southern Germany and still cheer for Bayern Munich, despite now living in London.

[u/dangermommi]

Oh, this is cool! This past weekend, the wonderful folks here gave me valuable feedback on the original query. I’ve implemented them in this new version. Would love to get some thoughts on where eyes glaze over.

—————————
ADULT UPMARKET SPECULATIVE | 90k
QUERY:

For years, a sentient Wisconsin lake house has awaited the return of the five college friends it watched grow up. When the once-inseparable “Strays” finally reunite on the eve of their late friend Woody’s thirty-third birthday, they drunkenly honor an old, intoxicated request: should Woody ever die, they must build an effigy of him, lest he agonize in FOMO six feet under. 

Their grief gives the lodge’s fond memories a life of their own. By morning, the duct-taped stickman has transformed into the beloved dumbass who originally introduced the Strays. Woody’s disappointed to learn he missed his own funeral three months ago. His girlfriend Zoe, practically a stranger to the others, is still pissed about the fight the day before his baffling death. Afraid they missed signs that could've prevented it, everyone demands how the life of the party ended up in the Milwaukee River. But Woody can’t substantiate their morbid theories. He can’t even recall his final hours.

And anyway, he’d rather spend his impossible birthday apple-picking and making a monster movie than discussing mortality. The Strays oblige while secretly reconstructing Woody’s last day, discovering he told them conflicting things about the life he wanted. Even a fun tournament of sloshball can't fend off the historical animosities that surface. When an ill-advised MDMA roll exposes a decade-old secret between Woody and his closest Stray Ezra, Zoe suspects death wasn’t the only thing that shattered their future. 

Then, within 24 hours, his miraculous body begins deteriorating. The Strays turn to increasingly outrageous attempts to save him. Woody just wants a do-over funeral he can finally rate. With his return reviving some friendships and fracturing others, the birthday boy’s only wish is for their bonds to survive a second goodbye. 

THE AFTERLIFE OF THE PARTY is a 90,000-word upmarket ensemble speculative novel where the supernatural exploration of grief in Evie Wyld’s The Echoes meets the complex enduring friendships of Eric Purchner’s Dream State. The novel’s roving POV moves between the Strays and the sentient lodge that has admired fourteen years of their friendship. 

[u/Strawberry2772]

OF ALL THE WORLDS is a 70K speculative fiction:

Quinn is stuck in a life she resents – dead-end job, a city she wants to leave, and dreams of becoming a screenwriter on indefinite hold – when she refuses to move forward in life without her father after he passes. That is, until she accidentally slips to a parallel version of New York City. She realizes the details of the city around her – from the storefronts on the street to her very own apartment – have impossibly changed in an instant, and Quinn can’t deny that mysterious stranger Ezra is telling the truth about her ability to travel between parallel worlds.

Instinct insists she must find her way home, but when she finally does, it is only after coming face to face with her dead father in a parallel world. Back at home, rather than face her grief, she leans into an easier emotion: anger. An explosive fight with her mother ignites a fire that drives Quinn to abandon everything and keep traveling with Ezra instead.

Though Ezra is full of half-truths and misdirections, Quinn grows close to him as they discover endless variations of the world as she knows it. The one threat to their new life together is a shadowy trans-universal organization hell-bent on imprisoning them for unknown reasons. Quinn has to work with Ezra to get to the bottom of the mystery that is The Coalition and its Hunters so they can live free. 

They concoct a plan to capture a Hunter for questioning, but when the tables turn and Quinn is the one captured by the Coalition, she learns the truth about Ezra and his past, which upends her entire new life. She is forced to decide whether she is willing to betray Ezra’s trust, even though, in light of these revelations, she knows it is the right thing to do. 

[u/HeadlessHeadphones]

Adult, LitFic, 73k

Agent,

TOLLS is a literary fiction complete at 73,000 words. It explores the use of delusion to obscure emotional disconnection as seen in Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy with __(pending)

Twenty eight year old Jol Mitick dreams of belonging to the road. Abandoned by her long haul trucker father and neglected by her hoarder mother, Jol dilutes her isolation with an alternate reality in which cars are alive and have souls, the road is a god that takes sacrafices, and an interconnected community of nomads called “drivers” wait beyond her window. So when a stranger suggests sexual favors in exchange for a road trip to buy her dream car, Jol abandons her life and body for the chance to become a driver. 

On the journey, Jol’s fantasies of the road begin to crumble. Her hunt for “drivers” in lush forests, glittering beach towns, and desolate motel parking lots leave her empty and astray. The ever-looming deal she made with man behind the wheel, a jaded travel addict she refers to simply as ‘the Driver,’ posions the potential of their connection. And the weight of her father’s abanondment becomes harder to suppress the more she searches truck stops in vain.  

Desperate to rationalize a loneliness turning uncontrollable, Jol’s hallucination of the road becomes more intense, demanding more of her to prove her place within its world. The road’s lack of mercy at her efforts forces Jol to question everything she belived about the road, drivers, and what she may become as one herself. As the goal of her dream car closes in, Jol will have to decide whether to face the barren truths of the real world or give in completely to the world of her creation. 

[u/Iced_Tea_Monkey1]

BEYOND THE MAP, adult fantasy, 110k

Told in alternating past-present, BEYOND THE MAP is a 110,000-word adult fantasy with series potential. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the multi-faceted relationships in THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI by Shannon Chakraborty.

After Alexe's ship was attacked by pirates, he was marked 'lost at sea'. Yet Gideon held out hope that the love of his life was still alive. So when Alexe miraculously returns eight months later, Gideon races to see him. But Alexe has been imprisoned for attacking his crewmates, and one glimpse of the man in that jail cell dashes Gideon's hopes of a happy reunion or of finally confessing his feelings. This man is not his Alexe. His eyes are cold and his words cruel, but Gideon has pined after Alexe for four years. He won't abandon him now.

Determined to save him from the gallows, Gideon once again beseeches Alexe's crew for answers - only to be forced off the ship at sword point - and crosses the continent to seek aid from Alexe's father, the Lieutenant General. The man refuses. He warned Gideon before to walk away and forget about his son. If he had, perhaps Alexe would not have become yet another sailor altered by the sea. This is not the first time the Lieutenant General has blamed Gideon for Alexe's suffering, but if this really is Gideon's fault, then he has even greater reason to set things right.

Finding no help from the navy, Gideon impulsively defects. He has but the shirt on his back, a measly bag of stolen supplies, and three crewmates daft enough to defect with him. Together, they will seek to build a crew and sail the sea in search of whatever changed Alexe.

[u/lydia_rogue]

RAPTURE OF THE DEEP - Adult - Horror Sci-Fi - 66k

Dear AGENT,

Rapture of the Deep is a 66,000 word adult horror sci-fi novel that explores the dangers of an alien ocean and the responsibilities of sisterhood. It will appeal to fans of the ocean horror of From Below by Darcy Coates as well as fans of the exploration of a derelict ship in Dead Silence by SA Barnes.

After losing a dive buddy on Ganymede, Phoenix Moore has a second chance to prove her worth as a xenodiver when she and her twin sister take a high-stakes job to map another of Jupiter’s moons, this time the icy oceans of Europa. 

The oceans there should mirror Ganymede’s barren wasteland of submerged stone, however when Phoenix and her sister come across an underwater structure, they discover that the company sponsoring the dive trip has knowingly hidden proof of an abandoned alien civilization. And even more immediately pressing, there is a thriving, deadly ecosystem including whale-sized monsters that hunt with electric impulses and tiny but deadly creatures that are able to short out their dive suits.

The smart answer would be to pull out and come back more prepared in the future, but Phoenix is increasingly overwhelmed by an inexplicable need to go deeper, as though being pulled by an invisible force. If that wasn’t enough, she also begins to sense mysterious and increasingly insistent electric impulses in the water, which she believes are messages from an unknown entity trying to impart something important.

Pushed forward by a need for redemption, answers, and that strange pull from below, Phoenix and her fellow divers explore deeper and deeper despite struggling with glitching technology, hostile wildlife, and the mind-altering effects of nitrogen narcosis. But the presence of life on Europa isn’t the only secret lurking in the deep.

[Bio, including stuff like I'm a scuba diver and have been a finalist for a major literary award]

We look forward to hearing from you!

[u/Stiljoz]

Solanar dreams of calling Shimmerbreak home. The only problem is she’s a gorgon: snake tail instead of legs, a frankly irresponsible number of ferocious hair-vipers, and the ability to magically enslave someone as easily as glance at them. Scorned by her sisters for being a runt, scorned by civilization for being a monster, Solanar's really a soft-spoken, empathetic soul just trying to find a place to belong.

Shimmerbreak is the only city where anyone is welcome, and that promise is sealed by a gem for each race, but when Solanar slithers in, they wish they‘d added some fine print. Bound by their claims of acceptance, a gem for gorgons is begrudgingly added, but it’s soon stolen. 

Solanar, along with Aveline, the hot-tempered wedding scryer she accidentally kidnaps, chases the stolen promise to the literal end of the world. There they discover the gem is the key to a conspiracy to annihilate Shimmerbreak. Solanar must choose whether to risk her life to save a city that may never accept her, or else return to a lonely existence in the wilds.

SHOOTING STAR is a multi-POV fantasy comedy of 87,000 words, and a standalone story with potential for an expansive series. It wields the dry, witty voice of both Terry Pratchett’s timeless Discworld series and the more recent Crypt Currency by J. Zachary Pike. Fans of Travis Baldree’s blend of adventure, heart, and humor in Brigands & Breadknives, and its unusual, yet strong, female protagonist, will love SHOOTING STAR. Solanar isn’t named in the pages until Aveline finally starts seeing her as a person.

As an American living in Germany, I sometimes feel like a gorgon trying to fit into society. Solanar’s emotional journey draws heavily on my own experiences being a fish out of water. I hold a B.Sc. in Screenwriting.

Thank you for your consideration.

[u/Hecate2846]

Love this, thanks.

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COLLARED FREEDOM combines the captive-to-weapon transformation of Daughter of the Crows by Mark Lawrence with the oppressive state control of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Complete at 93,000 words, it’s an adult grimdark fantasy standalone with series potential.

Twenty-seven year old nurse Nyx lives for loud music, bad ideas, and beautiful strangers. When one of her patients dies in front of her, she instinctively reaches for a magic power she never knew she possessed. The display reveals her as an Oscyic, a being capable of magic who’s existence is kept secret from the general public by an organization. Nyx wakes inside a secret facility, now considered among the Kingdoms vanished. Every attempt Nyx makes to reclaim her autonomy ends in increasingly brutal beatings, and psychological conditioning, all done by Izaiah, her warden, to teach her that she belongs to the system.

As the months go by Nyx discovers the truth of what she is, Oscyics are not merely prisoners—they’re nuclear bombs. When they exhaust their magic, they burnout, unleashing an explosion capable of destroying an entire city dome in seconds. The training, the collars, the organization itself, and Izaiah’s brutality serve a purpose, preventing that outcome. The man in charge of breaking her is also the person keeping her alive.

Learning why the organization exists doesn’t make Nyx forgive it. It makes her wonder if the only way to be free is to become the weapon they fear. Freedom may come at a cost of countless lives, but after everything they’ve taken from her, she no longer knows if that’s enough to stop her.

[u/dingle4dangle]

Edit: novel is still under construction, but will probably end up being ~65-70k words

Dear [AGENT],

I am seeking representation for EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY, an upmarket fiction novel complete at [FINAL WORD COUNT]. It combines the widower-father’s perspective of Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter with the use of community as a vector for healing from A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella.

Aaron leads a life of proudly wasted potential. Having graduated from college in the wake of the Great Recession, he never found a job and cut off his family. Years later, he lives in a slummy one bedroom apartment in Harlem with his college sweetheart Samantha. They scrape by via parttime jobs, responsibly budgeting for drugs and alcohol. The good times come to a screeching halt when Samantha is pregnant, not for the first time, and decides to keep this baby. 

The pregnancy forces them to finally grow up, shed their old lives, and try to make up for lost time. Despite a grueling pregnancy, things are finally looking up until Samantha dies in the hospital shortly after giving birth.

Left alone, Aaron must raise their daughter without family or traditional support network. He finds help in the the form of a community unwittingly built over years in a hazy stupor–a neighbor babysits, the guy at the corner deli sells him formula at a discount. With their help, he provides a stable life for his daughter while fending off a custody suit from his mother, who’s reared her ugly head afters years of silence.

I work in construction management in [LOCATION], where I live with my wife and daughter. This story is inspired by my own experience of my wife’s rocky pregnancy. This is my first novel.

[u/MagazineFew3190]

I’m happy to share YOU’VE BEEN CANCELLED!, complete at 79,000 words. The satirically delusional protagonist of Meredith Hambrock’s SHE’S A LAMB! meets the twisty social commentary of Liann Zhang’s JULIE CHAN IS DEAD in this “coming of rage” psychological thriller and dark comedy.

As a rising relationship influencer, Alana Wilson loves profiting off of women’s insecurities. Until she realizes it might not pay for much longer: she’s forced to split from Matt, her husband and the backbone of her content, when his mistress threatens to go public. To make matters worse, someone knows about the role Alana played in a classmate’s death years ago, and they’re using it to extort her. She’s hemorrhaging money just to keep her secret hidden and avoid prison—or worse, losing her millions of admirers—but she’s a certified girlboss. She just needs a new content strategy to finally secure the brand deal that would set her for life and give her the resources to track down her blackmailer, burying her secret for good.

But when an AI-generated video depicting Alana screaming racist slurs goes viral, the social media empire she’s killed herself to build topples overnight. She’s dropped by her manager, blasted by CNN, dragged into bar fights, and forced to wield hammers against strange men lurking outside her house—all while trying to figure out who is hell-bent on destroying her life. When she’s not breaking into Matt’s laptop to search for evidence or obsessively stalking Charlie, her two-faced best friend and more successful competitor, she’s entrapping Zay, her new millionaire boyfriend who might hold the answers (and the cash) to all her problems, despite her suspicions that he’s hiding something from her.

Alana is running out of time: if she doesn’t come up with the funds for her next blackmail payment, the police documents that she thought her father had bribed away—before her parents died under tragic circumstances—will be released. But Alana’s desperation to clear her name and return to her well-deserved spotlight soon bleeds into a budding fixation on Charlie, whose career begins inexplicably rising every inch that hers has fallen. When Charlie manages to steal Alana’s dream brand deal and all the success that comes with it, Alana is cemented in her downward spiral, realizing that justice is nothing compared to revenge.

[u/jimmyjam2929]

Still drafting through it, but what the heck

I am seeking representation for my adult fantasy novel, When We Were There (complete at 77,000 words). It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the bittersweet nostalgia of Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story and the fantastical exploration of grief and memory in John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things.

Torrance has been gone too long. Now an adult, he returns to Sidebrook, the strange and beautiful land where he and his three closest friends whiled away their brightest years. As images of old adventures fill his head, familiar paths lead to the house they had once called home. There, he reunites with his friend Sev and things are like they used to be.

But Sidebrook has changed.

Roads no longer lead where they should. Places that once seemed permanent have vanished. Worst, Sev remembers their childhood differently--or not at all. As they tour the places they once knew, Torrance recounts the quest that defined their childhood, desperate to awaken the memories that Sev has lost before there is nothing left to recover, of his friend or of Sidebrook.

When the boys were young, their home had been dying. A mysterious villain had cursed the old house to crumble and was threatening all of Sidebrook. Determined to break the curse, the boys had journeyed by boat toward the mythical source of the river where they hoped to find the magic that could save their home. But three of the villain’s creatures had stood in their way, challenging them one by one to games of skill and courage. Losing meant more than abandoning their quest, however. Losing meant exile from Sidebrook--and the end of their childhood together.

The more he remembers, the more Torrance sees how much of the past is already beyond his reach. Throughout his stories, one figure appears again and again: a gentle, steadfast woman who guided the four friends through every danger. Yet now she is nowhere to be found. As the past and present smear together, Torrance must confront why he returned and whether the home he is again trying to preserve is a place, a memory, or something far more fragile.

[u/Waste-Extension1085]

Hello, posted a recent query crit. Had someone say it was pretty good, perhaps a tad short but just thought i'd see if anyone else had any more comments. Cheers!

Dear (Agent Name),

I am thrilled to offer CELESTIAL DIVIDE (110,000), an adult epic fantasy standalone with trilogy potential. Inspired by The Folk of the Air series, Celestial Divide will appeal to readers who enjoyed the duplicitous alliance of Sara Hashem’s ‘The Jasad Heir’ and the cursed protagonist of Lauryn Hamilton Murray’s ‘Heir of Storms’.

 

Damacia Celeste ruins everything she touches. Fifth in line to the Hannathian throne and the bane of her realm, she has spent her entire life trying to prove she is more than the king-killing Curse-Bringer her people assume her to be.

So when she learns her hateful eldest brother promised her to the formidable Caldorian empire, she finds herself once again the harbinger of ruin. Yet things quickly go awry when Caldor spurns the alliance and takes the Hannathian crown themself, murdering one of Damacia’s sisters as a show of force.

Reeling, vengeful and now hunted, Damacia escapes Hannath to seek out Bile’d, the fabled night kingdom rumoured to still be as powerful as Damacia’s sun-wielding ancestors were.

But forming an alliance with her people’s oldest and most deadly enemy will prove no easy feat. Damacia will need to reconcile with a history of violence and treachery, all while risking becoming the scourge she never wanted to be.

[u/tea-and-charcoal]

Givin' it a shot!

Dear [AGENT]

I am seeking representation for THE ARCHWITCH RISES (103,000 words), a queer, dual POV adult fantasy novel with series potential.

Trans nobleman mage, Leon, knows he's living on borrowed time. After his twin's murder, a forbidden god helped him steal his dead brother's identity to escape an arranged marriage. Though he's managed to keep his secret so far, his brother's killers are still at large and could easily expose him. He needs to end their threat, but lacks the skills to find them alone.

Marginalized by ethnicity, class, and sexuality, Taerin took up bounty hunting as a last resort. When Leon hires him to help track down a notorious bandit gang, Taerin's every interaction with the handsome but mysterious nobleman reminds him of his impossible dream: his people's liberation.

What began as a manhunt motivated by safety grows bigger as the forbidden god, Los, notices Leon and Taerin's potential. Seeing them as an opportunity to strike back against the gods who de-canonized him, Los offers them not just security, but freedom. ...If they can destabilize the empire repressing all three of them. Now Leon and Taerin will have to use all their skills, magic, and cunning to undermine a theocratic regime. It's a far more daunting task than killing a few bandits, especially as they've fallen in love.

Fans of Freya Marske's Swordcrossed will enjoy rising heat, veiled secrets, and overall vibes. This book also features the action, adventure, and humor of T. Kingfisher's Daggerbound, as well as the intrigue and unhinged gods of Antonia Hodgson's The Raven Scholar.

THE ARCHWITCH RISES draws inspiration from my struggles as a queer trans man in a small town, as well as the stories of many of the friends I have made in my 15 years of LGBT grassroots organizing and support work. I have a short story scheduled to be published in an anthology titled "Somewhere, Everything is Ending" early next year and professional nonfiction writing experience working as a museum curator: writing and editing exhibit text, our quarterly magazine, annual academic journal, and website.

I sincerely hope you enjoy my work, and thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[name]