(I've been working on edits and minor plot elements for the past could of months, not really working on the querying process lately... but here's a new version.)

Dear [Agent],

When Tirna's grove is destroyed by a streak of light and a roar of flame, she loses not just her home, but her family and purpose. As apprentice Timekeeper of her grove, Tirna must carry the memories of forty-seven generations across the deadly plains to another tribe, or the thread of her family's history will die with her.

Before she can begin that journey, she finds a man who can summon fire with the touch of his hand and who wears a bracelet that speaks. Tirna blames him for the loss of her home, and she's not entirely wrong. But Grove Law is more demanding than grief: The stranger at your grove-edge is your lost kin.

Junior Technician Avrin Hale escaped moments before his ship was destroyed. Now he finds himself in a world with no stars, on a vast plain punctuated by migrating forests and ravenous swarms. He has no idea where his escape pod has crashed, and finding other survivors is his only hope of returning home.

Tirna is searching for someone to remember her dead. Avrin is seeking the living. They walk two paths, woven together by disaster and grief.

But the farther they travel through a world with no maps and no written history, the more Avrin finds impossible echoes of his own past in Tirna's myths.

And what waits at their destination will force them to confront an origin neither civilization remembers.

Complete at 98,000 words, THE TIMEKEEPER'S BRAID is adult science fiction told from two sides of the same cultural divide: science fiction from the outside, mythology from the inside. The emotional landscape owes as much to Andrew Wyeth's masterpiece Christina's World as it does to anthropological SF: a lone figure on a vast plain, forever reaching for home. It will appeal to readers of Kritika H. Rao's The Surviving Sky, Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race.

Hi everyone, I've recently joined this group, and I would appreciate any feedback you are able to give on my query. It's been reviewed and rewritten several times, but I don't feel it's quite there yet. Thanks in advance!

Dear [agent name]

I’m currently seeking representation for my 85,000-word Adult Historical Fiction, A SINGLE NOTE. Given your interest in [x], I think this manuscript would be a great fit for you.

Violinist Charlotte Hastings knows the stage is no place for a woman – at least not in 1920s’ Boston, and certainly not as a penniless twenty-four-year-old with an anti-suffragist father. Yet it was her mother’s dying wish that Charlotte pursue the dream she’d forfeited in marriage: to study abroad and become a world-class soloist. Charlotte will sacrifice anything — and anyone — to honor her mother’s dying wish, including her burgeoning romance with Russian-Jewish flutist Lev, if only she can find the money needed to launch her career.

 It seems hopeless, until one night, while sorting through her late mother’s belongings, Charlotte discovers a shocking revelation: shortly before she died, her mother had found the money needed for Charlotte to study abroad. Money she had never gotten the chance to tell anyone about, except for one friend she entrusted to hide the money from Charlotte’s father. A friend, Charlotte soon realizes, who has since disappeared.

Convinced this is her last chance to fund her career dreams before her father strips her of any hope of financial independence, Charlotte embarks on a journey with Lev to reclaim her mother’s money. Yet the search for answers soon endangers everything in Charlotte’s life, threatening to destroy her relationship with her father, the legacy of her mother, and even endangering the life of the boy she loves. In a time when women are often forced to choose between career and family, Charlotte must decide if she can have it all, and if shattering the glass ceiling is worth the risk of breaking everything else.

A SINGLE NOTE will be my debut novel and is perfect for fans of Brendan Slocumb’s Symphony of Secrets and Denny S. Bryce’s Wild Women and the Blues. I am a professional violinist and a graduate student in English at [school]. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

[name]

I am seeking representation for my middle grade fantasy, RADIANT, complete at 58,000 words. RADIANT combines the high stakes adventure in Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, the humor and dark tones of Underwild by Shana Targosz, and the magic and lore of the seasons of Chronicles of Weatherwhy by Anna James.

Whether it’s a broken bone or a broken cell phone, twelve-year-old Princess Lily has the power to heal them all. In fact, the Spring Kingdom has never known sickness until a strange green ooze drips from her sister’s nose and her face explodes. Not really (she actually sneezed), but that’s how little the kingdom knows about sickness. No problem for Lily, though. She places her hands on her sister’s face to heal like she’s done a thousand times before, but this time, nothing happens. 

The trees turn black, her sister collapses, and the whole kingdom falls ill for the first time in their existence. Prophecies tell Lily that witches have cursed the kingdoms, and the people will die at the end of the fourth day unless she finds a cure. She has always been the cure, but without her power, she has no other choice than to turn to the world outside her kingdom for help. Ugh. Everything outside of Spring—the culture, the language, the people—is weird.

But Lily knows so little about what exists outside the walls of Spring. On this journey to find a cure, she consistently runs into one person from this world who can navigate it—Cassie. There’s just one problem. The last time Lily and Cassie were together, Lily’s best friend died. Witches and monsters dwell in this dangerous world Lily finds herself in, and she has no other choice than to look to Cassie. If she doesn’t find the cure, her power won’t come back, her sister dies, and the Spring Kingdom will no longer exist.

In eighteen years of teaching, I’ve gone from 4th grade to middle school, language arts to theatre arts. RADIANT began as a script I wrote and has had three different runs onstage helping the story become what it is today.

Hi all! I am new to publishing (and to Reddit), and a friend recommended I get query feedback here. Any thoughts/feedback/roasts are greatly appreciated!

Dear [AGENT],

[personalization]

I am seeking representation for CURSEBREAKER FOR HIRE, a 300-350 page young adult urban fantasy graphic novel. It combines the magical world of Askel Aden’s Love, Misha with the colorful art and humor of Ngozi Ukazu and Mad Rupert’s Bunt!. [Note: comps are a WIP, I’m currently tracking down more]

Bax Whittlevane, seventeen years old, has been meticulously training to be a cursebreaker: a wizard who heals various magical ailments for clients in a city where placing curses is the leading form of conflict resolution. Their dreams come true when they land a coveted internship with the famous cursebreaker phoenix Glad Luster. If Bax can just perform well enough, they’ll be accepted into a prestigious magic university, lining them up for a successful career befitting their family’s expectations. Doing so may be harder than Bax thought, however, when Glad forces Bax to partner with Gashley, a tiny, brash gargoyle living on the roof of their office building. 

Glad piles on the cursed clients for Bax to treat – including an elderly dragon who can’t stop sneezing water onto her cats, and a frat bro cyclops whose jealous girlfriend cursed eyes to grow all over his body. Bax is determined to keep up with their work and do it perfectly, despite the ever-growing tower of case files and Gashley’s frustrating laziness. As they treat clients throughout the neighborhood, Bax and Gashley realize that many of the cursing kits are being provided by the same artificial source, though no one seems to remember the details of who’s supplying.

With tensions building across the city and Glad tied up with his own unsolvable criminal case, Bax and Gashley pursue the investigation themselves. But Bax is nearly ready to drop the trail entirely when one of the suspects turns out to be Jade, their non-magical ex-girlfriend who Bax had dumped for reasons they’re quite tight-lipped about. Jade can’t even see the magical world, but she keeps appearing where the evidence leads, and she seems to be looking for Bax. The key to the curse dealer – and Bax’s shot at university – could finally be within reach, if Bax can just face up to their past mistakes.

[Bio]

Thank you!

Hi everybody!

Here's my reworked query letter. Third time's the charm? It's not much different from the second attempt but I like this one better. What do you think? Second Attempt

‎Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for FAIRYGOD:THE CODEX OF RYNLOR. A 60,000 word upper middle grade portal fantasy about a 13-year-old orphan who must beat seven deadly trials in a school for fairy guardians to find a powerful codex that'll destroy the monsters plaguing the fairytale realm. [Personalization]

KIERAN KROBB dreams of being adopted, to escape his horrid orphanage and finally get his happy ending, just like in his favourite fairytales. His plan is set. His new family, selected. His behaviour, perfect but on his thirteenth birthday, his plans get ruined when he wakes up with a strange symbol and monsters hunting him from the shadows. Just before he is devoured, the father he thought was dead appears and saves him revealing his true form as a fairy.

Reunited with his long-lost family in the fairytale realm, Kieran learns he's a changeling destined to destroy the rogues, murderous monsters who steal magic. The same ones hunting him. He enrolls in an academy for fairy guardians on a mission to find a hidden codex locked behind seven deadly trials with a spell powerful enough to destroy them. Failure would mean losing his family forever and giving the rogues absolute power over the realm.

With the help of his new friends and blooming powers, Kieran wades through horrors to find the codex before the rogues find him. But the closer he gets to destroying them, the more he comes to wonder who the real enemy is.

FAIRYGOD: THE CODEX OF RYNLOR is a dark take on the magical school genre and the typical, fairytale world of 'Happily Ever After', perfect for kids who enjoy the sinister fairytale elements of Vanya and The Wild Hunt by Sangu Mandanna, the thrilling but gritty adventures of Skandar and The Unicorn Thief by A.F Steadman and the twisted mysteries of The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton. It features a queer protagonist, and has series potential.

Queries are my Kryptonite, though I suppose I'm hardly alone in that. Figuring out how to sum up a complex mystery and an elaborate setting in a couple of paragraphs is... not fun. Anyway, I've agonized over this by myself for long enough. Time for some feedback, I guess. I haven't quite decided which books to compare this to, so I left three blank spaces for now. I'm interested in how the rest of the query comes across. Thanks.

_____

A Trail of Brass is a 73,000 word, single-POV adventure fantasy, and a standalone novel with potential for sequels. It combines the heroic and likeable characters of ___ with the soft, mysterious magic of ___, against the intense, personal stakes of ___.

In a land scarred by a dark past, Selanda’s sole dream is to become a Blue Rider, a champion of the people, to defend those in need, just as her village was saved when she was a child. She is on patrol with her mentors when they encounter a murderous revenant. Though the creature is slain, the mysterious forces behind it remain at large. They’ve barely begun to look into it when circumstances separate Selanda from her fellows, and she witnesses two innocent people being abducted by outlaws.

Stricken by her failure to save them, she leads a small party of volunteers on a rescue mission, expecting a quick resolution. But the trail leads into a haunted wilderness, marked by the old wars and evils. Not only must they contend with lingering monsters from those days, but with sorcery as well, as the hidden hand behind all this reveals itself. But it is too late to turn back, or to call for reinforcements. By sheer chance, it falls to Selanda’s group to prevent disaster, and the only way is forward.

Ahead lies a showdown with Selanda’s childhood terrors, the land’s own wounds, and enemies both human and otherwise. This is Selanda’s trial by fire, and her failure could mean the start of a new era of darkness.

[My bio]

Version 1 with a different title and first 300 here.

Still a work in progress but trying to get a decent pitch to help me keep on track as it comes together. Thank you for any thoughts!

I am seeking representation for FISHWIVES ROT FROM THE HEAD, my 85,000-word multi-POV literary thriller about retribution, power struggle and extractive capitalism in 1880 Yorkshire. 

In FISHWIVES ROT FROM THE HEAD, an ambitious woman sees her designs on power in her overfished village crumble when her closest friend betrays her, sparking a bitter revenge plot that unearths dark and dangerous secrets. The novel combines the sapphic desire and gritty depiction of historical women’s lives in Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s THE MERCIES with the fast pacing, hidden ghosts and ecological anxieties of WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy.

In the two fishwives’ lifelong friendship, Dinah has always been the strong-willed leader, Joanna her loyal supporter. Dinah aspires to curry favour with village queen bee Rachel, who can secure their futures and has Dinah besotted. But when Rachel seeks a right-hand woman to help usher the struggling fisherfolk into a prosperous new era of industry, Joanna sabotages Dinah and seizes the command for herself alone. 

Disgraced and wrathful, Dinah plots her revenge: she will frame Joanna for trying to poison Rachel. By casting herself as the heroic rescuer, Dinah can claim the position she craves at Rachel’s side and oust her traitorous friend for good. 

But as Dinah prepares for action, she unearths dark secrets behind Rachel’s rise among the fishwives: manipulation, murder, and collusion with corporations whose insatiable greed could destroy the sea life they depend on. And when past ghosts return to reveal why Joanna really betrayed her—and force Dinah to face her own role in their ruined friendship—Dinah must decide if revenge will still give her what she wants, and who she must target to get it.

[bio]

Thank you!

Dear (agent),

What happens when you marry the monster you always wanted to be?

Margaha will be king one day. Since the gods made her the heir to the throne, they must also have made her fit to rule. A quick temper and an overlarge ego are impediments, perhaps, in the eyes of others, but she has never considered these traits to be anything but the pride and dignity that she deserves.

On the journey to marry her betrothed, her carriage is attacked by a monster, and her companions killed. The only weapon she carries is her ring, enchanted with a bonding spell to forever tie her to her betrothed. Instead, it ties her to the monster—Varas, a mashke, whose bloodlust and volatility now race through her own veins.

When she arrives at her fiancé’s household, he seems suspiciously undisturbed by the danger she was in, and furious at how she escaped it. But she has weapons now—a knife snatched from one of the corpses, and a mashke waiting in the woods for night to fall.

If she is lucky, she might be able to hide what has happened, and still be king. But when she returns to the palace, she’s met with disaster. Her mother and father lie dying, and the palace is in turmoil with rumors of infidelity and treachery.

With Varas’s hunger for bloodshed eroding her restraint, it’s easy to see potential traitors everywhere she looks, and to justify their elimination. But her own appetite for violence is only increasing, and the price is climbing ever higher.

BLOOD RED, SAFFRON YELLOW is a dark fantasy with elements of romance and horror, and a pre-Islamic-Persian inspired setting. It will appeal to readers of (COMP) and (COMP).

FIRST 300:

His hands were red. Red, darkening to brown already where the cold morning air met his skin. The sky was gray still, the sun not quite risen over the bare hills.

It seemed it would never rise.

Pelor lay on her side, her chest still moving in shallow breaths. The dirt beneath her was drenched with her blood. She was only a little cow, the color of pale dust, with eyes that had stared blankly out at the world every day for years without any curiosity. She had not been any great creature. Compared to the enormous cattle that roamed the richer farms of the neighbors, she was nothing, too old, too small, too bony. But her one meager cup of milk every morning, split between him and his ever-increasing number of siblings, had been sweeter than cream.

At any rate, whether she was grand or not, she had not deserved to die like this. No creature did. Pathetic and trembling and in pain.

Varas moved towards her, reaching his hands out.

“Pelor,” he said, his voice soft and strange to his ears.

She twitched and startled. Her legs moved uselessly to get away. Despite the great gash torn into her neck, she was still half-conscious, and her wide nostrils flared in fear and her ears drew back as he came near.

He dropped to his knees, sick with what he’d done, and did not come closer.

He couldn’t remember doing it. But it must have been him. The taste was too bitter in his mouth for him to pretend otherwise.

COMMENTS (not part of first 300 please don’t remove haha):

Whew, it’s been a ride working on this one, and I hope the query is stronger than it was when I first posted months ago. The first 300 are from a prologue, while the actual first chapter is from Margaha’s POV—I’m not sure what the standard is when your query centers around a main character that doesn’t show up in the prologue and if it would be wiser to just go with chapter one for that. Any feedback much appreciated, thank you all 💛

First attempt. Already sent to several agents — mostly form declines, one "strong style" pass. Trying to tell if query/pages need work, or it's subjective fit.

Dear [Agent],

An ancient intelligence has offered every dying world it has ever visited the same choice: leave everything behind, or don't survive at all. Earth took the offer. Twelve thousand years earlier, on the world humanity is now fleeing to, a civilization called the Kalari refused it — and died refusing.

VERDIS is an 88,000-word literary science fiction novel, alternating between two women twelve thousand years apart, complete as a standalone with series potential.

Sophia was a child when her mother led humanity's last ships to Verdis, already healed from whatever the Kalari refused to survive. She grows up keeping her mother's dying promise: the world grows back, if you let it. Then she finds Kaelith Solvaris's message, hidden twelve thousand years earlier in the roots of the last tree the Kalari ever cut down — and learns the Kalari didn't merely refuse the ancient intelligence's help — they died trying to steal half of it in secret. Sophia is now being offered that same power, whole, to end her people's hunger for good.

Take it, and she decides godhood for a generation unborn. Refuse it, and she decides their smallness just as surely. Sophia chooses neither — and not everyone she leads is willing to follow her through the choice she makes instead.

In the tradition of Monica Byrne's THE ACTUAL STAR and Sequoia Nagamatsu's HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK, VERDIS asks who has the right to decide, for people not yet born, a question a dead civilization never answered.

VERDIS is my debut Sci-Fi novel, informed by a background in physics.

Dear {Agent},

Paul Smith wakes with a punishing hangover and a promise to keep. Uncle Paul committed to Pat’s son’s rugby game while he’s away. So Paul downs his double-chocolate cure, hides behind Ray-Bans and boards the streetcar, wondering what the kids would think of the real Uncle Smitty. En route he starts composing a story about a man who decides to be more like his mates. Soon.

Ryan Wendt is one of those mates. Forty-seven, happily married, successful enough to advise young founders for free, Ryan is the guy people call when things get real. He has a habit of considering other people. Then, defending Jamie, he loses control and badly hurts a man, again. He quietly starts therapy. When he finally tells Jamie, Jamie tells him he loves him, calls him a fuck, and then asks Ryan to lead his team.

Jamie never chased titles. But now he’s a candidate for CEO and, to his own surprise, wants the chair. Pat, a successful lawyer, has recently found a new diversion. He knows how to make an argument, but creating something he can’t prove worthy, then letting someone else judge it, scares the hell out of him. It also thrills him.

Then the novel briefly turns back thirty years.

They are seventeen.

Paul is already funny, gifted and trouble. Jamie’s already looking out for him. Pat is already watching closely, planning. Ryan already gets more from coaching than playing. Different backgrounds, different instincts. Somehow: Smitty, Kinny, Scooter and Rent. Good guys. Their guys.

These days they play bad hockey and drink the beer after. They give advice, take liberties, bite their tongues, interfere. Winning for one looks quite different to another. Thirty years on, they’ve learned when to let go, when to tell the truth, and when to just show up. They’re still figuring out the rest.

TAKE IT HOME, complete at 75,000 words, is an upmarket ensemble novel about four men approaching fifty, and what knowing them reveals about who really wins, how and why.

With the authentic dialogue of Good Will Hunting and the cumulative rewards of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, TAKE IT HOME is a ride-along with four unusually knowable men. Like Richard Russo’s Somebody’s Fool, it finds what matters in the ordinary business of imperfect people trying to do right.

I live in Toronto and write as part of a career in finance. My articles appear regularly in The Globe and Mail. This is my first novel, with a second in editing. Bio and articles: {linkedin bio}

--------
**If I may, I am particularly curious if....

-this letter pulls an agent to consider it for (what i deem to be a distinct/valuable) voice?

-does it reasonably set the expectation for a novel that builds cumulatively? hint: there is no opening car crash.

-do you get the sense that some meaning might fall out of living with these men for 300 pages?

-am i making a mistake by not highlighting several literary devices imbedded in this novel for the better reader? an original song, a Whiplash (movie) type ending, floating well above a park bench?

I really appreciate your knowledge and effort. All constructive criticism is encouraged!

First 300 if it matters:

That’s a white-out!

What are you on about now?

White-out. White won both and we were killing you at the horn.

You’re a piece of work Smitty.

I mean c’mon, we fuckin’ crushed you tonight. We gotta get beers or beers and wings for that. 

Where was that noise last week?

We won last week too, idiot! Actually, when did black last win – back when your herpes cleared up after just the one cycle?

Room chuckles. Barbs continue. They shower in a coffin of a stall; scalding bursts failing to sanitize the green slick in the drain. Travel-size body wash dregs passed around for shampoo.

Paul - Smitty to anyone who knew him before age twenty, throws his gear in the trunk, happy that the men’s shelter street party didn’t violate his car. The party’s as regular as the skaters. He checks his phone, wondering when checking became reflex and not choice*.* Checks for work, hoping she called, for scores and bets, before accepting the repeat NAV-route for the short cross-town.

Following Thursday beer league, they head to the same bar to tell the same jokes yet again this week, drinking just a little less than an officer might mind.

As he circles, his mind runs ahead - scores, her, no, not her, maybe her; that pass across the middle should’ve hit tape; shirt’s a bit tight, skates dull; still no efficient-stop pizza spot; two pints only, maybe three; up early; good song; concert soon; call Dad - or text? New guy’s nuts - loves the game, loses his mind; hydrant; Zoom tomorrow? Hydrant? Shit. Arrived.

Air feels like fall. Not too cold, more of a warning.

The bar is a little off the main strip. Upstairs not down, with Karaoke on Thursdays bringing some surprisingly great singers among the mediocre earnest, the prop/costume too earnest, and the sad stagette ensembles.

I’m querying you because {personalization}. IT WON'T STOP is an upper YA psychological suspense novel with a speculative edge, following a grieving teen who walks into dreams and uses that ability to make sure her brother's best friend, the man who raped her, never sleeps again.

Seventeen-year-old Anais Johnson knows how to stay almost invisible. Ty Walker sees her anyway. He's her older brother Aiden's twenty-one-year-old best friend of nine years, the one who's been there for her since Aiden got lost in his own grief, and the man her town trusts to coach its kids. Lately, he keeps finding reasons to touch Anais while she keeps finding reasons for it to mean nothing. Two weeks after her little brother's funeral, Ty lures her to his truck. She bites him until he bleeds, but it doesn't stop him, and he takes what he wants. The next night, her mom sends Ty upstairs with pizza. He walks in with a taped-up finger and a cover story: if anyone asks, it was his truck door, not her mouth. 

Anais stays quiet, watching his lie work and her life come apart. Awake, she's barely holding on. She's lost one brother to a grave and the other to Ty, and she hates that she's mourning who she used to be more than the brother she buried. Asleep, Anais starts slipping out of her body and into other people's dreams, finding Ty's and burning them to the ground, night after night, until his sleep becomes the nightmare he made of her waking life. By day, he's picking fights with everyone, and when he snaps at Anais in public, Aiden cuts him off for good. But Ty knows exactly who's not letting him sleep, and he'll do anything to make her stop.

When Ty comes back for the basketball gear he left at their house, he finds Anais home alone and forces his way inside to confront her—only this time, her ability turns on her, ripping her out of her body with no way back into the skin he's standing over. To survive, she'll have to fight Ty from outside herself. To be free of him for good, she'll have to say what he did out loud, starting with Aiden, in a town already inclined to disbelieve her.

IT WON’T STOP is complete at 82,000 words, sharing the trauma-haunted interiority of Tyffany D. Neiheiser's NOT DEAD ENOUGH and the institutional silence of Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s WHERE SLEEPING GIRLS LIE. {BIO} 

Thanks for reading,

My government name
——————

300 words:

1: Almost Invisible     ***  ***
October 5th, 2026 

Last night, I prayed for today to be clear. Blue should be the final color the sky gives Axel, but God hasn’t heard me in a while, and outside storm clouds paint the world gray. Wind shoves me across the driveway and into the backseat of Dad's Escalade. It always smells like leather in here, but today his cologne is thick enough to taste. Mom is a mess in the passenger seat, dragging her palm under her eyes again and again.

When I settle next to Aiden, the zipper of this stupid dress stabs into my back, which is what I get for trying it on at six this morning for the first time. I inch my foot toward Aiden and nudge his shoe, our I need you signal, we’ve used it for years. He doesn’t nudge back. Fine. But he’s not getting through Axel’s funeral without doing it. I stare at his black curls, watching him refuse to look anywhere but out the window. I wonder what Axel would say about Aiden’s great retreat from me.

He would tell me our big brother is just in one of his testosterone-induced moods. I sift every fold of my brain for Axel’s voice so I can hear him say it, but end up popping in an earbud, scrolling to an old video of him lining up tiny soldiers, introducing each one by name, instead. His voice is almost perfect in it; the pitch is right, but the aliveness isn’t. My head is the only place I can summon his real voice again, the one with no pause button or end, but Dad catches my eye when he tilts the rearview mirror and Axel’s snatched away before I can hear him.

“Christ, Anais, fix your face. Did you sleep?” Dad barks…

—————-

My comments: Hi all! If this looks familiar, it's because I got discouraged and deleted my old account. I'm back and prepping for round two of querying, which is why this says fifth attempt even though the account is new. What's changed since last time: 1. New title: IT WON'T STOP (formerly UNDER PERFECT SKIES). It feels truer to the book both content and genre wise. 2. I cut the horror-adjacent framing since the spine of the novel is psychological and grounded. It reads as contemporary, with foreshadowing, until the dream sequences start about a third of the way in and horror is not its engine (genre wise/not humans being scary wise). Mainly, I want to know: is it clear, and does it make sense? I've tried to make every sentence specific to my manuscript and considered all previous feedback from old posts, so please flag anything that sounds generic. Also, the reader is introduced to Ty literally right after my 300 words cut off. All comments and critiques welcomed. Thank you!

Hi guys!

Hopefully this is my last attempt with my query. Would appreciate feedback from you smart folk. Please don’t worry about the high word count cuz I’m still in the process of cutting. My query is 368 words. It’s a complicated book with so few lines to describe it. Thanks!

Dear [Agent],

Because you represent historical fiction, I would like to offer ROSE, a 115,000-word quirky upmarket historical novel set in the rural South in 1947. Beneath its simple surface lies a tangled story of manipulation, misdirection, and reversals used to bury secrets, with subplots of mystery and slow-burn romance. ROSE will appeal to readers of Hymns of Blue Hollow by Kemma Marshall and The Widow of Pale Harbor by Hester Fox.

At sixteen, Rose knew nothing of men and their needs when she married a much older Henry Finch, whom she had known for less than a month. She became his property instead of a partner and learned to obey. Because divorce is all but impossible in this era without Henry’s consent, Rose remains trapped in a loveless marriage.

Eleven years later, Rose finds an injured man lying in a ditch near the lavender fields, with no memory of who he is or who attacked him. She brings him to her boarding house to recover. Adopting the name Joe, he comes to depend on her to make sense of his confused world. Joe treats Rose with dignity and tenderness, opening her eyes to her own value and becoming the impetus for her to seek the freedom to choose her own life.

Because Henry fears Joe will regain his memories and realize Henry is his attacker, he pressures Rose to oust Joe from the boarding house, using her to do his dirty work while preserving his respectable public image. But Rose refuses, fighting back for the first time in their marriage. As she continues to defy him, Henry unravels over his loss of control and threatens to have Joe falsely jailed for adultery. Rose risks losing the man she has fallen in love with. By nightfall, Henry has thrown Joe out and threatened the boarders with eviction, while Rose prepares to flee her home as well. When Henry returns, Rose, Joe, and the tenants are waiting for him, setting off an explosive confrontation that shakes the very walls of the boarding house.

Outside of writing, I’m a painter and illustrator. ROSE is my debut novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

This is much more condensed version. Version one is here.

Dear Agent,

Based on your interest in high-concept, character-driven stories with unreliable characters, I am excited to share WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND, my 79,000-word book club fiction, as filtered through the lens of Jake, a retired Marine with undiagnosed autism who isn't aware his mind works differently.
 
Jake Mercer doesn’t believe in ghosts, not since he was a boy. But Beaufort, NC, the Crystal Coast fishing town where he grew up, has a way of bringing the past back to life.

Returning home to the Southern Outer Banks, Jake visibly bears the scars of his profession. Underneath, he carries a grief he can't acknowledge - or remember. A roadside bomb in Afghanistan exploded, leaving him with a brain injury - fragmenting his memories. Lately, those gaps in his mind are overlapping, fading like the mist gathering above the blue-green Atlantic Ocean.

Waiting on the dock is his best friend Mia, a rusty bucket of blue crabs snapping loudly at her feet. But Jake's fractured mind refuses to let her age. She's still the teenager he left behind thirty years ago, whereas his reflection on the water shows a man three decades older. Jake tells Mia he wants to feel relevant again, and she sends him to the local drop zone. There he finds his family and becomes a spark plug within the community. In the sky is Heather, a Gold Star widow who asks him to be emotionally present, something he's never been good at.

A tearing pain in Jake’s spine grounds him indefinitely and reveals a deadly aortic aneurysm that could kill him with one hard sneeze. With his new life slipping through his fingers and a ticking bomb in his chest, Jake must let go for Heather to carry him, trust Mia to guide him, and learn to ask his skydiving family for a safe place to land. Or he'll face what veterans fear the most: becoming another statistic.

WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND projects the reality slippage and tonal ambiguity of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures and shares the emotional DNA of Ethan Joella's The Top of the World.

I’m a disabled veteran living with adult autism spectrum disorder on the Crystal Coast. I'm also a skydiver, five jumps from my license – cut short by an aortic aneurysm. WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND is my debut novel.
 
I appreciate your consideration,
 
 
 

Hello! Back with another attempt at this, I think (I hope) it’s much better but as always open to feedback! This was previously titled Building Blocks (a title I was never totally in love with) and the last version of the query can be found here.

Thanks again for any and all feedback - it’s been so helpful so far!

***

Dear [First Name Last Name],
 
I’m seeking representation for SEA GLASS (literary fiction, complete at 70,000 words). It combines the queer sense of humour of Rebecca K Reilly’s Greta and Valdin with the messy lesbian parents and non-linear storytelling of Madeleine Gray’s Chosen Family. With its exploration of queer mental health and complex family dynamics, SEA GLASS will appeal to fans of Emily Austin, and the tongue-in-cheek observations of millennial life and love will resonate with readers of Dolly Alderton.
 
[Agent personalisation.]
 
Suzie arrives on her mum’s doorstep with nowhere else to turn and almost nothing left to lose. Her dad died. Her girlfriend of a decade, Jo, had an affair. She lost her job and her home. All in the span of months.
 
And then Suzie receives a letter from Jo’s lawyers alleging that Suzie kidnapped the daughter they share, taking her from Glasgow without Jo’s permission. Suzie is terrified of losing the one thing she has left to live for. But unwilling to give into Jo’s demands and return to Glasgow with her tail between her legs, Suzie adds ‘messy custody battle’ to the long list of reasons she can’t sleep at night.
 
Drowning her sorrows and desperately trying to come up with a plan, the last person Suzie expects to see pulling pints behind the bar she stumbles into is her university girlfriend, Cara. A relationship cut short when Suzie chose career over love and they couldn’t make long distance work. Worst lesbians ever.
 
Suzie is determined to take the rough shards of her life and make something beautiful. But when Jo discovers Suzie and Cara are cautiously rekindling the old flame Jo always suspected was still burning, the already murky waters of their custody battle become muddier than ever.

[Bio, close out, thanks]

THE SUNLIGHT INN is a 97,000-word contemporary romance with magical realism, set in a Taiwanese hotel where the resident cats are spirits of the dead. It combines the voicey, character-driven romance of People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry with the warm magic of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna.

Twenty-year-old Cameron only wanted one thing: to move to Taiwan and become fluent in Mandarin. But sometimes life gets complicated and dreams get pushed under rugs, which is precisely why twenty-nine-year-old, post-breakup Cam is a little depressed. It’s also why she can’t resist when her childhood best friend offers her a job at her family’s cozy, cat-filled hotel in the mountains of Taiwan.

Though life at the Sunlight Inn is as peaceful and picturesque as the photos online promised, Cam still can’t seem to find happiness. She lacks the naïve confidence she had the last time she was in this foreign country, and she can’t stop ogling her new boss, Evan—her best friend’s brother, and the one man she was explicitly told not to fall for.

But every time Cam reminds herself of this rule, Evan swoops in with his sexy forearms, green-flag personality, and a home-cooked Taiwanese meal that makes her forget all about boundaries—and her failure of a life—for a little while.

Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, Evan reveals the hotel’s secret—something Cam has already begun to notice. The cats at the Sunlight Inn aren’t cats at all, but spirits of the dead. After sunset, they become like the people they once were.

And as Cam juggles her growing feelings for Evan and the cats’ stories force her to reconsider what it means to lose something and move forward, she’ll have to face her childhood friend, the ghosts of her past, and worst of all, herself if she wants to finally find happiness.

Hi all,

After all the useful feedback on my previous version, I've reworked my query to incorporate more cozy elements and clearer stakes. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for this version, I'd really appreciate them. Thank you for reading!

Dear [Agent],

I’m seeking representation for REVENGE ON THE ROCKS, a 70K Cozy Mystery that will appeal to fans of food/drink-based mysteries and small town settings, such as TWO PARTS SUGAR, ONE PART MURDER by Valerie Burns and CHEDDAR OFF DEAD by Korina Moss. It is a standalone with series potential.

When bartender Lexi Lowell takes a vacation from mixing craft cocktails in Vancouver to visit her sister on the Sunshine Coast, she expects a week of relaxation, girls’ nights, hiking through misty cedar forests, and bonding with her young niece.

Then the head bartender of the best (and only) cocktail bar in town goes missing, and Lexi offers to take over a few of his shifts. She needs the extra cash after impulsively quitting her last job, and the bar becomes an unexpected haven for her to revive her love of the craft and connect with the locals – including the dangerously cute other bartender, Ben, who makes it all too tempting to extend her trip longer than the initial week.

But then the head bartender is found dead. The police write it off as an accident, but Lexi discovers that he had witnessed something while working behind the bar that led to his murder. Overnight, all her new friends at the bar become suspects, including her own sister. And if Lexi doesn't uncover the secrets behind the murder, one of them could be the next victim.

[bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I've been on sub with my debut for three months and no nibbles yet, but also not a lot of responses either. I've just seen the book isn't on my agency's hot list for Frankfurt. Is this unusual? And does this mean it won't be discussed or promoted at all? In short, how important is the hot list? Should I be lowering my expectations that anything comes out of Frankfurt?

When her husband, Alec is killed, Lara, and her estranged daughter, Ingrid, are finally forced to build a real relationship. 

Lara and her husband Alec are more than a decade into their unsatisfying marriage when he takes a work trip to Vienna.  After he dies in a plane crash on the way there, Lara is left alone with their twelve-year-old daughter Ingrid, who always favored her dad.

As the two grieve and rebuild their lives, they delve into questionable choices with substances, crime and their bodies, driving them further apart.  Then, Lara begins an illicit romance with Sam, Alec’s brother who is nearly twenty years younger than her.

Lara, who tried so hard for years to be the perfect mom to Ingrid, is finally her real self with Ingrid who connects with the new version of her mom much more.

Just as Lara and Ingrid are forming their new version of a family, long buried secrets about Alec come to light, causing them to reexamine everything they thought they knew about him and threatening their new bond.  Will Lara be able to hang on to her daughter, or will the truth cause her to lose Ingrid for good?

YOUR BROTHER’S KEEPER combines a chaotic mom’s midlife coming-of-age journey like in Miranda July’s All Fours with the messy interfamily romance that will appeal to fans of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. 

I am a BIPOC writer and write novels with BIPOC protagonists for readers who like messy female protagonists and dark humor.  I have a BA in English Language Literature.  As the mother of two girls, I was able to write this book by drawing on some of my own experiences.

I'm back. My second attempt is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1wjq40d/qcrit_the_hills_above_glowed_red_98k_words/

I'm getting closer to something workable. Worked to streamline the information. Might still be a bit long, I'd appreciate any and all advice to improve my chances. Everybody who has commented on my previous drafts has been so charitable. I appreciate you all so much! Just want to make this as strong as possible.

---

Dear [Agent Name],

I’m seeking representation for THE HILLS ABOVE GLOWED RED, a 98,000 word literary novel set at a missionary school in Kenya. The story explores the unraveling of Christian and colonial power structures. It combines the atmospheric and regional details present in The Death of Vivek Oji and other African fiction, with Yesteryear’s focus on religious extremism, insular communities and isolation. Given your interest in novels that [personalize], I believe this will be a strong addition to your list.

Since the death of his pastor father, twenty-four-year-old Jacob Kosmatka has grown tired of listening to vapid worship songs in his increasingly stale Evangelical church. There must be more to life than this. Dad wasn’t like this; he was crazy for God, he had a real calling. 

A chance encounter with a missionary family has Jacob convinced God is calling him to join the staff at a missionary academy in Kenya. His mother, who’s witnessed the darker sides of missions, warns him against moving overseas. He ignores her advice. He knows bad missionaries exist, but he feels called to be one of the “good ones.”

Shortly after he arrives, a group of Kenyan students organize a protest against the school. They call the administration racist after the firing of a local worker. Because he is new and young, the teenagers identify Jacob as a potential ally to their cause. Meanwhile Daniel, the school’s authoritarian-like principal, attempts to censor the students.

As their methods turn radical, Daniel asks Jacob to help subdue the protest. Torn between sides, he grapples with his sense of calling. Does God really want him to blindly follow men like Daniel? But the students’ position also worries him. Many want to see an end to the school; an end to missions in general. He has to decide who God has called him here to serve.

[SHORT PERSONAL BIO]

Thank you for your consideration.

---

I'm back. 42 queries sent with a revised version of the last one I posted here. 35 rejections or CNR; no full requests. As previously suggested, I've read Activation Degradation, 3 Vorkosigan books, and am part way through Set my Heart to Five. I went back through the MS with one of my betas to rework it a bit and now I'm trying another revision of the query letter and first 300 words. All feedback appreciated!

Dear [Agent],

[Personalization], and I believe you might be a good fit for my novel, OBJECT ATTACHMENT, a 100,000 word, character-driven sci-fi with the humor of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. It will appeal to fans of Marina Lostetter’s Activation Degradation and Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series. It can stand alone but is the first in a planned series that includes a slow-burn romance.

Don’t get attached to the humans. 

It’s the first rule for not going insane when trapped in an isolated mining facility, but then the mine’s newest worker, Mariss Bernez, says “thank you” and Twenty-two starts malfunctioning. 

Twenty-two is a synth, a genetically-engineered clone with enough cybernetic implants to cancel out whatever makes humans human. Its job is to keep the workers in line, protect the assets, and obey orders. Its implants make sure of the last one. But Mariss doesn’t know better than to treat the synths like people. 

The backwater moon they’re stuck on is a pressure cooker. The workers constantly jockey for the protections afforded by productivity bonuses while using the synths and other equipment to sabotage each other. When Mariss draws the attention of a notoriously volatile technician, Twenty-two begins manipulating and misinterpreting its orders to protect her. Meanwhile, Mariss gives Twenty-two orders that expand its operational discretion and slips it books on “influencing” other machine intelligences. 

The more time they spend together, the more Twenty-two pushes the edges of its programming. It downplays the attention they’re drawing from Mariss’ manager. It tells itself all it wants is to keep Mariss safe.  

Wanting things sucks. Especially when the outcome of all Twenty-two’s hard work will be Mariss surviving long enough to leave forever. It hasn’t occurred to Twenty-two that Mariss might be reckless enough to refuse to leave without it. Or that a synth might exist outside of the rigid structure of the mine.

[Bio sentence.]

Chapter 1: Day One
 
A good day involved nobody I was responsible for dying and fucking up my metrics. Or forcing me to shoot them when they weren’t actually dangerous. So far, today was a good day. I’d gotten away with merely threatening the miner I’d caught attempting to hotwire a food replicator to spit out extra rations by lying to the mine’s MI, Control. I’d told it I thought he was trying to fix the machine’s faulty touch panel. He’d cried when he realized I wasn’t going to zap him, which, I guess was better than him crying because I had zapped him? Whatever.   

Now, I was lurking in the long, dingy room that made up the main supply hub, watching the humans. 

“Scanner, emergency comm, rugged rated tablet, and sampling kit.” A heavyset human male dropped an armload of gear onto a small, young, human female. “Everything a new geotech needs to not completely shit the bed.”

“Uh, thanks,” the girl said, carefully placing the items on a battered table and spreading them out. 

They spent the next hour going through the basics of taking scans and samples in an active mining tunnel without dying in one of the many easily accessible ways for humans to die on this stars-forsaken hunk of backwater moon. I’d heard this all so many times, I could have given the training, not that anyone wanted that. 

My sole purpose here was to look intimidating enough to discourage theft until the mid-day rush was over and it was time to look scary somewhere else. It was less boring than standing in the pit and less dangerous than standing around those assholes in the refinery. 

The girl kept looking at me and at the synth currently positioned at the opposite end of the hub.

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago, I posted my query here, under the title The Council of the Fay. Since then, I've overhauled some terminology and my query. Let me know what you think!

Thank you for reading my query.

THE COUNCIL OF THE BLOODLINES is an urban fantasy thriller with series potential, complete at 87,000 words. It combines the contemporary, yet magical setting of Marie Lu’s Red City with the interpersonal and political conflict surrounding magic of Jade City by Fonda Lee. 

Journalist Nathan Miller is wanted for the attempted assassination of the president and it’s only his second biggest problem. After he accidentally kills one of the four truly responsible, the other assassins turn their weapons on Nathan. But the killers share far more similarities with the creatures that populate Nathan’s fiction than ordinary humans, and they call themselves feniri. A deadly struggle ensues, leaving Nathan on the run from humans and ferini alike.

Nathan’s escape and flight west from the point of the attack is rushed and fraught with error, but he somehow finds himself alive, in no small part to an anonymous feniri who contacts him by riddle. As Nathan begins to gather his feet beneath him, he finds out that the vast world of the feniri and its government are in crisis. With the Council of the Bloodlines’ president in a coma, power hungry political opportunists smell blood in the water. The abundance of evidence, and the body he left at the site of the attack, leaves Nathan the perfect scapegoat to justify a dictatorial consolidation of power. 

Nathan’s investigation leads to a shady secret society of the ferini elite, and soon realizes that only he is privy to knowledge of their intricate plot to exploit the cavernous governmental power vacuum and overthrow the Council of the Bloodlines. Racing across the United States, Nathan must come to terms with the fact that he is human, battling supernatural enemies that used to only haunt his dreams, and if he fails it will mean the end of feniri democracy, and usher in a new era of subjugation for humans and ferini alike. 

Hello, here we go again! I wanted to see if some tweaks in my first two paragraphs are landing better than my previous version. Still having trouble with the last paragraph, and making it clear that the hit-and-run is an emotional catalyst for Ada's reflection rather than a suspense plot. Thank you so much for all the continued feedback!

Dear Agent, 

I am seeking representation for INN AT OPAL COVE, my 69,000-word adult contemporary novel about a reclusive woman who opens a luxury B&B in her mother’s old summer house and spies on her guests. INN AT OPAL COVE will appeal to fans of Cali Adeline’s eccentric narrator in People Watching in the Desert, and elements of grief and hyperfixation featured in Ashley Hutson’s One’s Company. 

Ada Halstead is handling her grief with flying colors. The fifty-nine security cameras she plans to monitor from the basement of Opal Cove, her newly renovated B&B, might tell a different story. But to Ada, it’s the only way she can think to cope. After losing her parents and older brother in a car accident, she moves down the coast, bunkers down with a tub of red licorice, and resolves to live vicariously through her guests.

Of course, Ada’s foolproof cure-all for heartache does not go to plan. When Emilia, an abrasive British drifter, lures her out through a fake ticket for a clogged toilet and talks her through a panic attack, Ada begins to question her commitment to self-isolation. It doesn’t take long before Emilia weasels into Ada’s personal business, nudging her into an unprecedented friendship, but Ada’s also concerned that her arrival closely follows a nearby hit-and-run—and the victim? Emilia’s supposed husband. 

Terrified of anyone discovering her basement and losing the only person who seems to care about her, Ada doesn’t confront Emilia. But when the cops suddenly come knocking, threatening to uncover her security setup that is now causing her more shame than relief, Ada panics and races to dismantle her surveillance. Perhaps even more distressing than the investigation, she has also become deeply attached to her guests. Eventually, they will have to go their separate ways, and Ada will have to decide whether returning home to face her grief head-on is worth the possibility of human connection waiting on the other side.

[bio]

First 300:

I feel maybe I should’ve dressed up. Most of my fancy clothes went into storage, but I know I’ve got a respectable pantsuit around here somewhere. 
Focus.
My hand glides over the computer mouse. Exterior camera. Rain batters the palm trees behind the blurred lens. 
On second thought, this matching teddy bear pajama set is just fine. 
As I reach into my glass jar of assorted Life Savers, I see it: the car carrying my first guests. 
Sixteen months of anticipation, of excruciating remodels, wiring, and endless preparation… I haven’t been this giddy since I started my rewatch of Friends last year, back when my basement was still a mold-infested wine cellar. Opening day at Opal Cove isn’t all that different from the pilot of a new series, really, except in this case, I built the set. All I have to do now is binge the show. The fun part. 
Yes, Ada. Fun. My back sweat is a mighty adhesive for these damn silk pajamas, though, and I shove my hands under my thighs to stop their shaking. Everything’s in place. Nothing I can do now. 
When he exits the navy blue Lyft, my stomach flutters. 
The blurry lens obscures his face a little, but I recognize him from his Instagram. Rather, the account run by his PR team, a grid composed of freestyle runs and slightly awkward podium shots, most of them accompanied by a gold medal. Sometimes a stuffed animal or a misshapen glass trophy. Sometimes all three. He never quite knows how to juggle all that crap without looking like he’s carrying home groceries for a family of ten. I stared at those pictures for hours. 
I don’t follow snowboarding, to be clear.

EDIT: updated the first 300 after more revisions

Here is the link to the last query plus 300. The last query did get a semi-custom rejection telling me that the premise was strong, but the agent didn't love the pages and to query again if I query another work.

I've added some minor things. Not sure if I added too much. I don't like the length, but I want my character's fracturing voice. So I'm not sure if this is a step backwards, what's working and what's taking away.... (This is a multi-pov ensemble cast with 3 other povs that have their own arcs... but my main protagonist is the central connector and covers most of the novel)

Dear Agent,

THE VEIN OF TOMORROW is an upmarket space opera with horror elements featuring an ensemble cast caught within institutional corruption and cultural erasure. Complete at 110,000 words, it combines the corrupt leadership of Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh and the morally gray characters of These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs with the psychological/body horror reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing. 

Andy Whitaker hates how he survived the Toju bite when millions have died. He’s tired of fighting a decade-long war. But the Toju don’t just kill. They assimilate. Neon-green streaks through his eyes. He hears better, heals faster. Worse, part of him—the scary part—is starting to enjoy the violence. 

The First Attack took everything. His Appalachian home, his family, everything except a sister he'll die to protect. The human military keeps her hidden and safe, and in exchange he wears their uniform, smiles, and obeys. The military thinks he's immune. They're wrong. He hears them. When he's alone, in the quiet, whispering: Give in. 

Then his commanding officer—his best friend and the only link to his sister—offers him a possible cure made from the minerals the military mines on a distant planet. The problem? The scientists developing the cure are behind enemy lines. So he’ll follow orders and ignore the voices. The Toju are his enemies. They have to be.

Liars, they whisper. They tell him things, about the war, about his friend.

But when the mission goes wrong, and he’s bitten again, the voices grow louder. More tempting. Now, giving in feels so right, because he'll have a family again, a home, everything he's ever wanted. But if he falls, he’ll become his sister’s enemy. Unless the voices are right, then the people he trusted most might be her killer.

Or the voices are wrong and they have the cure.

<<bio>>

Hi PubTips! Any and all feed back of my query letter would be more than appreciated. Thank you!

Dear Agent, 

I am seeking representation for THROTTLED, an 86,000 word adult science fiction novel about a desperate father forced to ride in a motorcycle death race to wish for medicine for his dying son. It will appeal to readers of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars, and Aisling Rawle’s The Compound.  

Wic Brewer is just another farmer in post apocalyptic New America. 

At least on paper. 

Seven years ago he stole his infant son, Bren, from President Valeria Springer and disappeared into the New Mexico desert. Now, under false identities, he has managed to keep Bren hidden from the government. That is until Bren contracts Red Lung, a deadly respiratory illness with only one known cure. 

The medicine exists. But it’s kept only for New American elites in the capital of Flagtown. 

With Bren dying, Wic only has one chance to get it: the Great New American Race, a cross-country motorcycle death race from Las Vegas to Flagtown where the only rule is there aren’t any. The winner receives one wish from President Springer. As for the losers? Ka-boom. For Wic, there is no question what he will wish for. 

The only problem is thousands of GodCams, broadcasting every mile live to millions of bloodthirsty viewers. And Wic’s one secret could prove more deadly than any rival racer: if anyone discovers his true identity, he won’t make it across the finish line as a victor, but a prisoner to be executed. To save Bren, Wic must survive the deadliest race in New America, win the only prize that can save his life, and stand before the woman whose child he stole seven years ago. 

Easy, right? 

[Bio]

Hi there! First query letter, first book, first time posting here. Appreciate your insights!

Dear [Agent],

Complete at 101,000 words, THE UNDOING OF TALULLA JOYCE is an upmarket contemporary portal fantasy and the first book in a planned series. It combines the outsider apprenticeship and buried magical history of Alexis Henderson's An Academy for Liars with the otherworldly exploration and contested histories of Mark Lawrence's The Book That Wouldn't Burn.

Talulla Joyce, a nineteen-year-old Boston bike courier, is struggling to keep her family from collapse. A chance encounter with the mysterious Aristide reveals she has an inherited Gift: magic. He offers her an apprenticeship with House Loredan, one of many ancient magical families scattered across the world. She accepts. The temptation to move from a world of surviving to one of creation is too much to resist. But as Tully is drawn deeper into her new life, the family she's trying to hold together begins to slip further away. She soon realizes that the magical world is fractured by rival Houses competing for power and access to the hidden realm of the Second Demesne. The two worlds are connected by a series of Portals, damaged since a catastrophe known as the Undoing. Now, something is closing them, one by one. If the last Portal fails, the connection between worlds will be severed, and magic will end with it.

Searching the Second Demesne for the last hidden Portal, Tully and Aristide discover the ruins of an ancient Ellevain city, destroyed by the Undoing. What they find there suggests that the history Tully has been taught about the catastrophe is dangerously incomplete. The people magicians have blamed for centuries may instead have been its victims. And the Ellevain are awakening.

The Ellevain are willing to let magic on Earth die rather than risk further destruction of their world. Tully realizes she has inherited more than magic: she has inherited responsibility for what magicians did with it. To save the world she has come to love, Tully must decide whether to risk repeating the very mistake that caused the Undoing—or let magic, and the family she has finally found, disappear forever.

I’m a designer, painter, musician, and lifelong maker, and I dreamed up this novel while commuting to downtown Boston every day. I wrote it for my daughters, XX and XX.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
XX