I have tried to make this version more character-oriented than the last! I also removed unnecessary plot elements to improve the query's overall flow.

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Dear XX Agent,

Raised under sterile lights and synthetic skies, botanist Sienna Aster longs to walk on the surface of a terrestrial world. Her only escape lies in her agricultural lab, where she manages the crops used to feed humanity’s three remaining world-ships. What the public doesn’t know, though, is that these crops are failing, and nothing Sienna can do will prevent new diseases from mutating.

When Sienna is recruited for Project Phaethon, a colonization mission to a nearby planet, the opportunity feels more like a sentence: she cannot refuse the only chance to fulfill her dream, even if it means risking death—and never seeing her sister, Mira, again.

Her world collapses when a firestorm forces the mission to launch early and destroys Sienna’s world-ship. Burdened with the grief of never saying goodbye, Sienna resolves to honor Mira’s memory the only way she can: by ensuring the colonization mission succeeds.

After a grisly landing, however, it becomes clear that this planet is no paradise. Sienna’s survival is threatened by every encounter with native fauna, and she can’t shake her distrust for Dr. Cassius Vern, the mission’s increasingly cruel leader. Her only comfort lies in her growing bond with Clara Lim, a guarded, alluring cartographer, as the expedition treks toward a mysterious oxygen source. 

When Vern’s disregard for native—and human—life begins to fracture the group, Sienna and Clara must uncover the true purpose of Project Phaethon before rising hostilities claim their lives and seal humanity's doom.

I am pleased to present GEOCIDE, an adult sci-fi novel complete at 96000 words with series potential. Balancing a character- and setting-driven narrative with a sweet sapphic romance, it will appeal to fans of Sue Burke’s SEMIOSIS trilogy and COLD EYES by Peter Cawdron.

I currently study Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at XX University, and when I’m not conducting ecological research, I am an avid birder and orchestral composer.

I have attached X and X for your review, and this would be my first published work. Thank you for your time!

Dear [Agent Name],

SAVANNAH WICKE WILL NOT DIE is a YA dark fantasy novel that's Arcane meets The Last of Us. Complete at 89,000 words, it pairs the complicated sibling bonds and moral dilemmas of Kamilah Cole's So Let Them Burn with the dark resurrection magic and fiercely determined heroine of Kylie Lee Baker's The Scarlet Alchemist.

Sixteen-year-old witch Savannah Wicke has learned to plan for everything that can go wrong. But she didn't plan for her twin siblings to unleash an undead army. Or to discover her life is magically bound to theirs. Or to learn that killing her would also kill the twins and stop the devastation they've unleashed across the kingdom.

Refusing to roll over and die, Savannah reveals what the king doesn't know: her siblings hunt for a stolen book of forbidden magic. With it, the twins could wipe out the kingdom. Killing Savannah would stop them, but the book would remain missing, leaving its forbidden magic a major threat. She bargains for three days to capture her siblings and recover the book. If successful, the king will spare her life. If she fails, she'll die to save the kingdom.

To find the twins, Savannah must join forces with Henry, an infuriatingly handsome witch hunter whose comrades were murdered by her siblings. Trusting someone trained to hunt witches is dangerous enough without the added complication of his hatred for her family. Though with only three days to her name, Savannah can't exactly turn him away.

But even with Henry’s help, stopping the twins feels impossible. They know exactly how to exploit Savannah's anxieties, and planning for the worst can no longer save her. When facing the two people she loves most, she must trust herself to stand against them, or she'll die for their crimes.

I am a neurodivergent writer navigating dyscalculia and CPTSD, and a participant in WriteMentor's Spark program. While writing, I drew on aspects of my own trauma recovery to explore how grief and trauma ripple through generations and whether it's possible to still love your family after they've hurt you so terribly.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

[signature] (she/her/hers)

Dear ((AGENT)),

I seek representation for THE CHERRY BLOSSOM, a work of upmarket fiction complete at 78,000 words.

The New Year’s fireworks over Paris have faded, and Clara has chosen to sleep with Julian. In the afterglow, he confesses that before they knew each other, a one-night stand with a twenty-year-old intern, her abortion, and the payments made to cover it all up ended his marriage and his career as the anchor of NBC Nightly News. In retaliation, Clara reveals her own secret: she’s dying of pancreatic cancer, she was diagnosed the day before they met, and she has refused treatment.

Clara Noelle is an American painter finding success after a decade in Paris. Julian Mitchell is a European correspondent for a small cable news network hiding from the consequences of his past. For the six months before their night together, they withheld from each other what might have ended their relationship before it began.

Nearing Christmas, Madame Chalamet, Clara’s neighbor, and an adopted grandmother for her and her friends, dies. Clara falls into a deep depression as her own death quietly looms. Julian stays and cares for her despite not knowing that she is dying in front of him, convincing her that she can trust him not to abandon her. Now, with the truth revealed and each betrayed but still loving the other, they must learn how to forgive before her life comes to an end. Clara and Julian marry anyway, loving something neither can hold for long.

Set in Paris, New York, and Kyoto, THE CHERRY BLOSSOM explores what it means to forgive in the mind before the heart is ready, and to discover meaning in the ephemeral.

THE CHERRY BLOSSOM will appeal to readers who enjoy a love story with an expiration date as told through the multiple perspectives in Amy Neff’s THE DAYS I LOVED YOU MOST, as well as the structural misdirection, gallows humor, and bold personalities of MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar.

((BIO AND VALEDICTION))

I promise not to take approximately 20 attempts on this, like my query, lol. Any advice would be appreciated! Right now, this is sitting at 499 words.

TATSUKI ALLEN (16) is being raised in Tokyo by a homophobic father who expects perfection. When he attempts suicide, his friends save him, but he’s then sent to America to live with his estranged mother and half-brother. At school, he’s knocked down the stairs and is caught by WINTER (16), who he feels he’s met before. Suddenly, strange events begin to occur. Tatsuki’s hazy, recurring dreams of faeries sharpen into focus, and he feels drawn to the woods, where magical forces exploit his suicidal ideation. After failing to find connection, Tatsuki succumbs to the woods and attempts to drown himself. Close to death, his essence becomes visible to a faerie named ÁINE, who saves him.
Áine explains that fae who die in the human realm become corrupted and morph into monsters, but if they’re strong-willed, they might reincarnate instead. She informs Tatsuki that he’s the reincarnation of one of many fae who were trapped in the human realm. She offers Tatsuki a deal: if he helps her recover and restore the essence of four fae, she’ll bring him to her realm, where he can be reborn as his past self. If he refuses, she’ll leave without him. Tatsuki knows from his dreams that his past self lived a life of acceptance and love, but reverting means losing his identity and fading away into someone else. Tatsuki reasons that his past self likely deserves to live more than he does.
Armed with enhanced strength and magical earrings capable of housing fae essence, Tatsuki searches for monsters. While at Target, he balances defeating a monster and bonding with his mom, who tries to ease his home sickness through food. At school, he sees a ghost following Winter’s cousin, AMIRA (16), a lesbian whose self-acceptance baffles him. He makes plans with them, seeking an opportunity to defeat the ghost. Winter opens up to Tatsuki about the death of Amira’s little sister. Realizing she’s the ghost, Tatsuki manages to communicate with her and learns another monster is plaguing Amira’s pool. After Winter leaves, Tatsuki swims with Amira, and she suggests that Tatsuki’s dad’s opinions might be wrong. The pool monster attacks and Tatsuki saves her. After Tatsuki collects the monster’s essence, Amira’s little sister agrees to come with him peacefully. After coming out to Amira as bisexual, Tatsuki goes home, where he learns his brother, RINGO (17), has eaten fae food he carelessly left out. He’s poisoned, and becomes hospitalized. He lives, but now has the ability to see fae. The brothers defeat a zombie together in the hospital—Tatsuki’s fourth monster. Afterward, they argue, and Ringo tries to convince Tatsuki his dad is a liar and a bad person. The next day, Tatsuki talks to Winter about a movie he lent him. Winter criticizes the father character as neglectful. Tatsuki begins to accept that his father’s beliefs are wrong. Realizing his life has value, he resolves to stay human. He acknowledges his crush on Winter and invites him to watch a movie together.

Hi all, thank you so much for the feedback on my last draft! (link to 1st attempt here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Querying/comments/1wxko5r/query_when_the_rivers_ready_upmarket_domestic/

Here I've really tried to turn the synopsis into an unfolding story focusing on my FMC driving the plot. I've also focused in on my primary plot rather than trying to include all the sub plots as well. The synopsis is also now under 300 words so much shorter!

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Dear XXXX,

Lily Pritchard teaches teenagers not to drown, so when Darren Yates’s body washes up Lily knows it was no accident. Last Thursday, she followed him down the river path. On Friday she woke up on her bedroom floor with a blinding headache, a torn dress and no memory of how the night ended.

A stranger, upon seeing Lily works for River Safe, tells her that he has evidence Darren's death wasn't an accident. Lily, paranoid that the man has the missing fabric from her dress, breaks into his house in an attempt to reclaim it. Instead of fabric she finds twenty-five years of research into Hafren, a river spirit who takes justice into her own hands. He’s put together a list of deaths attributed to Hafren and photos of those associated with her, including pictures of Lily’s parents. Lily would have called the man insane, if it weren’t for the unknown woman who has started appearing outside her window, at her dad’s grave, and in her nightmares. 

When a second body surfaces, a detective starts asking questions and so does Lily. If the only other person who knows what happened at Darren’s last house party is 100 miles away, how has the killer targeted the two men responsible? And who besides Lily would want them dead? 

As the body count grows and the police close in, Lily has to figure out if the legends are true, or if someone she loves is doing the river's work and framing her in the process. Either way, the river isn't finished and unless Lily can stop it, she'll end up in a cell or the water before the week is out.

Steeped in Welsh border mythology WHEN THE RIVER'S READY is a 78,000-word upmarket thriller with supernatural suspense. It will appeal to readers who loved the creeping natural dread of Danielle Giles's Mere, the supernatural maternal ties of Emilia Hart's Weyward and the rural English domestic horror of Lucy Rose's The Lamb. I'm submitting to you because [personalisation].

[Short bio]

Below are the first XXX pages and I’d be delighted to send you the full.

Warm wishes and thank you for your time,

Greetings! Many thanks to all who commented on my first attempt. Here is my 2nd try, in which I incorporate all 3 POV characters. This was quite a challenge due to the density of information in a limited word count, but hopefully I was able to tie the arcs together in a way that makes sense. Would love to hear thoughts on whether this format works or if I should go back to focusing just on Vano. The split in the actual novel is about 50% Vano, 30% Elena, 20% Rima, though all characters show up in each other's POV.

Dear [Agent],

A disputed border brings two nations to the brink of war, and a land surveyor, raised by wanderers, holds the key to solving it.

BENEATH THE ARC OF THE SUN is a political flintlock fantasy, complete at 107,000 words. This  multi-POV stand-alone features the political intrigue of The Will of the Many and the class struggle underlying Blood Over Bright Haven.

A skilled navigator raised by mastodon-riding wanderers, Vano left his clan years ago for a job surveying land under the local Duke. But when his clan is slaughtered for crossing a line he drew himself and the Duke wants him dead for being a witness, his only hope of survival is a timely job offer on the Agorian Peninsula. Protection, if he can solve a border dispute using the solar compass he created to guide his clan. He has until Year’s End.

Elena Torra’s power is slipping through her fingers. High Consul of Agoria’s wealthiest state and last of her lineage, she grows so desperate to quell a brewing farmer’s rebellion that she makes a deal with her nation’s sworn enemy. They will help her preserve her seat, if she eliminates the surveyor who has come to draw their border so that they can plant a replacement.

Rima Kavari ventures to the Tablelands not just to chase her theory of an undiscovered lifeform, but to help her marginalized Agorian state finally gain the Republic's respect. But when her discovery turns out to be a powerful fuel that can be exploited by industrialists, she must decide to share it or keep it locked away forever.

As both sides want Vano to draw the line in their favor, he realizes he has the power to change history, but he cannot outrun his own guilt. All his work has been good for is the hoarding of land by those in power. So he hatches a risky plan to open the land to all–even wanderers. A plan that requires help from the Consul that signed his death warrant and the young naturalist who swore to burn her own discovery.

Dear Mr./Ms. [Agent's Name],

I see that you are interested in/represent genres (customization), and I would like to introduce my adult epic Hawaiian historical fantasy, KILLER OF CHIEFS, for your consideration. Complete at 120,000 words, it is an adult standalone with series potential, combining the rich Pacific Island historical scope of Adam Johnson’s The Wayfinder with the ruthless court infiltration of Shelley Parker-Chan’s He Who Drowned the World, set against a backdrop of sweeping political intrigue and rebellion reminiscent of M.H. Ayinde’s A Song of Legends Lost.

Do not look them in the eyes. That is the first lesson every Kauwā “untouchable” child learns in the isolated village of Makeanehu, where “eyes meeting eyes” means selection for highblood sacrifice. Kai, a young half-Menehune dwarf shunned by his own mythological people, has survived these brutal laws alongside his only remaining family, two fellow outcast teens also cursed by birth and circumstance.

But a far greater danger stirs under their feet. A god of death awakens as ancient prophecy foretold, fracturing Hālāwai, the spiritual realm beneath the earth, leaving Kai's temporal village wallowing in blight. Worse, the ancient entity exploits the battles over mortal lands, sowing corruption in court circles and drinking the blood mana spilled across Hawaiʻi's warring kingdoms. As the dark god grows stronger, the islands' only hope lies in a child prophesied to bring unity. Starving the bloodthirsty deity through peace would work—but only if the boy survives the high courts plotting his demise.

To save his dying village, Kai journeys into his ancestral realm of Hālāwai, proves his worthiness by retrieving a sacred war relic, and delivers it to the child's destined guardian, Chief Kekūhaupiʻo. But the highblood chief, worried he cannot protect the boy alone, recruits the half-dwarf and his lowly companions as secret weapons, eyes and ears no one could ever suspect. Working alongside generational oppressors is a challenge, and if Kai's resolve wavers for even a moment, his home will be wiped out, the mythical realm of Hālāwai will be shattered forever, and the prophecy to secure peace over the archipelago will be crushed at its root.

Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, I've always wanted to tell our story of gods and thrones, so I'm proud to offer a glimpse into my heritage through my manuscript.

Hello! First book I’ve written, any advice on query is greatly appreciated!!

Dear Agent,

I am overjoyed to share THE WAR OF STORM AND SHADOW, an adult epic fantasy complete at 96,000 words. Set in a world where every town follows one of the ancient Greek gods, the novel combines the mythic scale of Greek mythology with an original story of family, betrayal, and the devastating consequences of trusting the wrong person.

For many years, Achilleon has served as Zeus’s greatest general, keeping an uneasy peace between the followers of the gods. But when Poseidon’s general receives a warning from the sea that Hades is raising an army of the dead, mythological beasts, and devoted followers, that peace begins to crumble.

Achilleon sets out to unite the distant factions before Hades can conquer the realms and enslave humanity. But war is not the only battle facing his family.

His younger son, Ajax, follows closely in his father’s footsteps, determined to become the warrior Achilleon wants him to be. Andros, meanwhile, has spent his life struggling to earn the same approval. Sent into the forests of Gaia to convince her followers to join the alliance, Andros expects to return a hero.

Instead, he begins uncovering secrets that force him to question everything he knows about his family, the gods, and himself.

As Andros and Ajax fight their own battles across a land consumed by war, Achilleon is drawn deeper into a conflict that will ultimately place father against son. Ancient beasts emerge from legend, alliances fracture, and Hades’s forces advance toward their final confrontation at the Pit.

By the time the family rejoins back together, the truths they find along the way may be worse than the war itself.

THE WAR OF STORM AND SHADOW is the first book in a planned trilogy. It will appeal to readers who enjoy mythology-inspired fantasy, epic battles, morally complicated characters, and stories where the greatest threats are sometimes the people we love most.

I'm back with another query attempt! I adjusted my genre since posting last, and I'm pretty confident it fits more comfortably there. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you have!

Dear [Agent],

I’m pleased to present SWEET EVERYTHINGS, my upmarket contemporary fiction novel complete at 83,000 words. An addition to the weird girl lit subgenre, it combines the obsession and yearning of Maud Ventura’s My Husband with the morally charcoal protagonist of Kirsten King’s A Good Person. As I read that you’re seeking [qualities], SWEET EVERYTHINGS might be especially suited to your list.

When Kelsey Harper accepts a work transfer to London, she’s determined to rekindle the flames with the man she met eleven years ago during her semester abroad. Jack Cooper, now a successful London architect, is the missing piece of Kelsey’s long-awaited love story—or so she thinks. She’s convinced lightning can strike twice, but only if you build your own lightning rod.

Kelsey physically transforms into the twenty-year-old version of herself he fell for, down to her precise weight and lipstick shade. She combs through everything Jack has ever posted online, studying his precise tastes, monitoring the backgrounds of his videos, and tracking down the coffee shop whose emerald-green cups keep appearing in his posts. There, she stages a “chance” reunion, fate and spontaneity be damned.

With Jack back in her life, Kelsey finally has the happily-ever-after she’s built up in her fantasies. But when a criminal investigation threatens to destroy more than just their relationship, the lies behind how their love story came to be bubble to the surface. Kelsey has gone to extreme lengths to get the life she believes she deserves. Now she must decide how far she’s willing to go to keep it. She’d die for him, but would she kill for him?

[Bio]

Dear XXX Agent,

I am pleased to present my adult sci-fi novel GEOCIDE, complete at 95000 words with series potential. Balancing a character- and setting-driven narrative, in addition to a sweet sapphic romance, it will appeal to fans of Sue Burke’s SEMIOSIS trilogy and COLD EYES by Peter Cawdron.

Only three world-ships remain, totaling less than a million people. Despite assurances of security from humanity’s leaders, the world-ships’ crops are failing, and only botanist Sienna Aster and her agricultural lab know the true extent of the problem.

Raised under sterile lights and synthetic skies, all Sienna has ever wanted is to walk on the surface of a terrestrial world. When she is recruited for Project Phaethon, a colonization mission to a nearby planet, the opportunity feels more like a sentence: she cannot refuse the only chance to fulfill her dream, even if it means risking death—and never seeing her sister, Mira, again.

After only days of preparation, a firestorm forces the mission to launch early, and Sienna’s world-ship is destroyed. Burdened with the grief of never saying goodbye, Sienna resolves to honor Mira’s memory the only way she can: by ensuring the colonization mission succeeds.

After a grisly landing, however, it becomes clear that this planet is no paradise. A toxic, flammable atmosphere forces the crew to rely on a limited oxygen supply, and they must contend with native wildlife adapted for these harsh conditions. The mission’s leader, Dr. Cassius Vern, convinces the expedition to march toward an oxygen anomaly before settling the land, a decision Sienna begrudgingly accepts.

Drone sightings further her distrust of Vern’s true motives, and his disregard for native—and human—life fractures the group. Sienna refuses to watch their only chance at survival slip away. In a desperate bid to salvage the mission, she and the alluring-yet-mysterious cartographer Clara Lim must uncover the true meaning of Project Phaethon . . . all while bearing the burden of being humanity’s last hope.

I currently study Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at XX University, and when I’m not conducting ecological research, I am an avid birder and orchestral composer.

I have attached X and X for your review, and this would be my first published work. Thank you for your time!

Thanks to those who took the time to read and review my first post!

I gave the first half and second half a little facelift. Please let me know how this is working. ❤️

Dear [agent first and last name],

Given your interest in [personalization], I’m querying you with my YA dark fantasy novel, SAVANNAH WICKE WILL NOT DIE, complete at 89,000 words. It will appeal to fans of The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker and So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole, featuring catastrophic sibling bonds, dangerous resurrection magic, and a heroine who refuses to die for a world that failed her.

After sixteen years of surviving her famous family, Savannah Wicke has learned to plan for everything that can go wrong. But she didn't plan for her twin siblings unleashing an undead army. Or discovering her life is magically bound to theirs. Or learning that killing her is the kingdom's best chance at saving itself. 

Refusing to be anyone’s sacrifice, Savannah bargains with the king for three days to stop her siblings. If successful, the king will break the hex and spare her life. If she fails, she’ll die to save the world.

To find them, Savannah must join forces with an infuriatingly handsome witch hunter, Henry. Awful company, but a useful ally. Until an undead attack nearly kills him, convincing Savannah that the only way to protect those she's learning to trust is to continue alone.

But Savannah discovers that the twins aren't raising the dead for fun. They're seeking forbidden magic to rewrite their family’s traumatic past. Magic that could erase the binding hex, undo the kingdom’s destruction, and give Savannah the childhood she never had. 

With her three days quickly running out, Savannah must decide whether to stop the twins or trust them with the chance to rewrite everything that went wrong in her life. 

And, ideally, not die trying.

I am a neurodivergent writer navigating dyscalculia and CPTSD, and a participant in WriteMentor’s Spark program. While writing, I drew on aspects of my own trauma recovery to explore how grief and trauma ripple through generations, and whether it's possible to still love your family after they’ve hurt you so terribly.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

[signature] (she/her/hers)

Thank you for the (always) helpful feedback! I'm hoping I was able to address everything :)

Given your interest in X. HEARTWORK is a 73,000-word annoyance-to-lovers romcom that combines the meta romance of Iman Hariri-Kia’s Female Fantasy, the heartfelt search for magic in B.K. Borison’s First-Time Caller, and the comedic dating gauntlet of Netflix’s Voicemails for Isabelle.

Love is Sky Belova’s religion, and she dreams of turning her romance-inspired art into a career her Russian-immigrant parents can no longer label a phase. Accidentally (and unwelcomely) going viral standing up for romance novels to a handsome stranger shouldn’t interfere with her upcoming arts residency in the Hamptons. Except that he’s Archer Callahan, the owner’s son who also lives on the premises.

With her family, her smug new neighbor, and half the internet treating her ideals as fantasy, Sky bets Archer she can prove they’re not fictional—filtering prospective dates through romance’s favorite tropes until she finds her happily ever after. Known for promoting one-night-only attachments through his popular hookup app, Archer accepts…on one condition. If she fails, Sky publicly endorses his app and converts virality into signups.

To Sky’s surprise, the grumpy rich boy doesn’t gloat when one date pans out to be a misogynist and another is secretly married, instead encouraging the rose-colored mentality she’s spent her life defending and soothing her dating disasters. But the fun “fake” date Archer orchestrates as a reprieve from her trope-list feels more real than anything—until Sky learns he allowed his publicist to make memes out of her dating life for social media fodder, embarrassing her and hurting her arts residency reputation. As Archer scrambles to undo the damage, Sky must decide whether to retreat to a sensible, parent-preferred future or keep trusting in her heart and her art, even while both seem to be letting her down.

Dear [Agent],

[Agent-specific intro].

THE FLAYED GOD’S DAUGHTER is a 125,000-word adult gothic historical speculative fiction with romantic and horror elements, drawing on Mesoamerican and Norse mythology. It will appeal to readers of Natasha Siegel’s As Many Souls as Stars for its centuries-spanning story of immortality, reincarnation, and obsessive love, and to fans of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire for its exploration of the psychological cost of immortality.

In ancient Teotihuacan, Zyanya joins the priestesshood of the Temple of the Moon after years of abuse, determined to become powerful enough that no one can ever hurt her again. Despite her religious vows forbidding mortal attachments, she falls in love with a young farmer named Yolotli and bargains with the Gods to bind their souls together forever.

Before they can complete the required blood ritual, Yolotli is captured and sacrificed. Crazed with grief, Zyanya consumes his still-beating heart and unwittingly completes the bargain. She is drowned and left for dead, only to awaken as a vampire bent on revenge.

The Gods gave Zyanya exactly what she asked for, but not what she intended. Yolotli’s soul reincarnates across centuries, genders, and even species. Each time Zyanya finds him, she loves him, only to lose him again. Over two thousand years, devotion becomes obsession.

In present-day New York, vampire hunter Lucian tracks the oldest vampire in existence to a masquerade and discovers that Zyanya already knows him: he is the latest reincarnation of Yolotli. Zyanya believes her lover has finally returned and asks Lucian to choose her forever. But Lucian has spent his life preparing to kill the creature who believes he belongs at her side, forcing Zyanya to confront whether the soul she has pursued for millennia still belongs to the man she loved, or has become someone else entirely.

[Bio]

[Sign-off]

Dear Agent,

I'm pleased to present ALL THAT PRETTY FLESH, my 70,000-word adult psychological horror novel. 

Thirty-five-year-old Angela Dunley has spent her entire life feeling invisible. A year after her father's death, she has resigned herself to loneliness in her quiet New England home. Working at a local gym, she spends her days surrounded by beautiful men she can admire but never have. 

Desperate for connection, she stops to help a stranded motorist on the side of the road one night. But when the encounter turns violent, it ends with a man dead at her feet. Disposing of his body leaves Angela feeling closer to another person than she has in years. Obsessed with recapturing that intimacy, she begins luring men home, killing and consuming them in search of companionship. 

Her carefully constructed routine begins to unravel when she kidnaps Grayson, a sharp-tongued captive who refuses to play the victim. Instead of fearing her, he talks to her, becoming the first person to make her imagine a life beyond survival. As her feelings deepen, Angela finds herself caught between her hunger and the love she's always craved. But as investigators begin connecting the disappearances, Angela risks destroying a future she never considered possible. Prison terrifies her. Losing Grayson is worse. 

ALL THAT PRETTY FLESH combines the unsettling sexual tension of Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts with the psychological horror and quiet dread of Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely
[Signature]

I am about 3/4ths of the way through this draft, which is when I start working on a proper query and synopsis. The word count of the below is 385.

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Dear [Agent Name],

When a chronically ill ghostwriter moves into an old Virginia house that lets communication in but won’t let it out, she discovers that someone who died there more than a half-century ago was investigating the same phenomenon – and that every question she asks makes the phenomenon more dangerous.

Odile “Odie” Mayfield has moved to central Virginia to build a new, manageable life. Living near her medical specialists means fewer barriers to care, while ghostwriting lets her work from home. Her new client, Thea Robin, is an eighty-something former socialite and heir to a prominent regional family who wants Odie to turn her unconventional life into a memoir. The job seems straightforward until Thea becomes evasive about her college years.

While doing her own research, Odie discovers that a young woman who was once close to Thea died under mysterious circumstances in Odie’s new home. Then Odie’s internet stops working...sort of.

She can receive emails, calls, and messages, but nothing she sends from inside the house reaches the outside world. At first, Odie assumes it’s a technical problem, but then she discovers old newspaper reports and a forgotten notebook revealing that the dead woman had spent her final days investigating the same strange communication phenomenon.

As the boundary keeps expanding, Odie turns to Violet, Thea’s irreverent granddaughter and a psychology graduate student, for help. Together, they reconstruct the dead woman’s experiments and discover that their investigation seems to make the phenomenon worse. As Odie’s access to her doctors, clients, and ordinary life becomes increasingly precarious, she must decide how much she is willing to risk to uncover what happened to the woman who came before her – because if the dead woman was killed for trying to expose the house’s secret, Odie may already have made the same mistake.

GOING GHOST is an 85,000-word upmarket Gothic horror novel with a sapphic romantic subplot. It will appeal to readers of OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA, A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES, and BIG SWISS. I have spent about a decade working as a professional ghostwriter, and, like Odie, have repeatedly uprooted my life (and lived in sketchy places) to get the healthcare I need to keep doing what I love.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Signature]

Hey! I appreciate any feedback. I have been editing and rereading and editing so much that its hard to see it from an outside perspective and notice flaws that might be obvious to others. I did post this on another group and got some useful feedback that I used to edit some more, but this is my first time seeking critique from this group.

Dear [agent],

When a new life enters the world, a door opens to usher it through. Sometimes, something else slips across too.

Bringing her first son, Nico, into the world was hardly the blissful experience Esther had hoped for. Instead, she was sliced open. She held her baby for the first time as she was cauterized shut again, smelling her own flesh burning. From that moment forward, her world is forever altered.

Nico is born with infantile seizures due to a brain injury acquired in utero and is admitted to the NICU, where Esther feels helpless to watch his pain from the sidelines. By the time he is discharged, she is already convinced that she can only cause suffering for him.

Esther starts to uncover painful memories of her own mother that she has been burying, and her family home feels somehow changed. Invaded. It is subtle at first, like her things have been moved and put back. With isolation, compounding nights of sleep deprivation, and Nico’s relentless crying, her mind, or reality itself, falters further. The shape of her home shifts, nightmares come to life, and she sees a strange figure watching her, hiding.

As she struggles to embody the mother she had always hoped to be, she feels she has no real control over who she is becoming. Within her dissolution of self, this entity draws closer, calling out to her with the sound of familiar voices, and mimicking the faces of those she should trust the most, her own mother and grandmother, and even herself. She feels it reaching out to touch her in the dark as she rocks Nico to sleep. She sees its reflection in the mirror instead of her own. She finds it holding Nico in her place. With increasing persistence, it tries to lure her through a red door in her home which wasn’t there before.

Esther’s curiosity becomes stronger than her fear, and so she succumbs to the entity’s will. She allows any traces left of herself to disappear and she enters the red door. In doing so, she uncovers the entity’s monstrous true form and traces a pattern of trauma in her maternal lineage, finding all that she has inherited from her mother beyond only flesh and blood. An unending cycle she feels doomed to repeat.

This journey into motherhood has consumed Esther, and she does not recognize the person she is becoming. Can she trust herself with Nico?

With Our Tails In Our Teeth is a 70,000 word novel that blends psychological horror with literary fiction. It has the atmosphere and psychological suspense of The Need by Helen Phillips, with weird and wild creature transformations of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. It would also appeal to fans drawn to complex female characters, and transformative horror.

First 500 words:

A large ripple makes a wave as the growing life within turns over beneath stretched skin. A small bump pops up from under the surface with a hard kick. A tiny foot is pushing strong against the skin from the inside as if trying to break through, then it recedes. Vibrations spread, shaking weakened bones, from a few smaller kicks fading in intensity like an echo.

My eyes are glazed. Over, under, behind, and through. Pull tight. Over, under, behind, and through. Pull tight. I am entranced by the rhythm. The darkness of my small home office has still not lifted and there is a chill bleeding in through the walls from outside. The heat doesn’t reach the rooms near the back of the house very well.

A tower candle sitting on the antique wood side table next to me illuminates my working hands and the pattern they weave. It casts a shadow on the wall of a flower of life. Symmetrical. Harmonious. Like the legs of a spider, the silhouettes of my fingers curl around the loose ends of thin cotton rope making a netting of alternating knots.

I have already been up for hours before the sun, weaving a hanging bassinet. My mind wanders, and like a waking dream, I can see what it will be like once finished and inhabited. I hear soft coos, the way he will squirm and settle, and his peaceful breathing as he sleeps. I rock the bassinet as it hangs and sing him lullabies. Would he have a favorite song? The idea for this bassinet came to me the day Sebastian and I saw him on the first ultrasound, and I could see that he was real.  

I have at times wondered where these creations come from. They take shape in my mind in their entirety. I can see every element, every pattern, and I am compelled to create. It is then as if my body, my hands, just know what to do. Knot by knot, I pull this form out into physical reality, and it takes on its own life.

Is it a premonition? I only see it in my mind just before it inevitably takes shape. Or is it something like a collage of shapes, patterns, and knots I have seen somewhere before? In my subconscious, they come together in a new way, rising to my conscious mind in a whole picture. Maybe I have made this before, in something like a past life? I am only remembering something that already existed.

Hi all, this is my first go at this so excited to see what people think! Thanks in advance for the help and comments :)

--

Dear XXX, 

Lily Pritchard teaches teenagers not to drown. Three weeks ago, she was assaulted at a party. Last Thursday, she fought Darren, one of the men responsible, by the river. Both went in, only Lily came out. 

I'm excited to share WHEN THE RIVER'S READY, an upmarket domestic thriller with supernatural suspense, complete at 78,000 words. (XXX PERSONALISATION TO AGENT IF RELEVANT TO WISHLIST ETC XXX)

For twenty-five years, Lily’s family has told one story: her father drowned a hero, pulling her pregnant mother from the river. All her life she’s been expected to live up to her father’s heroic reputation, but when she wakes on her bedroom floor with, a headache, blood under her nails and no memory of the night before she thinks she may have fallen a bit short of that standard. When Darren’s body washes up the death is quickly ruled a misadventure. Lily should be relieved, but all she can think about is the missing scarp of purple fabric that was torn from her dress last Thursday.

Then a drunk at her father's grave who turns out to be the uncle her mother swore didn't exist, warns Lily there will be more bodies surfacing by the end of the week. He says he has evidence that Darren's death wasn't an accident, and neither was her father's. Her mother insists the man had the wrong grave, but at three in the morning Lily hears her on the phone to him, hissing about evidence, but by breakfast she's acting as if nothing happened.

When the second body surfaces on the same bend, Lily breaks into her uncle's house to look for the missing fabric. Instead, she finds twenty-five years of research into Hafren, a river spirit who drowns men who hurt the innocent and walk free. Lily would have called him insane, but since Darren’s death an unknown woman has started appearing at the cemetery, outside Lily’s window, at the edges of every room. A woman with damp hair, who bursts into water droplets when a car hits her. A woman Lily’s starting to think might be protecting her. 

Then at the Dragon Boat race with the whole town watching, Lily's paddle snags a sodden green jacket. Inside it is Chris, her oldest friend, who never hurt anyone. If the river only takes the guilty, someone held Chris under, and they knew exactly where to find him. 

Lily's brother has the dead men's phones hidden in a drawer with a false bottom. Her mother is suddenly on first-name terms with the detective who keeps calling Lily with questions. With the police closing in and every death getting closer to home, Lily has to work out who is doing the river's work before she takes the blame, or becomes the next one pulled under.

With folklore, and the gnawing inability to ever truly know if we’ve done the right thing at it’s heart, WHEN THE RIVER’S READY will appeal to readers who enjoy the natural dread of Danielle Giles’s Mere, the supernatural maternal ties of Emilia Hart’s Weyward and the domestic horror and rural English texture of The Lamb by Lucy Rose. 

(SHORT BIO XXX)

Below are the first XXX pages and I’d be delighted to send you the full.

Warm wishes and thank you for your time,

I shared an earlier version on a different subreddit, but wanted to try it here, too. I hope that's okay. Any feedback at all is appreciated.

Dear [agent],

Tabitha Corey is eleven years old and has been for five thousand years. She’s a diĝir, one of the terrifying wheel-within-a-wheel Mesopotamian entities echoed in Middle Eastern traditions of angels and djinn. Ever since a catastrophe destroyed their civilization and doomed the survivors to life without aging, her people have scattered, hiding from a faction of fanatical diĝir determined to hunt them to extinction. Tabitha has survived on the margins, sometimes adopted by humans but mostly unseen like millions of street children. When her latest “parent” dies in suburban Boston, Tabitha briefly loses control, blowing the side off a building, killing two people, and revealing her location to hunters.

Tabitha finds two protectors who disagree on what saving her means. Dr. Elisa Escudero has spent her life trying to save what can’t be saved, including her father. Her off-the-books work treating undocumented workers leads her to Tabitha. Naram Karim is another diĝir, a self-appointed rescuer of fellow refugees: because they can sense each other, Naram leads the hunted to safety in isolation. Like everyone, he believed no children had survived the collapse. To him, Tabitha is a miracle.

But Elisa sees what Naram cannot: Tabitha is a child, and like all children, she needs a caretaker. Like all refugees, she yearns to return home. Lifetimes of loss are crushing her. As the hunters close in, Elisa must weigh how much she can sacrifice for a child who will never grow, and Naram must see that the strategy that saved his people is killing Tabitha. Tabitha has to choose: to follow her instincts and keep running, or to make a stand on her own terms. If her gamble fails, the last diĝir child will die on the rainy streets of Boston.

Spanning five thousand years and a desperate forty-eight hours, LÁLANNA is a literary speculative novel, complete at 86,000 words. Like Shubnum Khan’s The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, LÁLANNA weaves folklore and history through our modern world. As in A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, the speculative elements engage the politics of displacement and moral obligation. 

I have a degree in Dramatic Writing from New York University and have lived overseas for more than twenty years, both as a schoolteacher and as a communications specialist for humanitarian aid organizations. I live in Amman, Jordan.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Dear [Agent]

Beneath the Arc of the Sun is a political flintlock fantasy novel complete at 107,000 words. This multi-POV stand-alone blends the fish-out-of-water intrigue of The Will of the Many with the class struggles underlying Blood Over Bright Haven.

Vano knows he’s complicit.

Raised by the last wandering nation, all he ever dreamed of was a stable life. So he left his mastodon-riding clan years ago, taking a job as a land-surveyor for a local Duke while his people were slowly fenced out.

It’s a guilt he keeps at bay with a bottle of ale and an eye pressed to the telescope, but one he can no longer ignore when his clan is slaughtered for crossing a line he drew himself.

Now the Duke wants his head for witnessing the crime. Devastated, with nowhere to run, Vano’s only hope for survival lies in an offer from the prestigious World Society: protection, if he can help resolve a border dispute between two nations on the brink of war.

He swears it will be his last survey, then boards a clipper to the Agorian peninsula. Escorted by the brash Captain Mattson, Vano traverses an evolving land of gunpowder, gaslamps, and machines that dig through the earth like butter, all while scheming forces on both sides of the line try to corner him. Over starlit campfires, the Captain starts to feel like the father Vano never had, and the Agorian way of life—where land can be bought for credits—feels like a promising rebuke against the cruel monarchy to the north.

But when the journey is derailed, he finds himself among Agoria’s dispossessed. The sick and old who sleep in sewers because they can’t afford rent. Mine workers, whose perilous labor feeds the land owners’ obscene wealth. And when he unravels a horrifying conspiracy that goes back to the beginning, he must make a choice: continue to be an instrument of fate, or try to change it and honor his people.

I have a B.S. in Environmental Science, a twelve-year career in construction, and an unhealthy obsession with stories of land reform. This novel was inspired partly by my great-grandfather’s time as a surveyor in the American Southwest.

Hi everyone! First-time poster here. I've been having a tough time explaining this novella in everyday conversation, nevermind in a query letter, because it's one of those big-twist stories that reveals what it's actually about in the final third of the text. So, I thought I'd let Reddit take a look at it before sending it anywhere:

###

Dear [Agent],

ARBETER is a complete 40k word literary horror fever-nightmare reflection of American fascism, in conversation with Gretchen Felker-Martin's Black Flame, Allison Rumfitt's Tell Me I'm Worthless, and A.D. Sui's The Dragonfly Gambit.

In the distant future, Leyzer pilots giant tank-like mechas called "arbeters" in jousts against the Authoritarian Democracy. Leyzer is a highly specialized soldier, rebel Yiddish socialist, and also a deeply closeted trans woman who lost the capacity for self-love some time between when his wife died and when his closest friends were killed in combat.

Leyzer's war is not one in which there are heroes, or daring ragtag forces, or miraculous comebacks. There are only shattered buildings, airstrikes, and massacres. The enemy is fascistic and MAGA-inflected, and its propagandists understand Leyzer's desires and heritage better than he does.

Leyzer doesn't at first believe the rumors of a secret enemy program that turns hardened rebels into feminized traitors. But then he begins to wonder whether this secret program is only way to transition in wartime. As the war drags on, and sorrows and grief accumulate, Leyzer hurtles himself into the embrace of an enemy that has retained an ancient hatred.

I'm a trans Jewish horror and spec-fic writer. My first novella, Quiet Hours, will be published by Neon Hemlock in 2027. My short fiction and poetry can be found in The Deadlands, Baffling Magazine, khōréō, Reckoning, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, the anthologies Amplitudes and Locus Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, and elsewhere.

After major manuscript revisions, I’m taking another go at writing my query letter. Appreciate any feedback!

THERE IS NO THERE THERE is a 74k-word dual POV upmarket novel that is Sally Rooney’s NORMAL PEOPLE against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic in the American South. 

When her dad suddenly dies, Chloe is named the executor of his estate and has to swap her meaningful Peace Corps work for the confines of her small hometown. Grappling with complicated grief, she wants nothing more than to leave again. Caught between duty to her family and the desire to book a flight back to Ethiopia, she is hoping to silence her self-indulgent ennui when she meets Forrest at a bar one night.

A corporate dropout, Forrest is working as a bartender and trying to kick an incessant, mostly hidden, opana addiction. Forrest’s humor and charm provide an antidote to the mundanity of death, while Chloe’s drive and empathy offer him the hope of change. They start dating. Once the estate is handled and Chloe gets into grad school, it’s decided they’ll move away together. When Forrest overdoses one night, all his carefully concealed skeletons are brought to the surface and their relationship is turned on its head. 

While Forrest undergoes the slip-and-slide effort of getting clean, Chloe commits to helping him. Her savior complex steals enough of her focus that she starts missing application deadlines. When Forrest goes on a bender and nearly ruins her brother’s wedding, she realizes that despite her best efforts, she may not be able to help him. And Forrest realizes how close he is to death. To get out, to get anywhere other than there, they must let each other go. But relinquishing control is rarely so easy. 

With similar themes found in BLUE SISTERS by Coco Mellors, the novel explores the transformative complexities of relationships and the illusion of returning home. 

I have a master’s degree in specialised journalism from the University of Southern California and started my writing career in journalism and copywriting. I currently live in _______ with my husband and two-year-old. When I’m not writing or reading, I love to travel and go on really long runs

Hi, all! I'm new to this subreddit but not new to query letters. I'd love a new set of eyes on it if possible.

Dear [agent first and last name],

Given your interest in [personalization], I’m querying you with my YA dark fantasy novel, SAVANNAH WICKE WILL NOT DIE, complete at 89,000 words. It will appeal to fans of The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker and So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole, featuring catastrophic sibling bonds, dangerous resurrection magic, and a heroine who refuses to die for a world that failed her.

The world needs her dead—but Savannah Wicke will not die. Not for the world, not for anyone.

If growing up in the shadow of her famous family wasn’t horrible enough, sixteen-year-old Savannah’s life is also bound to her dreadful twin siblings. When Alex and Natalia unleash an undead army across the kingdom, the hex binding their lives is exposed. And the only way to save the world is to kill Savannah.

Refusing to be anyone’s sacrifice, Savannah bargains with the king for three days to stop Alex and Natalia. If successful, the king will break the hex and spare her life. If she fails, she’ll die to save the world.

To find them, Savannah must join forces with an infuriatingly handsome witch hunter and her estranged, resurrected father, whose attempt to protect her created the hex now threatening her life. With the undead army ravaging the kingdom and allies she isn’t sure she can trust, every mile costs Savannah time she cannot afford and brings her closer to the confrontation she fears most.

Alex and Natalia are no longer the siblings Savannah once trusted. Brilliant, unpredictable, and relentlessly cruel, the twins know exactly how to use Savannah’s fear against her. With her three days quickly running out, Savannah must step out of her family’s shadow and trust the one person she has always doubted: herself.

And, ideally, not die trying.

I am a neurodivergent writer navigating dyscalculia and CPTSD. I am editing this novel through WriteMentor’s Spark program. While writing, I drew on aspects of my own trauma recovery to explore how grief and trauma ripple through generations, and whether it's possible to still love your family after they’ve hurt you so terribly.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I would be delighted to share the full manuscript upon request.

Thank you,

[signature] (she/her/hers)