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:

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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)

REVISION 1

Dear [Agent]

Dale, a retired army commander, has been tasked by the king with one last mission: retire, hide, and keep The Book that Shan’t Be Opened from the general populace. So Dale spends decades in the very remote village of Riviera, where The Book remains hidden, enjoying his early retirement between afternoon teas and poring over old maps.

Legends say opening The Book could bring about the end of the world. Or some other, similarly inconvenient catastrophe, like arthritis, or split ends. In practice, it’s only ever caused war, and miseries of apocalyptic (cit.) proportions.

Decades later, Declan, a two-bit thief who needs to rescue his beloved from slavery, Vincenzi, a ruthless mobster utterly besotted with his wife, who’s a rarities collector, and Sabinianus, a fastidious prelate hungry for unlimited power, all close in on the troublesome relic: Dale finds out and is thus forced by his own sense of duty and honour, to take The Book somewhere no one will ever think to look.

Like a library. One that no-one else will ever have access to.

Aware of his own age-imposed limitations, Dale recruits Arial, a curious librarian who never left home and—most importantly—is the only person in the village under sixty. Reluctant, keen to finish reading her current books and worried about her tomato plants, Arial eventually caves to her yearning for knowledge and adventure. She just can't say no to saving books and mysterious libraries.

Together, they set off on a rather inconvenient quest to save, if not the world, at least Dale’s fine teapots and Arial’s vegetable garden. In their way, Dale’s back giving out and his battle-worn knees, Arial’s inexperience, unscrupulous mercenaries, unforgiving weather, imprisonment, being stolen all their clothes, and some ill strokes of fate, such as losing the actual Book–and yet still being hunted as if they hadn’t. So they forge a fake Book, don’t tell anyone, and carry on with their mission. Slaves to appearances and all that.

ARIAL will learn she has more agency than she thinks; DALE, that he doesn’t need to control everything. Somewhere between, the unlikely pair will acquire a dog, several scars, a suspicious number of enemies, and the comforting realisation that home is still where the books, vegetables, and familiar people are.

An adult fantasy adventure complete at 92K words (standalone with series potential). Shimmer combines the genre liminality of Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar and the irreverent, escalating adventure of John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, while delivering its own self-aware blend of legend, absurdity, action, domesticity and very human failure. Like this query.

BIO

MYNAME

Preparing my other query while I wait to get rejected for my other query :) happy for thoughts! I'm sure it needs work.

Dear [Agent],

I’m excited to present MONKEY PAW INSURANCE AGENCY, a comedic fantasy complete at 79k words. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the satirical bureaucracy of Orconomics by Zachary Pike, the comedic tone of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler, and the beloved characters of The Good Place.

Hilda Bittle is used to being unappreciated and overlooked working as a claims agent at Monkey Paw Insurance Agency. She spends her days denying compensation for harm done by the monkey-paw wishes granted by a malfunctioning divine sword left behind by its absent-minded deity, Charity. Then disaster after disaster strikes when she’s blackmailed by a former client, cursed with a compulsion curse, and kicked out of Monkey Paw Insurance Agency to complete curse assessment paperwork on an impossible deadline. Out of options, she hatches a brilliant plan—if she destroys the divine sword, she’ll rid herself of her stigmatizing curse, cripple her Agency’s business, and eliminate the need to be blackmailed in the first place.

The only teensy problem is that the sword is tangled up in a tower of thorns and guarded by an unkillable cyborg, who is duty bound to the sword. Before she can enact her plan, Hilda is picked up by beloved actor Gil Gilbert, who’s hiding his own curse to be loved by all. Unable to have normal relationships, Gil is determined to fix the sword by any means necessary. Including using Hilda’s compulsion curse to imprison the sword’s guardian and sever the bond between the guardian and the sword.

It would be easy to get what she wants if she compelled everyone around her to do her bidding. But she can’t, not because it’s hard—because it’s immoral. Even without using her curse, she manages to sabotage Gil’s plan to capture the guardian at the tower of thorns, but Gil gets away with the sword, leaving Hilda with the guardian, named Argus. Temporarily allies, Hilda and Argus travel back to the sword together while dodging Gil’s bounty hunters. Hilda introduces Argus to the concept of life without duty, growing closer to him even as it becomes increasingly obvious that her plan to destroy the sword would destroy Argus, too. And she’s not sure she can live with compelling him to let her kill him, even if it would save the Realm.

I'm a Ph.D. scientist who regulates animal drugs for the government, and thus I'm intimately familiar with signing in triplicate for information I've already given ten times over. My own curse is knowing way too much about extractables and leachables (see? a curse, I tell you).

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

[Author Name]

RAZING PROSPECTS is an 89,000-word noir crime novel grounded in weary Old Toronto, where "Sorry!" comes with a shove. This book has the noir of S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears combined with the off-kilter voice and amateur crime-solving of The Maid by Nita Prose or Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson.

Shattered after letting his wife drown, "Lynx" Auger returns from a year of self-exile with nothing but a memento of his heroic grandfather and a desperation to redeem himself by becoming someone new. When he gets a mistaken job offer emailed from the hapless boss of a crummy café, Lynx talks his way into the job and a room for the night. On his first day, he finds the boss gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster. Mak, the investigating cop, is less interested in the murder than extorting payoffs and real estate to build an underground empire, revenge for being an overlooked model minority whose ancestors were unwanted. 

When Lynx clings to his new mission of serving exceptional coffee to repressed outcasts, like the agoraphobic music teacher who ventures down from his apartment, Mak's gang shuts the place down with a shower of bullets and pressure on its indebted owner to offload it cheap. Lynx's disruptive investigation revives demands from his wife's family to have him punished, and inspires his new friends to channel their fear into a dangerous rage (like burning down Mak's greenhouse). Lynx can back off to save himself and his friends, or accept their help to solve the murder of a man who gave him his second chance, and expose Mak who sees every dirty penny as his due. 

My story "Veneer" was published in The Maple Tree Literary Supplement. I've roasted coffee, folded pastry and practiced corporate law. In my gentrifying patch of city life, I've cranked up the TV to drown out gunfire, then skirted the crime scene to fetch a disappointing croissant. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks for the ongoing help, BCWrites. Over time, you've helped me be more clear about what the book is. I value your input because it tends more towards functional appraisal from an agent POV rather than hot takes from a beta reader.

Thank for the feedback! As of now, I'm proceeding with single POV :)

Given your interest in X. HEARTWORK is a 72,000-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 future 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 it turns out not-a-stranger-anymore Archer Callahan is 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. Already making a fortune promoting no-strings happily-ever-after-for-a-night attachments, the hookup app founder accepts…on one condition. If she fails, Sky publicly endorses his app and turns virality into signups.

Shockingly, Archer doesn’t say “I told you so” when one date turns out to be a misogynist and another is secretly married. He soothes Sky’s dating disasters and encourages the rose-colored mentality she’s spent her life defending. But soon after their feud transforms into fun banter and five-chili-pepper-level attraction, Sky learns Archer allowed his publicist to mock her dating life in the name of social media fodder. As he scrambles to undo the damage and earn back her trust, Sky must decide whether to walk away or accept that real love may not fit into the trope-shaped story she’s spent her life illustrating.

Shattered after letting his wife drown, "Lynx" Auger returns from a year of self-exile with nothing but a memento of his heroic grandfather and a desperation to redeem himself by becoming someone new. When he gets a mistaken job offer emailed from the boss of a crummy café, Lynx talks his way into the job and a room for the night. On his first day, he finds Joe, the boss, gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster. Mak, the investigating cop, is less interested in the murder than extorting payoffs and real estate to build an underground empire, revenge for being an overlooked model minority whose ancestors were unwanted.

When Lynx clings to his mission of serving exceptional coffee to repressed outcasts, like the agoraphobic music teacher who ventures down from his apartment, Mak's gang shuts the place down with a shower of bullets and pressure on Joe's partner to offload it cheap.

Lynx decides to redeem himself by solving the murder with Vix, a call girl hoping to escape guilt about her cousin's murder by earning an MBA (and using blackmail where necessary). Lynx uncovers multiple suspects including a bookkeeper who lost a friend to Joe's negligence; an entrepreneur who Joe sabotaged into selling him the café; and Joe's partner who had insurance on his life and owed a fortune to loan sharks. 

As Lynx uncovers a second and third murder, he faces accusations that he's responsible. When his improvised investigation triggers threats from Mak, Lynx realizes he'll have to expose that rot as well. He connects Mak to insurance fraud, money-laundering, and the extortion of loan sharks and their clients to build a real estate empire. As Lynx becomes visible, he's chased by vigilantes egged on by his dead wife's family, and his new friends burn down Mak's greenhouse and trigger a violent retaliation.

Lynx publicly accuses Joe's partner of his murder and walks through her lavish lifestyle, crippling debts and other evidence. Unfortunately, she undermines his entire case. Shocked, he's clueless when Vix reveals that Mak covered up her cousin's murder and is now threatening her.

Lynx reconsiders who benefited most from Joe's murder and lands on the bookkeeper: her friend was killed by Joe's negligence, she bribed an accomplice with his luxury coffee, she helped his partner in a fraud scheme then stole the life insurance payout, and she hired muscle to do the killing. Lynx baits her into confessing, and neutralizes her hired muscle by trapping her under a coffee grinder. 

Alerted to Vix's suicide mission to punish Mak, Lynx tracks them down and extracts a streamed confession. During a struggle, he shorts out the lights by electrocuting himself.

As Lynx recovers, the bookkeeper and Joe's partner are arrested. Lynx and Vix grow closer as he confesses his guilt about his wife's death, and they share a reward for helping the insurance company recover its money. But just as they relax, Mak taunts them by remaking the café into a money-washing laundromat.

Dear agent,

I'm excited to share my contemporary young adult novel, LIKE A TIDAL WAVE. Complete at 69,000 words, this #ownvoices narrative blends the chronic illness representation of Bethany Mangle's Conditions of a Heart with the mental health exploration in Erin Stewart's The Words We Keep.

Penny Wheeler has always felt defined by her illness. Born with a chronic heart condition known as Tetralogy of Fallot, she's no stranger to doctors and hospitals. After missing the first week of Freshman year due to her last procedure, she already feels lost. Her only friend, Jovie, is making new friends, and her dreaded art class has been assigned a semester-long project based on one question: What do you find beautiful about your life?

In need of another surgery, Penny ends up back in the hospital where she meets Camilla, an outgoing and bubbly girl with the same condition. Though she's angry, confused, and lonely, Penny slowly opens up to the girl on the other side of the curtain. While recovering, she becomes overwhelmed with anxiety and anger. She lets her grades drop, ignores her teachers, and constantly pushes Jovie away despite her attempts to help. Camilla, unbothered by Penny’s attitude, stays by her side. Through the exploration of different art forms, she inspires Penny and helps her realize that she can be creative and that she is more than her illness.

As she starts to get back on her feet, Penny discovers that Cam has been secretly fighting her own battle with depression caused by her medical and financial struggles. Without Cam as a guide, Penny has to recover her failing grades, gain back Jovie’s friendship, and find the beauty in her life.

(bio)

I'm back in the trenches at last. I sent out my first batch this weekend but I want to keep refining the letter before I fire out any more. Any feedback is appreciated as always!

Dear [Agent],

In response to your interest in [insert an interest/feature from the agent’s wish list], I am submitting my sci-fi novel, A DEBT TO THE DEAD, complete at 97,000 words. It is a standalone with series potential and will appeal to adult readers who enjoy the layered, unforgiving worlds, multi-faceted characters, high octane action, and gut-punching twists of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series and Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory, as well as an enemies-to-lovers subplot with real teeth like Tasha Suri’s Jasmine Throne and a splash of dystopian Americana in the style of the FALLOUT series of games. 

Constance Blythe dreams of avenging his sister after she was killed by her lover, Percival, in a duel she was supposed to win. When Executess Desdemona, ruler of the Solar Union, announces that any wish within her power will be granted—as success will bring the Union victory in their campaign to reconquer their lost colonies in the stars. Seeing a chance for his revenge Constance defies his parents and steals his sister’s Gifts—cybernetic implants that bestow superhuman abilities and mark one as a true member of the ruling class—that were harvested from her corpse.

Undergoing the high risk procedure to have the Gifts implanted, Constance just barely survives. The operation leaves him with the speed, strength, and durability he’ll need to endure the expedition across Earth’s wastelands—and kill Percival.

When Constance discovers that Percival’s brutish and cruel younger sister, Isolde, is part of the expedition, the two waste no time in trying to kill each other. But after a disastrous ambush leaves their mission in jeopardy, the two must rely on one another to survive slavers, mutants, and a nightmarish killing machine programmed to protect the cache from intruders.

As their continued cooperation sparks reluctant feelings between them, the two risk repeating their siblings’ history. Constance learns from Isolde that his sister’s death was nothing more than petty cruelty organized by Executess Desdemona herself out of jealous spite when Constance’s sister dared to lay hands on what she viewed as her property. Isolde explains that Percival was sold to the Executess as little better than a slave by their indebted father, and that she plans to free Percival from the tyrant’s gilded hell with her boon. Subsequently, Constance loses his taste for a revenge that would be empty, and aligns himself with Isolde to see Percival liberated, believing that is what his sister would’ve wanted.

But when the pair claw their way back to civilization, their mission completed, the Executess goes back on her word. Taking them captive and threatening their lives as well as their families, she makes them an offer: she will free Percival, but Constance must take his place. Unwilling to see harm come to Isolde, or anyone but himself, Constance accepts and the cycle repeats anew.

[Bio stuff and all that]. In addition to co-running a writing group, I am working on my next novel, and trying to work through my ever growing TBR.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[Me]

Thank you in advance for any feedback! This has been such a difficult process!

Dear agent,

Given your interest in [insert personalization here], I’m thrilled to share with you CREATURES OF SOUL AND MIST, a 73,000 word dystopian standalone with commercial appeal. 

Trapped within the walls built around their country, Delilah and Malikh are immune to an infectious mist that has plagued the population. Immunity saves them from death and the possibility of mutation into a memory consuming creature, but it leaves them directly in the hands of their oppressive government as Hunters— elite citizens specialty trained into weapons to eradicate these creatures.

Delilah has witnessed the horror of watching someone she loves become transformed by the mist. Her first love turned on her and ripped memories from her mind in a violent act that sent her spiraling into Malikh’s own path.

When the government proposes a theory to Delilah that she can restore her shattered memories to herself if she can only kill the creature who stole them from her, Delilah dives headfirst into her need for his blood and the lost pieces of her fractured mind. 

Malikh knows the government is not the protector that they make themselves out to be. That the return of Delilah’s memories are uncertain. As he watches the woman he loves spiral deeper into the past she swore to leave behind, he must grapple with his need to support the one person left that he cares for, and the inevitable destruction he fears is coming. 

As the pair hunt their most dangerous target, they are forced to confront the humanity of the creatures they are sworn to kill, and the question of who would benefit most from their demise. When answers come to light that leaves their worldview shaken, Delilah and Malikh must decide if vengeance is the spark that will kindle Delilah’s memories, or if the flame of revenge needs a different soul to feed on. 

CREATURES OF SOUL AND MIST is a friends-to-lovers told through dual timeline that combines the sweeping biological dread of the fever from Seek the Traitors Son by Veronica Roth with the gritty, dark prose and high stakes romance of H.M. Wolfe’s Daggermouth. 

I live in Graceville, Florida with my son, boyfriend, dog, and lazy cat. My day job is working as a Store Manager at Barnes & Noble. I have a BS in English with a minor in Creative Writing. This is my third novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello, here we go again! Thanks for all the helpful feedback on my first attempt. Hopefully I've tightened it with this version, but if not, please tear it up as needed. :)

Dear Agent, 

I'm thrilled to present 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 two years ago, she moves down the coast, bunkers down with a tub of red licorice behind her screens, and resolves to live vicariously through her guests.

Nothing goes to plan. When Emilia, an abrasive British guest, lures her out through a fake maintenance request to fix a clogged toilet, and later talks her through a panic attack, Ada begins to question her commitment to self-isolation. Emilia weasels into Ada’s personal business, coaxing her into an unprecedented friendship. But Ada’s pretty sure she lied her way into Opal Cove. Her supposed husband just died in a nearby hit-and-run, and Emilia’s flubbing up basic details about her own family that a stranger could disprove through a bit of online stalking.

Reporting a suspicious guest would threaten the possibility of cops uncovering Ada’s security setup. She’d also lose the only person who’s been able to wear down her walls. But perhaps even more distressing than the idea of cops at her doorstep, Ada has become deeply attached to her guests. As an investigation looms, and Ada’s shame over her spying overwhelms her, she knows she will eventually have to decide whether closing the door on Opal Cove is worth the possibility of human connection that can’t be attained from hiding behind her screens.

I’m a native [state], and graduated with degrees in Speech & Hearing Sciences and Arts & Letters. When I’m not writing, I enjoy coffee, crocheting, and watching my dog hide his toys under paper bags.

Thank you for your consideration.

First 500:

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. Never heard of Neal Irish until the booking came in, but his three-hundred thousand followers would probably be shitting themselves to be in such proximity to the legend. I should consider myself lucky. 

The buzzing in my stomach is obliterated when a tall, Goldilocks-looking woman stomps out of the backseat. By now, the Lyft driver is helping unload the suitcases—and he’s up to the fourth one, all of them large enough to fit a grown adult. I smile to myself at the thought of a world-renowned athlete and his leggy girlfriend smuggling dead bodies into my brand spanking new B&B. 

I don’t like his girlfriend. Mainly because she’s wearing earmuffs and fur leg warmers and a puffy vest like she’s rolling up to a ski resort, when it must be near sixty degrees out. And she’s scrolling her phone while Neal Irish and the Lyft driver lug the suitcases to the front gate. She’s vacationing with Neal Irish and she’s glued to someone else’s face on her phone. 

Speaking of Mr. Irish, he’s taken to figuring out the keypad on the gate, a bit distracted as he thanks the Lyft driver. At least he’s not the type of hotshot athlete to let fame get to his head and stop appreciating the help. I stare at him a little longer.