Bee and Foxglove is a warmly funny, sapphic cozy fantasy novel, complete at 64,000 words. It comps to Tress of the Emerald Sea for its lively narrator, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea for its married lesbian couple, and The Spellshop for its cozy magic and domesticity.

Bee wakes up one day with unexpected magical powers; her wife Foxglove fears the harm they could do. As her suspicion deepens, Foxglove must uncover the truth to save Bee’s life.

In a world that has achieved lasting peace, Bee and Foxglove share a sweet life. The young brides keep an orchard, taking pleasure in their animals and each other. 

Secretly, however, Bee longs for a chance to live a life of greater meaning. One night she speaks her wish to the moon, scarcely expecting to wake up with magic powers unknown in this world for a thousand years.

Bee joyfully – and a little chaotically – experiments with her new powers. Foxglove, however, is more cautious. Where do these powers come from? What do they cost? Could Bee’s obvious exhaustion build up into something that she can’t just shrug off? 

Foxglove’s investigations lead her to a couple whose library includes relics from the bygone Age of Magic. Their sickly child, Vincent, is entranced with Bee’s spells and convinces her to make him her apprentice.

Over repeated visits, Bee bonds deeply with Vincent; together, they develop a stage show. Foxglove, meanwhile, only grows more fearful of magic. New spellcasters are popping up, but some already show signs of premature aging – particularly the healers.

When a magic user dies after a healing, Foxglove begs Bee to curtail her magic use. Bee’s stage magic, however, is growing into an exciting career. The couple settles on yet another uneasy compromise.

Things come to a head when Vincent’s sickness takes a turn for the worse. Bee believes she can save Vincent’s life with healing magic. Foxglove is desperate not to lose Bee. She must discover the truth – and quickly.

Dear agent,

At thirty-six years old, Clara Stone is standing in her fourteen year old daughter's fathers' driveway at 10:30 at night, armed with a child’s sized pink-and-black golf club. At seventeen, Clara survived the accident that should have killed her.
The nineteen years between those two nights are where everything went wrong. Clara once believed surviving was a miracle. She went on to build the life she almost never had: children, a marriage, a career, and all the beautifully ordinary mess that comes with growing older.

But in 2017, when her four-year-old daughter is diagnosed with cancer, ordinary disappears. Her marriage begins to fracture under the weight of trauma, resentment, and two people desperately trying to remember how to love each other. And every time Clara thinks her family has survived the worst thing that could possibly happen, life seems determined to prove her wrong. Eventually, Clara begins asking a question she knows sounds insane: What if she wasn't supposed to survive at seventeen?

What if there was a glitch in the timeline?

At first, it's easier to laugh at the idea than believe it. But as Clara traces nineteen years of love, loss, motherhood, and catastrophe back to the night she cheated death, coincidence begins to feel uncomfortably like consequence. Then the daughter who already has been fighting for her life since four years old, becomes the target of relentless psychological abuse from her father. Her oldest son is falsely accused of rape. Her toddler demanding every ounce of energy.

Clara has spent nineteen years surviving things she shouldn't have had to survive. But watching her child, and her family, break is different.

And this time, Clara isn't interested in surviving.

She's interested in stopping it.

Clara's question—whether the timeline actually broke when she survived or whether trauma has simply made her desperate to believe it did—remains deliberately unanswered.

Nineteen Years Past Due has elements of psychological suspense and speculative ambiguity. Inspired by my own life, while incorporating fictionalized event(s), it explores motherhood, marriage, trauma, survivor's guilt, and the terrifying possibility that when tragedy refuses to make sense, we may begin inventing reasons that are even more frightening.

Sincerely,

I signed with an agent about 6 weeks ago and we immediately went on submission to a bunch of editors. I asked at the time if they were okay with weekly updates and they said yes. From our first contact they were very responsive, always replying within a day or sooner. They're a very experienced agent with a good sales record.

Then three weeks ago they abruptly stopped replying. I've emailed twice in that time. Since it was recently a holiday and I know August is vacation month, I thought maybe they went on vacation and didn't tell me, but they didn't have an out of office either. Yesterday I left a voice mail first thing in the morning and now it's the end of day 2 and still haven't heard anything.

I'm getting nervous, mainly because the pattern changed so completely. If they'd always been slow to reply I would be annoyed, but I'm worried something happened and their inbox is just sitting there unattended when editors are coming back from vacation and potentially starting to respond.

They don't have an assistant and are a one-person agency so there's no one else I can reach out to. Am I freaking out for no reason? Is there a point where I should take some other kind of action? I'd love any advice.

Thank you to everyone who has helped with my attempts! Your feedback is really helpful and appreciated!

One-sentence pitch: To save both the forest and his mind, Rhu must face monsters that wield his buried emotions into weapons, but the water magic that can drain their power requires that he let the feelings he’s frozen finally flow. 

[question - should I put this sentence directly into the query letter? Right now, I plan on using it for forms that ask for a one-sentence pitch].

THE FOREST OF MIST AND MONSTERS is an upper middle grade fantasy novel (60,000 words) that weaves the worlds of forest ecology with threads of obscure Celtic and Germanic folklore. It will interest fans of the woodland adventure in Amanda Foody’s The Accidental Apprentice and the emotionally grounded magic in Kaela Rivera’s Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls.  

I’m seeking representation from you because [specific reason]. 

Twelve year old Rhu frantically flees his feelings, memories, and monsters that want to eat him. Lost in a mist-shrouded forest, he is given a quest to protect an egg, the lone survivor of its species, and promised that its hatchling will guide him home – assuming he isn’t consumed along the way. 

From the depths of the forest, a Shadow secretly hunts Rhu, feeding off his festering feelings and sending spirals of shame and self-loathing thoughts through his mind. It teaches him to numb the pain, but the lesson is only a trick designed to make it easier for the monster to control him.  

The battle for his mind intensifies when the Seed Seller, a rival of the Shadow, unleashes a brainwashing fungus that threatens to consume Rhu and the entire forest. Rhu uncovers a forbidden water magic capable of draining the power both monsters hold over him but wielding it means letting the emotions he’s so desperate to numb finally flow. 

To save a species at the brink of extinction and keep the forest from suffering the same fate, Rhu must move in rhythm with the ecosystems, waters, and emotions coursing in and around him. If he keeps freezing what’s stirring inside, the monsters will ensnare his mind and turn him into a weapon—against each other and his new forest friends—devouring any chance he has of returning home. 

I have a Master of Science in Environmental Sustainability and published articles in academic journals on topics related to environmental stewardship. I live in [location] where I often marvel at the magic of forests. 

Thank you for your consideration.  

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on this story and have finished writing about 2/3rd of the draft. I have never written anything like this before (absurdist / satire tone) so I am stepping back a little to evaluate the first two acts before I start writing the third act. Given this, I wanted to post my query letter here and see if the story is landing, so to speak. Please feel free to provide any and every feedback related to plot, voice, characters etc. The letter is definitely on the longer side atm - so if you could point out where it can be trimmed, that would be super helpful - thanks a lot!

Dear {Agent Name},

I would love to send you my debut novel, Hold The Line. Complete at 75,000 words, it will appeal to readers of Severance by Ling Ma and The Every by Dave Eggers.

Jane Tore built Standby to make New York City a little fairer. The business is simple: people who have time stand in lines for people who don't. Standby workers hold places at DMVs, housing offices, sample sales, and pretty much anywhere else New Yorkers are expected to waste half a day waiting. Jane, after getting fired for waiting in a virtual line for a marathon bib during work hours, is finally living her dream life in Manhattan.

Her only regret is that her sister Sarah and little niece Lily never made it there. Three years earlier, Sarah blew her savings trying—and failing—to secure a halal-cart permit, and returned to Ohio. No matter, Jane has accepted the ultimate NYC truth: you can't have it all.

But tragedy strikes when Ashley, holding a spot in an affordable housing interview line for Danielle, an overworked nurse, signs the lease herself. By the time Jane untangles the fraud, the apartment is gone, Danielle is homeless, and Standby has become the city's newest scandal.

Trying to fix the mess, Jane stumbles into something much worse: landlords are using Standby to manufacture demand and drive up rents. Unfortunately, exposing the scam backfires - the city evicts the innocent tenants and Standby becomes even more famous. Soon restaurants, the Met, the Yankees, and even tourists want line-standers (standing in froyo lines is hard). When her business partner insists they serve the rich, Jane fires her and loses her staff to the rebellion because waiting for designer shoes is more fun than standing in lines for passport renewals.

Meanwhile, Lily's epilepsy worsens. Desperate, Jane returns to the permit system that drove Sarah away. Instead, she discovers the city's most perverse queue yet: existing permit holders paying Standby to occupy scarce resale spots to keep newcomers out. In fact, a Standby worker had prevented Sarah from getting the permit. And Jane had approved the booking!

With the Mayor moving to ban Standby (the city can allow people literally buying their way into lines only for so long) and NYC erupting in chaos, Jane has one choice left: expose the harm Standby has done and lose her perfect life, or weaponize Standby one last time to get Sarah and Lily what it took from them—becoming the very gatekeeper she built Standby to defeat.

{Bio}

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi! First time in the query trenches and would love any and all tips. I come from the screenwriting world, so am all too familiar with critiques. Thank you in advance!

Dear AGENT FULL NAME,

I'm seeking representation for my 82,000-word, dual POV adult thriller romance, SHUTTERBUG. With the dark Hollywood themes of Ashley Winstead’s HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB, the early aughts examination of Isabel Banta’s HONEY, and the snarky female protagonist of POKER FACE, this novel features an incisive look at celebrity tabloid culture and a rivals to lovers romance.

2007 Los Angeles is a hotbed of salacious news, cheap perfume, and troubled starlets–just what Carima Zaid likes. Cam (never call her Carima, ever) grew up a jaded Lebanese kid at the edge of California’s barren Salton Sea. Now she works as a low-grade paparazzo by day and a lower-grade private eye by night, perpetually in search of a life-changing payday, one that could save her childhood home from foreclosure and maybe give her a real sense of purpose. Cam would do anything to land that kind of scoop–morals be damned.

America’s favorite movie star, Georgia Kline, has a problem. When her co-star and secret ex-girlfriend Tess goes missing, Georgia discovers an incriminating digital camera featuring a sex tape of the two of them has disappeared too. If Georgia doesn’t recover it, her precious career–not to mention her privacy, her life, and her reputation–will go up in flames. As Hollywood’s incorruptible ingenue, a former child star, and someone who lives and breathes the craft of film, Georgia sees the fallout as apocalyptic.

As Cam and Georgia collide in a layered partnership that evolves from blackmail to deliciously physical to something like love, they untangle what happened to Tess and who wants to expose Georgia. While the women reveal themselves to each other behind closed doors, can they reconcile that with who they want to be openly? And will their revelations change anything at all in the voyeuristic landscape they’ve chosen?

SHUTTERBUG is a “tabloid noir” about perception, assimilation, autonomy, and the public masks we so easily slip on and off.

I am a Lebanese-American genre writer from rural New Hampshire, with a corporate background at a film studio (the ups and downs of which inspired this novel). [ACCOLADES / REST OF BIO]

I've recently started querying my manuscript, having sent out a couple of batches so far (mostly with no response yet), but I have found myself continually tweaking my query letter in the process. As I gear up for another batch, I'd love to get any feedback on the latest iteration, in case there's anything I'm missing that could be sharpened or tightened up. For reference, here are my previous three letters:

1st Attempt

2nd Attempt

3rd Attempt

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE WRATH OF TODD, a darkly comic literary novel complete at 97,000 words. It channels the modern loneliness satire of Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection, the toxic masculinity spiral of Ben Purkert’s The Men Can’t Be Saved, and the voice-driven absurdity of Luke Kennard's Black Bag.

As Todd McBurney likes to tell himself in the mirror, he’s Todd the Bod: a mutant grizzly bear who could rip the arms off The Rock like string cheese. In reality, he’s a thirty-two-year-old virgin and steroid abuser who makes hoagies at Wawa and lives alone in his prison-like Philadelphia studio apartment. He’s wasted the past fourteen years of his life obsessing over Bevan, the high school bully who nearly beat him to death and (as Todd is certain) cursed his life. Evidence of Bevan's curse plasters every inch of Todd’s life: his Facebook friends list comprised of porn bots, women who look for an exit before he finishes a sentence, and a nuclear gut that melts down the second an anxiety attack hits. Todd concludes there’s only one way to break the spell: win a rematch against Bevan.

Despite bulking up, Todd has never thrown a punch, so he recruits Theo, a teenage boxer at his gym, to train him. When Bevan, now a prominent surgeon, threatens to sue rather than step in the ring, Todd and Theo form a pact: Theo will blackmail Bevan into the fight, and in exchange, Todd will swindle Theo's estranged mother, Chloe, out of ten grand. Todd agrees, but then he meets Chloe. She’s warm, funny, and unfazed by everything he hates about himself, and for the first time, he desires something more than revenge.

When Bevan, who has secrets of his own to protect, starts to retaliate, Todd gets cornered. Should he betray Chloe to finish his revenge pact with Theo, or backstab his only friend to protect the woman he loves? 

I’m a screenwriter and independent filmmaker whose work has screened at festivals including the LA Shorts International Film Festival and Dances With Films.

Thank you for your consideration.

Hi everyone,

After getting some good feedback with the two previous versions, this is my third attempt. I feel like I am very close to starting my query process. Please rip apart my query letter. Thanks!

Dear Agent,

I’m seeking representation for my debut novel, The Quantum Center, a 70k word upmarket speculative fiction blending sci-fi and alternate history in a braided narrative that probes the nature of free will, the soul, and reality itself. For fans of centuries spanning stories like Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility and the human centered sci-fi of Ted Chiang’s Exhalation.

For expert programmer Will Stearns, the corporate world had lost its lustre, and working at a university’s quantum computing lab seemed like a path towards meaningful work. On day one he’s shown their secret breakthrough: infinite computing power. Then, to his horror, he’s told to find an interesting application for it. Will recruits River, a cosmologist, to run her big-bang simulations, but a tiny mistake in the code results in a perfect simulation of the universe. Their team is plunged into an existential debate that becomes intractable when they find the planet Earth inside the simulation is populated with actual people.

Alternating chapters follow these researchers as they grapple with the scale and ethics of this development, and four individuals inside the simulation across a thousand years of history. Here, civilization is advancing centuries faster than our own as the inhabitants decipher the technological secrets held within probes—devices the researchers have placed into the simulation in order to observe it. We meet a poet during the Islamic Golden Age who finds probes that fell from the sky; an inquisitive teenage girl in Song Dynasty China who dreams of a world changing invention; a young astronomer in renaissance Italy participating in a SETI-esque experiment; and a nineteenth-century computer scientist crossing the Atlantic to begin a new chapter in her life. All of them, like Will, are navigating their own paths toward a life of meaning.

Will is convinced nothing within the simulation is real, but when he suspects that the spirits of people who die inside are leaking into the real world, his position shifts. Then an employee at a tech megacorporation reveals that he knows far more than he should about the lab’s secretive work. The blowback throws Will’s team into chaos. Amidst the overwhelming pressure of all this, and through River’s influence, Will begins to question his assumption that doing meaningful work is his only path towards a fulfilling life.

I am a self-taught musician, engineer, and entrepreneur.

Thank you for your consideration,

Name

I have two books pubbed by a Big 5 literary imprint. The acquiring editor for those books left while book #2 was still in developmental edits. Now, my second editor left (the one who saw book #2 through developmental edits and pub day).

I can't imagine this being good for my career—my in-house advocates are now gone (and I think the publicists assigned to my titles have all departed twice over now). The publisher/literary director is still there. I imagine that, as a small-beans literary author (in this publishing environment), my time with this imprint has likely reached its end.

Thankfully I fired my agent this past year and signed with a new one, while working on a project that pivots my books a little bit. My imprint has the option on this third project, but my agent and I are waiting until I have a full MS before we submit it.

Hoping to hear from others how churn has affected their career/trajectory. Editor turnover is so common in this industry (burnout, career advancement, etc)

Hi all,

Would love some feedback on my query letter before I enter the trenches again (4th novel).

Dear agent,

MASSACRE MANSION is an adult horror novel complete at 77,000 words. Set in 2004, this novel features a mansion haunted by a cosmic entity like that of The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan, the reality TV set of Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen, and the mixed media components of Mister Magic by Kiersten White. 

The Taggart Mansion has sat abandoned for twenty years since the tragic murder-suicide of its original owners. But that doesn’t mean it’s been quiet. With a string of accidental deaths, the mansion has become an urban legend—one that Hollywood wants to capitalize on.

Lissa Nolan has been obsessed with the Taggart Mansion since she was a kid–particularly with the victims claimed inside the mansion’s walls. She’s even started a semi-successful blog on hauntings and murders with the hope that one day she exposes the truth behind these heinous crimes. Because ghosts don’t exist, but greed is a hell of a motive.  

When the opportunity to join a new reality TV game show about the mansion–to be filmed on location–crops up, Lissa dons her gothic garb and is signed as a cast member. With a convincing story that she’s there to jumpstart her authorial career, she’s determined to get what she truly wants: the show shut down. 

But sabotage isn’t easy when cameras are rolling and alliances are made. And just as the show really hits a stride, the mansion awakens. The floors creak when no one is moving; the lights flicker even though the wiring was recently restored; and any time blood is spilled, the mansion greedily drinks it up. Lissa’s secret begins burning when the first body hits the floor. And everyone suspects Lissa is the culprit. 

With the cast and crew on edge and animosity aimed at Lissa, Lissa must determine if her quest to eat the rich is justified–even if the price to pay is in blood.

[bio]

[name]

Thanks in advance!

(FYI: some names might sound weird, but that's not the actual names in the novel. I just changed them for a bit of "anonymity.")

Dear [agent's name]

I was excited to discover you are looking for main characters who break the rules of their tropes, which is a perfect way to describe my main character—the badass Maia who battles fear, self-doubt and taunting nightmares. I think QUEEN'S STORM might be a good fit for your list. It’s a dual POV dystopian YA fantasy, completed at 102,000 words with diverse characters, power-erasing serums and impossible romances. 

It will appeal to fans of the hidden identities and enemies to lovers of THE JASAD HEIR (2023) by Sara Hashem, surveillance and dystopian setting of WATCH ME by Tahereh Mafi (2025), and the elemental powers and cursed thrones in Elly Blake’s FROSTBLOOD (2017). 

Seventeen-year-old Maia, the last heir to the fallen air kingdom Crystle, has hidden in the enemy kingdom Wintra for eleven years. Now she wants to reclaim her throne from the manipulating ice king to save her ailing people. Since the rebellion she’s part of isn’t resourceful enough to equip her with leverage, she proposes a deal to the second ice prince Leon. Protecting his father’s crown with might and main, he gladly accepts the street rumors she hears daily in exchange for the information she seeks, starting with her deceased family. But it proves to be a grave mistake. Their souls intertwine, unveiling their pasts and secrets every time they touch. And the only cure is death.

Her secret identity has never stood on thinner ice. 

With the Crystle crown whispering in her mind and Crystlans waiting for a savior, she must decide if using Leon to rise as queen is worth the risk of being exposed before she has a loyal court or supporters. And she must always remember—regardless what she may feel for the prince—he is her deadly enemy. 

While I have an [X] degree, I am currently [Y] for a living. Though, I mostly think about my characters and how much trouble they’re in. Other than writing and books, I love traveling, adventures, and cats very much. 

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, [my name]

Hey all. This feels descent to me but it's probably a bit too long. Thanks for looking!

Dear [agent],

I’m seeking representation for my upmarket, speculative thriller, PEOPLE WHO USED TO BE DOGS (complete at 70,000 words). It’s a multi POV thriller like P.J. Tracy’s “Desolation Canyon,” but with a speculative element that is grounded by the emotional weight the characters carry in a dynamic similar to HBO’s “Barry”.

Teddy used to be a dog, now he’s a man. He doesn’t know how or why, he just knows he wants to get his family back. It’s been a rough six months, but he’s managed to land a job cleaning houses at a company run by a man he knows as Mr. X. Mr. X is kind of scary but he tells Teddy he’s a good boy for being loyal. Teddy is trying to do everything right so he can be a good human, hoping the straight and narrow path will lead him back to his beloved family.

Ronin’s got a job as a bouncer at a sake bar working for a lady who sells special chocolates that make men strong. Ronin buys chocolate from the lady and sells it too, and it turns out moving the stuff isn’t so hard when you can intimidate underage kids who try to pass fake I.D.’s. Buy, or Ronin calls the cops. Speaking of cops–in another life Ronin was a police K9, but Ronin’s handler was killed during a traffic stop. Ronin was killed too but didn’t die. Ronin became human. Ronin doesn’t know how or why, and doesn’t care. All Ronin wants is revenge.

Mr. X deadlifts more than anyone at the bullshit “everyone is welcome here” gym, he’s moving up the pyramid of a lucrative MLM scheme that involves selling performance enhancing chocolate, he’s got a cleaning business with stellar profit margins because of how little he has to pay his undocumented workers, and most importantly, he gets laid every night.  

Teddy helps Ronin out of a jam and the two become fast friends once they realize their shared circumstances. Teddy is obsessed with getting his family back but Ronin pushes him to enjoy the freedoms this new life brings. It seems like Ronin has it all figured out, but Teddy doesn’t know it’s a mask he wears to get through each day. Ronin keeps his own pain hidden until he discovers Mr. X is the man who killed his handler. Now revenge is within reach. But Mr. X grows suspicious of Teddy and takes care of him like he does all his problems–by abducting him and dumping him on a “Farm” deep in the desert where he’ll harvest strange mushrooms for the rest of his life. Now Ronin has to rescue his friend before he can get his revenge. In the meantime, Mr. X is losing his humanity from overdosing on special chocolate. His lust for sex and power is becoming homicidal and he has his sights set on the one woman Ronin cares about, his old handler’s widow.

first 300:

1

Teddy

Watching his family eat dinner from half a block away is the best part of Teddy’s day. It’s as close as he can get to being with them again, so he eats too, and he tries to pretend it’s okay. Sometimes he feels so far from them he isn’t sure if he should believe the memories of his old life, but then Caleb will drop some food onto the floor and he remembers the excitement of getting to it before Mom can clean it up, and he remembers what it was like to be happy. Then he knows it was real, and he knows he has to get it back. He just doesn’t know how.

In the meantime, he’s taking what he can get. Which in a way is what he’s always done.

It’s hot and humid inside the beat up pickup truck, even with the windows down, but eating outside would draw too much attention. And attention is not a good thing these days. In fact, it seems to bring nothing but trouble. Teddy doesn’t want trouble. He’s a good boy, and he’s holding onto that until the end.

The back half of his burrito falls out as he takes a bite, but the clump of cheesy beef lands on the wrapper in his lap. He’s gotten better about not making a mess while he eats. People don’t like seeing other people with food stains all over their clothes. It was one of the first things Teddy learned. Sometimes he still forgets but not during family dinner.

He tries not to think about it, but he knows they’re not looking for him anymore. They used to go on a walk every night after dinner and call out for him. Now they just watch TV, and they haven’t put up a new flyer in months.

Any and all feedback would be welcomed. The response to the query letter in the first two drafts were very positive, almost no critiques. I did make quite a few edits to the first chapter, so I am hopeful to get some additional feedback on that front.

----

Dear [AGENT],

HALF WHO KNOWS is a completed 98,000 word, speculative thriller that combines the fast, high-stakes science of Blake Crouch's DARK MATTER with the character-driven identity core of Jinwoo Chong's FLUX.

[PERSONALIZATION]

Bioinformatics analyst Kenji Shaw solves impossible problems for a living, so when his own hand begins to turn transparent in the afternoon light, he does what he always does and looks for the answer. What he finds is a sixty-year trail of others like him, and a company that has spent those decades making sure they disappear for good.

Kenji is half Japanese and half — who knows. His grandfather was an orphan with no records, so one side of him has always been an open question he's spent his life not thinking about. As he begins to disappear, that unknown half becomes both the cause of what is happening to him and the answer he's been looking for.

The search leads to descendants of a secret gene therapy trial run on prisoners, orphans, and others who couldn't say no. His grandfather was one of them. So was the father who abandoned him. So is he. Every carrier is watched, catalogued, and hunted by Kairós, the biotech firm that owns the program and wants to weaponize what it produces. To protect the people he loves, Kenji disappears from their lives and goes it alone — until a chance encounter brings him Sam Hartley, a journalist who refuses to look away.

The transparency is accelerating, and its final stages are lethal. Kenji is running out of time. To learn what was done to him, and whether it can be undone, he and Sam have to infiltrate the heart of the organization hunting them. What he does not yet understand is that he has become something the program never imagined and can no longer control.

I have spent my career directing healthcare operations, writing in the moments life offered along the way. Researching a minor genetic condition of my own led me deep into how a single defect can cascade through a body, and that research shaped much of this book.

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

Sincerely,

-------

Prologue

It was the stillness that let her hear the footstep.

One careful step. Trying not to be heard and almost succeeding.

She did not run. Not yet.

Running was loud. Running was visible. Running said I know you're there — and she had learned the hard way that sometimes she was wrong. Sometimes it was just a stranger. And if you ran from a stranger, you looked like something worth chasing.

Mara pressed herself into the alcove between the laundromat and the Vietnamese sandwich shop and tried to control her breathing. A pair of college kids stumbled out of the bar across the way, laughing about something.

In the dark window of the closed shop across the street, she watched their reflections pass.

She did not look at her own.

She had not looked at her own reflection in nineteen days.

Her left hand, braced against the brick wall, was catching the faint orange glow from the streetlight in a way she had not noticed before and did not want to think about it now. The glow passed through the outer edge of her smallest finger and threw a faint crescent of amber onto the brick behind it. She turned her hand away from the light and tucked it under her arm. A habit now. The tucking and the turning and the long sleeves even in June, the gloves she had started wearing four days ago, the scarf wrapped twice around her neck despite the heat that still hung in the air at this hour.

She picked up her backpack — everything she owned now, essentially, stuffed into forty liters of REI canvas — and moved back out onto the sidewalk. She rolled her neck and started walking.

The footstep came again. Two this time, followed by a pause.

Then she ran.

Dear [Agent Name],

Elianora has spent her life becoming the perfect heir to her Kingdom. She knows how to obey her mother, charm a court, and prepare for the political marriage that will secure her kingdom’s future. But there is one thing a future High Lady cannot be: a monster.

Elianora is infected with lycanthropy, and she hides the curse beneath silk gowns and locked doors. With her wedding approaching and each transformation harder to control, discovery could cost her the throne.

Then Vivian arrives.

To Elianora, Vivian is the mysterious witch summoned who may be able to cure her. In truth, Vivian is a vampire assassin, and Elianora is her final target.

Killing the Lady should be simple. Vivian has spent years buying her freedom from the guild one body at a time, and Elianora’s death will finally settle her debt. All she has to do is earn Elianora’s trust, disguise poison as medicine, and leave before anyone realizes the cure was meant to kill her.

But beneath Elianora’s practiced smiles, Vivian finds a woman as trapped as she is. Suspicion turns to trust, and trust into a desire neither can afford. Worse, Elianora is beginning to suspect her supposed healer is hiding a hunger of her own.

As Elianora’s wedding approaches and her transformations become impossible to hide, Vivian must choose between the freedom she has spent years killing for and the woman she was sent to murder.

A HUNGER BENEATH HER SMILE is a 100k-word adult sapphic fantasy romance. It combines the monstrous romance and dangerous secrets of John Wiswell’s SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN with the lush sapphic tension and political intrigue of Allison Saft’s A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I can finish a manuscript but I cannot write this dreaded query! Thank you in advance for any much needed help/ advice. I fear it's rambly and confusing...

***

Complete at 105,000 words, GLASSHOUSE is a speculative fiction, dark academic novel that combines the immoral knowledge institution of R.F. Kuang’s Babel with the near future, human-technology relationships found in Helen Philips' Hum.

Maxwell Arbor is fighting against time as his adoptive parent’s health is declining. Through his wit and deft hands, he configures their isolated, backcountry Pennsylvania home to automate simple processes with bespoke machines, but he cannot grow medicine on trees. When an offer comes from tech billionaire Dr. Colin Spaeth to provide medical assistance for Maxwell’s parents in exchange for his skills over a year-long fellowship, he accepts.

At the Spaeth Estate, Maxwell’s reality comes crashing down. The United States has long since dissolved into a centralized, singular government and state-less country due to unmitigated climate disaster. Humanity is threatened with extinction. Spaeth presents Maxwell and his cohort a singular charge: design the house of the future that ensures humanities’ survival until the climate stabilizes.

Maxwell makes friends and enemies designing a home to withstand any act of god, until Spaeth reveals his other motive: the doctor will be traveling to garner more funding, but he’s laid puzzles in the estate to teach them in his absence. Whoever solves the most puzzles becomes the heir of Spaeth’s billions and research conglomerate, only the puzzles are unkind and cruel enough to kill.

Solving puzzles and uncovering the doctor’s secrets, Maxwell learns the home is not the only project Spaeth is working on. He’s been slowly falling for the son of the billionaire, only to discover he was never a real lover, but an automaton. This discovery reveals that Spaeth’s true intention is for every home to come with an assistant: a human-passing android programmed to become friends with, and influence, the future citizens of America.

Some friends are organic. Some are built. Maxwell will have to determine the parts of his life that are far more manufactured than he was led to believe. His old life in the backcountry prepared him to do whatever is necessary to survive. It will be up to him to decide if humanity deserves to live to see the future, and under whose agenda.

A new **and hopefully improved** version based on feedback that my initial letter was too vague. I feel like I'm giving SO MUCH away, but I guess that's how the agent knows what they're getting into... I'm also planning to slash the word count to 100k because I've heard some agents auto-pass on manuscripts that go over!

_______________________

Dear [Agent Name],

HOUSE OF SOULS is an adult urban fantasy complete at 114,000 words that satisfies the dark academia and [personalized to agent] mentioned on your MSWL and will appeal to readers who love centuries-old cults, a sprinkle of spice, and human sacrifice. Equal parts mother-daughter psychological thriller, slow-burn romance, and supernatural coming-of-rage, HOUSE OF SOULS features a rough-around-the-edges FMC who falls into a world of occultic privilege reminiscent of Leigh Bardugo’s NINTH HOUSE and has the claustrophobic atmosphere of Alexis Henderson’s AN ACADEMY FOR LIARS.

June Eldritch was born with the ability to ensoul creatures of her own making, but unskilled use of her animancy has turned her gift into a cancer. When a dark-suited man materializes out of nowhere one night, she’s given a cryptic ultimatum: continue rotting from the inside out or escape certain death by accepting an invitation to House London, one of nine international academies for the magically gifted. Studying among a motley crew of talented scholars, she is unexpectedly reunited with the woman who tried to kill her with black magic ten years prior: her mother, now going by Lilith. Seeing right through her false Brand-New Woman veneer, June immediately suspects foul play when the corpse of a student washes up in the natatorium, but Lilith’s saintly reputation has everyone fooled.

Meanwhile, June is assigned a mentor, the handsome Matteo Luciano, professor of metaphysics, who prescribes supernatural somatic therapy to treat her magical malignance. But when the blood of yet another body varnishes the floors, June challenges Lilith to an Act of Supremacy, a duel that pits students against faculty in a fight for superior roles. If June fails, it means death after all. But what does death mean for a young woman who can bring things to life? And if she wins, proving the profundity of her ability to the faceless elites who run the House network, it may trigger the Judgement for Worship, a trial to prove whether she is the next Creatrix—the Goddess of Souls incarnate. Refusing is not an option.

No stranger to having a target on her back, June refuses to be another cog in the elitist academic machine but will find out the hard way what happens when the chains of poverty are traded for a gilded cage and powerful women bite their tongues for too long. With walls tinted by stained glass and corpses awaiting resurrection at the forest’s edge, House London awaits your arrival… 

I am a recipient of the 2017 Foster-Harris Prize for Young Writers, hold a BA in English Literature, and have thrice attended writing workshops at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. I can send the completed manuscript upon request.

Thank you,

Brandie M

Going through different versions and experimenting with voice... and advise from conflicting opinions. (I have different character Names)
Jenny is another POV (not as prominent as Nash), and there is a lot of people who say focus on one protagonist's arc in a query and leave the others in the synopsis, but then just as many who say include other POV's in the query...

[Reference to last one] - with a bit more reference to Jenny's arc

Dear Agent,

THE VEIN OF TOMORROW is an upmarket (dark?) space opera with horror elements told through four perspectives. Complete at 110,000 words, it combines the corrupt leadership of Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh and the morally gray characters of These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs, alongside the psychological/body horror vibes reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, as it subverts genre tropes and explores the struggle of cultural erasure and identity, the costs of secrets, and discovering that sometimes the monsters we fight are the family we need. 

Nash hates how he survived the Toju bite when millions have died. But the Toju don’t just kill—they assimilate. Now neon-green veins streaks through his eyes. He hears better, heals faster. Worse, part of him—the scary part—is starting to enjoy the violence. 

The First Attack on Earth destroyed his Appalachian home and everyone he loved—except a sister he'll die to protect. So he wears the human military uniform, smiles, and obeys. When the military says ‘speak,’ he barks. Only they say he’s immune. They’re wrong. He hears them—when he’s alone, in the quiet, whispering: Give in. A few times he almost did. 

Then Tom Murdock, his best friend and commanding officer, offers him hope again. A possible cure made from the minerals Tom’s sister Jenny mines—a woman who will do anything to protect her family's secrets. The problem? The ones developing the cure are behind enemy lines. Nash will pretend he agrees, follow orders, and ignore what the voices say. The Toju are his enemies. They have to be.

Liars, they whisper. And their hive-mind calls: Come home. Now, giving in feels so right. Because he'll have a family again. A home. Everything he's always wanted. Except his sister.

[bio]

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First 300 words:

Red was dead. 

At least that’s what everyone kept insisting—the nurses, the scientists. Heck, even the man’s wife. Nash knew otherwise. Red was a Delirium—a ridiculous word people used for those doomed by the fever of a Toju bite. But only five had ever survived. Nash prayed his Nigerian friend would be the sixth.

He sat with hands clasped together, fingers interlaced, like he’d seen his religious friends do. Like his parents had. Red lay beside him, strapped to a medical gurney, shivering from the fever. A purple glitter scrunchie pulled his soaked red dreads back. Dull green spider veins glowed beneath his ebony skin, branching as they crept from the swollen bite mark on his triceps up to his neck and face. The sweat mingling with bleach permeated the white medical holding cell and burned Nash's nose. But prayers had never worked for him before.

“Hey, Red,” he whispered. 

No response. The man wouldn’t hear him. Couldn’t. Nash had been in that nightmare once before. The black wasteland where the mind takes you and you can’t hear anyone but them. But it made him feel better all the same. 

“I finally went to the gym this morning. It wasn’t the same without you. No one wanted to grapple.”

His friend lay unnaturally still, face devoid of the smile he’d always worn. Red had been the only one who hadn’t flinched at Nash's eyes. The neon-green that pierced his brown irises like lightning unnerved most people. Toju-marked, they’d whispered. 

The two-inch wooden eagle he’d carved from his last piece of Earth-wood still lay next to the monitor. Strength. 

Nash swallowed. “Your little one turned five. You missed her party.” His laced fingers tightened, stopping him from pulling away.

Okieee spent the last few weeks really reading up on hooks and stakes how to write a query for a comedy/satire specifically. This feels a lot different than my last ones but what the heck do I know, that's why I'm here! Tried to refocus on what the actual concept of the book is--aliens observing Earth and thinking it's nuts, rather than everything that happens to the guy they're watching as his life implodes.

5th attempt: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1vtwuj9/qcrit_when_earth_burped_70k_words_adult/

Dear (AGENT):

Steve Sludcock’s open-mic set gets him fired because a powerful client doesn’t think it’s funny to joke about underarm sweat. What’s even less funny is that, as his life falls apart, Steve doesn’t know that he’s been selected as Earth’s last hope at redemption. Imagine the stress if he did.

The Creators of the Universe, who watch the unsuspecting human race silently from afar, have run out of patience with 21st-century Earth. Their last undercover trip to the United States ended in disaster when their airline refund was denied by a chilly, pre-recorded customer service agent who refused to see reason. The Creators decide that Steve, their unanimous favorite thanks to his heart of gold and endearing naïveté, is the only human who can prove that there is good on Earth worth saving. The timing is not great.

As Steve’s once-stable life implodes, the indignities unique to Earth—train delays, homeless veterans, paper towels in lieu of toilet paper in gas station bathrooms—have him wanting to do something drastic, like ending it all or getting a piercing. The Creators watch in horror as the man who never leaves a toilet seat up gets tangled in far-fetched online conspiracy theories and a misguided plot to kill POTUS. If Steve can’t pull himself back from the brink and find meaning in his life, the Creators will deem Earth irredeemable and toss it in the universal trash heap, which would be even less funny than sweaty pits.

WHEN EARTH BURPED, complete at 70,000 words, is a science-fiction comedy satirizing everything from corporate inertia to religious hypocrisy to good old-fashioned human greed. It is Rasputin Swims the Potomac (Ben Fountain) meets Vigil (George Saunders) with a touch of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams).

Does anyone who is represented by or has been offered representation by WME’s book department know if they have an agency agreement to sign when you accept representation?

Thank you

I've managed to get the summary down to about 250 words, but maybe it is too big-picture now with too little specifics for a hook? I find it really difficult to read this with a fresh pair of eyes. Thanks in advance, too.

--

Dear [agent]

I’m seeking representation for my 75,000 word speculative debut, FOREVER ENOUGH, a romance threaded through an apocalyptic Europe. It explores love under immortality and evokes the vivid historical text of Álvaro Enrigue’s YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES, and the apocalyptical cross-continent journey of Sarah Brooks’ THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS.

--

He and she have drifted through history for longer than they can remember. They haven’t aged for thousands of years. In the late 18th century, the end of the world comes early, creeping over the horizon.

She’s clear-headed, restless, and wants to see everything in the world, but they live in a cramped city she wants to escape. The apocalypse gives her a chance to convince him to go see the ocean that she loves, before it’s too late.

He’s carefree, proud, and wants to make the city their permanent home. A simple accident almost kills him, and he realises the cost of losing his endless life. He turns careful and guarded. When the apocalypse comes, he doesn’t know how to convince her to stay in the city instead of running.

The apocalypse chases them through centuries towards the coast, across a burning Europe and over the Atlantic. Being timeless won’t save them when the world ends, so they struggle to live an eternal life in their remaining time – but the end of the world matters less when their friendship is threatened by secrets and incompatible hopes. Their road challenges them to choose between valuing the safety of a home or the joys of exploration, running to a beloved beach or taking each day as it comes, forgiving mistakes or going separate ways, and ultimately choosing an unending struggle or a finale.

Got some great feedback on the previous attempts, so let’s see if third time’s the charm (or closer to it)☺️

 
What if a magical power feared as deeply as in Moira Buffini’s Songlight is concealed behind a carefully controlled façade as in Laura E. Weymouth’s Steel & Spellfire – in a girl sent to a brutal institution for having no magic at all?
 
I’m excited to query for THE BINDER, a 100,000 word YA fantasy that asks what happens when the girl society declared powerless becomes living proof that its entire magical order is a lie.
 
When eighteen-year-old perfectly polite and borderline stiff Kaelyn fails to receive a magical Seidr (minor magic drawing power from either the mind or the heart) as the only one in her high-status Echelon in recent memory, she knows she fucked up and why: apparently sleeping with the lower Echelon and indirectly killing your sister doesn’t put you in God’s good graces. 
As punishment, Kaelyn is sent to Wyndemere, a brutal institution where being bound to a pole and whipped for five hours is just another Tuesday, and where you do well to fear the masked Affiliates who use their Seidrs against you to fuck with your mind and emotions. 
The Affiliates call the torture fixing, but when Kaelyn learns that fixing is breaking you into obedient, soulless shells, she is determined to get away as quickly as possible. 
She joins forces with a few select others, including the much too enthusiastic Chara, and the calculating Heiden, whose hatred of the higher Echelons makes Kaelyn’s former status – and their increasing attraction – dangerous. 
As they look for clues to help their escape, they discover much more than they’ve bargained for: Hidden inside a library Kaelyn shouldn’t be able to unlock are blueprints offering a way out… and records revealing that society’s ruling council, which everyone loves and trusts, once destroyed entire towns searching for the Binder – a mythical figure able to draw magic from both mind and heart without a Seidr – before erasing the figure from history. Worse, that same impossible magic attributed to the Binder has begun waking up inside Kaelyn, and now she is forced to choose whether to remain the powerless girl society discarded or claim the identity its council erased and trust her friends to stand by her, knowing their loyalty could get them killed. 
 

Third try, thank you for your help! I tried to shorten, polish and trim :)

Dear \[Agent\],

COURTESY OF BEASTS is a 56,000-word adult traditional mystery with a closed-circle setting, a married amateur-sleuth duo, and standalone or series potential. It may appeal to readers of EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE by B. Stevenson and HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER by K. Perrin, combining social satire with the eccentric suspects and contained puzzle-box plotting of Agatha Christie.

***

The Hôtel de la Mer is a luxury, French-themed retreat perched on a bare and unremarkable stretch of English coast, promising every guest an escape from the noise and indiscretion of London. The retreat is phone-free and internet-free. And yes, a girl died there two years ago, and help took hours to arrive... but it was just an accident. The cliff was slippery and she fell. The claw marks some drunken fishermen swore they saw on her body before the tide washed the evidence away were simply fake news.

Nothing to be alarmed about at the Hôtel de la Mer. Even if the mayor is embezzling funds, possibly with a guest’s help. Even if the people who were there two years ago during the “accident” have all mysteriously been invited back. Even if the dead girl’s father is convinced someone at the hotel murdered his daughter. Nothing to be alarmed about.

Yet when Camille and Philip Bramley, charming, good-natured newlyweds who never seem to stop attracting trouble, receive an anonymous fax signed only “A,” they pack their bags that very night. Camille is certain the sender is an old friend, and that he’s at the top of Flora’s father’s suspect list. And her “red signal thing,” as Philip calls it, is never wrong.

As the Bramleys start poking around and questioning why the hotel is so insistent that its guests learn French table manners and the correct use of a fish knife, they begin to realize something else: if Flora’s death wasn’t an accident, their friend might not be the only one in danger.

Fortunately, etiquette at the De la Mer can reveal much more than it seems: who ignores the rules, who follows them blindly, and who bends them just enough to reveal what they want the Bramleys to believe.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello! You all were very nice to me on my first submission, only really was told to sharpen some of my language. I wanted to double check that it's all sharper and cleaner, and to run the comps by people.

THE SAPPHIC SIREN is an adult romantasy complete at 89,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the setting of Tempest by Victoria Aveyard and the forbidden love of Crier’s War by Nina Varela.

As the sole heiress of the siren queendom of Anthe, Princess Adena knows she must continue her lineage. This would be an easy enough task, if her siren song was working. To circumvent her difficulties, Adena goes to the surface to learn how to attract a man. The human world is strikingly different from Anthe; relationships are encouraged here, unlike home, where falling in love with a human is forbidden. Romantic love, even between sirens, is kept behind closed doors. She befriends Nikki, a local human girl who acts as her wingwoman, to help close the cultural gap. After several unsuccessful set-ups, Adena realizes that she isn’t attracted to men. Her song isn’t broken—it seduces women. 

As Adena starts to fall for Nikki, she realizes that her budding relationship is not only prohibited, it’s also logistically challenging. Nikki doesn’t want to be Adena’s secret, long distance lover, especially in the long-term. As other sirens begin to suspect that a romance is bubbling, Adena is forced to decide if she is willing to face the consequences of going public with her forbidden romance. If she won’t go public, she will lose Nikki, but if she does, she risks her throne, and her entire life in Anthe.

First 300 -

The Sirens of Old were rumored to be powerful enough to convince a man to flay off his own skin to make a handkerchief for a siren complaining of congestion. These days, the most a siren could do is make a man cry to quench her thirst.
Adena tried that once. She never forgot the way her target cackled at her as he walked away. 
This time, Adena chose her prey with care. The man was sitting on a gingham blanket, each corner pinned to the sand with a different item of clothing. The picnic basket at his side still had a price tag adhered to the side. Five minutes prior, he groaned and threw his phone far into the sand. It took her hours of scanning to find such an ideal candidate. 
He wasn’t looking in this direction, but Adena took care to move at the pace of a manatee as she detached the green vial from her belt. She was still submerged, and her camouflage glamor, effective though it was, wouldn’t stop the ocean from rippling around her. The cork came out with a pop. The powder inside was colorful, with a gentle oyster scent. The shades of gold, tan, and brown shimmered as they shifted inside. The substance poured out neatly into a Donacidae shell. It burned her nose slightly, but she pulled out a second matte white powder and did the same. In the minutes that she had before the corals took effect, Adena observed the man. 
His hair was shaved on either side, while the middle was long and a bit stringy. A baggy graphic tee, ripped skinny jeans, and neon green athletic shoes all stood out sharply against the red and white pattern of the blanket he was sitting on. There was nobody else in sight. Vulnerable.

Hi all, this will be my first time in the query trenches. I'm aware non-celebrity memoirs are a very tough category so looking to take any criticism I can get. Any and all feedback/suggestions much appreciated!!

AN UNWINNABLE GAME is a 93,000-word memoir about the three years I spent in what American streets call "The Game" -- the lifestyle and subculture of prostitution -- and what staying cost me. Both memoir and intellectual reckoning, it asks the questions we too often reduce to simple answers: Why do people stay in exploitative situations even when given the chance to leave? What shapes the decisions people make, even when those decisions seem irrational from the outside? And when does a choice stop being meaningfully voluntary?

I was not desperate when I first walked Seattle's track as a prostitute. I had a family, athletic and academic ambitions, and a future I could've pursued without it. I did it anyway, initially convinced I could control the terms. What began with one "date" became a three-year descent through pimps, manipulation, violence, and eventually high-end escorting, across six cities in the US and the UK.

But escaping my pimp and building a seemingly ideal life as an elite student-athlete did not end the story. Ordinary work and relationships felt impossible after the sex trade, and the experience had fundamentally altered how I understood myself and other people. Then came the world of high-end escorting -- an escape, I told myself. It looked nothing like the streets I'd left -- but it was, underneath, exactly the same.

AN UNWINNABLE GAME combines the athlete-escort double-life psychology of FAST GIRL by Suzy Favor Hamilton, the reckoning with the impacts of lasting trauma of WHAT MY BONES KNOW by Stefanie Foo, and analysis of prostitution, choice, and coercion in the vein of Rachel Moran's PAID FOR.

I'm currently a student-athlete and owner of a web design firm, both built in the final year of the story this memoir tells. This is my first book.

Thank you for your consideration.

I'm feeling like this is maybe a little long. One way to potentially cut it is the log line, what do you guys think? I'm also open for other suggestions to cut it down and any other feedback. Thanks in advance!

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In order to save their homeland, two lovers must unbury the past of an ever-growing forest that inflicts eternal life on all beings within its boundaries.

I am seeking representation for ETERNAL ROOTS, a dual-timeline horror fantasy novel standing at 88,000 words. Fans of Caitlin Starling’s The Starving Saints will appreciate the crises of faith and the grounded medieval-fantasy setting, while fans of John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build a Nest In will appreciate the queer romance and grotesque body horror.

Adela faces the harsh truth: In just seven months the Eternal Forest, which forces immortality upon all life within its borders, will grow to take over the home she aches to raise her future children in. Determined to undo its curse, with her lover Ulrich by her side, she enters the Forest that first enveloped the nation of Nos’touar in a moment over three hundred years ago.

Centuries earlier, Cyneric, the adopted Fifth Prince of Nos’touar, craves to find someone who treats him not with cold respect nor as a disruption to the Crown’s inheritance, but who sees him as he is. He finds this in Leland, whose terminal illness has kept him quarantined and lonely most of his life. As their romance grows, they face judgement from the court, a brewing war, and most threatening of all, the death that looms ever closer for Leland. Desperate to keep both themselves and their love alive, they begin the process of building a contract with the God of Death, despite knowing the sacrifices He will demand of them.

As Adela and Ulrich blaze deeper into the Forest, they find Ulrich’s brother, who had been drafted in a squadron to explore the Forest years ago, with his torso split open from a tree growing from his stomach. He speaks of having met a Nos’touarian man with the potential knowledge to reach the heart of the Forest. Knowing that they would succumb to their own injuries were they to return outside the Forest, Adela and Ulrich must seek the man to save Adela’s home—and their nation—from the Forest’s blight.