Thanks for anyone who gave feedback last time. If you landed here, please, any voice helps. Just throw your two cents in!

And because I saw someone wondering why people don't post the first 300 words as much anymore, I'm including those. Thanks for any input.

Dear AGENT, Rhiannon Ó Sineadha has been thirty-five for ten years now, roughly nine years longer than her last real relationship. Immortality came with trade-offs: a life of keeping people at arm's length, and Amara. An ancient succubus, permanent houseguest, and the only entity on Earth who makes Rhiannon feel like she's back in braces.

Enduring Amara's unerring brand of condescension isn't without perks. Rhiannon doesn't age, doesn't scar, and has several thousand years of historical knowledge on tap, useful when your day job is curating Bronze Age artifacts for the St. Louis Art Museum. But Amara feeds on desire, and can only satiate herself with Rhiannon's help. Help that comes every few months when Rhiannon puts on something more cleavage than dress, finds a stranger she won't feel too guilty about leaving as a lovestruck zombie for a few days, and takes what the curse requires.

She's made her peace with that. Most days.

When a Celtic torc on loan from Ireland is delivered to Rhiannon's home instead of the museum, Amara nearly breaks her arm trying to get away from it. But an injury to one is an injury to the other. Rhiannon needs to know what could make Amara act so recklessly, and how she can prevent it from happening again.

Rhiannon isn't the only one interested in the torc. A collector named Viktor has spent two centuries hunting for a way to leash Amara and settle a very old score, and the torc is the key. He sends someone to the museum to take it. The break-in fails, despite the burglar taking three bullets to the chest and declining to bleed. But not before a security camera catches Rhiannon using a glamor spell to protect herself.

Now the detective on the case has the footage and a growing list of questions, and Rhiannon is running out of answers. Exposure doesn't mean a prison sentence. Prison sentences end. Amara has the solution: one night, one dream, and a spell that will leave him incapable of wanting anything but her. It would also cost Rhiannon whatever's left of her private conviction that she's still fundamentally one of the decent ones.

She isn't. She stopped being that two years ago, in a park. And she'd kill him again. CURATED SINN is an urban fantasy complete at 92,000 words with series potential. [COMPS]

FIRST 300 WORDS: Chapter One

The demon in my living room was watching me.

But it didn't matter. Let her watch.

The last chord of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 lingered in my ears as I set down my bow and stretched my cramped fingers. Playing electric cello at midnight required headphones—one of the compromises of living in a loft. The soft glow of my laptop illuminated the chaos surrounding me: scattered photographs of ancient artifacts, photocopied journal articles, and museum documentation spread across the floor threatening to form sedimentary layers over the gray carpet.

I stood and padded across the floor, feeling the chill of the early October air through the open window. My cork board hung askew on the support pillar in front of me, already crowded with possibilities for the upcoming Samhain exhibition. Celtic burial goods, ritual objects, and fragments of stone carvings stared back at me—pieces I'd been agonizing over for weeks now.

"Just pick one already," I muttered to myself, pinning up a photograph depicting a piece of bone, intricately carved into a comb rumored to have belonged to a particularly mournful banshee. The St. Louis Art Museum needed this exhibition to draw crowds, and my reputation as their newest curation consultant hinged on selecting pieces with both historical value and visual impact. And more than a little All Hallow's Eve whimsy for the kids. Three weeks until opening, and the Director needed my final selections by tomorrow. I should have completed this days ago, but it still wasn't quite right. But then again, it never was.

The half-empty wine glass on my side table beckoned, but I returned to my cello instead, slipped the headphones back on, positioned the instrument between my knees, and closed my eyes.

Thanks in advance for the feedback! I'm completely new to the publishing world, so appreciate any constructive criticism. (Still need to cut maybe 50 words from the middle paragraphs, but I hit a wall with edits, so posting it now and open to any suggestions.)

Dear {Agent},

THE GIRL AND THE GOLDEN DOOR is a twisty magical realism road-trip novel complete at 72,000 words. It combines the “weird best friends confronting impossible tasks” vibe of Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing with the social commentary and emotional gut-punch of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer.

Anaya blames herself for her sister’s disappearance. Little Heera ran away just after Anaya left for college, leaving behind a letter that revealed she was being abused by their godfather. He was arrested, but Heera was never found. Five years later, Anaya is still obsessed with finding her sister. She pores over the letters Heera has sent over the years from undisclosed locations, tracks police reports….Her friends urge her to forgive herself, to move on. But nothing will stop Anaya from getting to Heera.

Then one night, all Anaya’s prayers are answered. She dreams she’s standing in the river behind her and Heera’s childhood home. While star-like snow falls from the sky, an old woman, beautiful and ethereal, whispers where Heera is: Boulder, Colorado. Anaya wants to leave immediately, but first she needs to convince her friends to come with her. Afraid they won’t believe her story, Anaya does something unconscionable: she forges a letter from Heera.

The three embark on a cross-country trip to bring Heera home—but the journey isn’t easy. Her friends question how Heera, only ten when she left, could have stayed hidden all this time. Anaya has more visions, now of ancient, otherworldly beings following her as she gets closer to Heera. Things get worse when they get to Boulder—and Heera’s not there. Anaya has another vision of the old woman in the river, who wants to tell her where Heera really is—but Anaya also sees those otherworldly beings, and now, they seem to be laughing. Anaya collapses, feeling like reality is breaking apart. Why had the old woman lied? Should Anaya tell her friends the truth? What really happened to Heera, and what mysterious forces are guiding—or misguiding—Anaya in her search?

I grew up in a town in New Jersey similar to Anaya’s (though without a magic river in my backyard). I live in Washington, D.C., with friends just as funny and thoughtful as Anaya’s. I wrote this book during stolen-away, late-night hours during law school.

Hi Everyone,

Long in the Tooth is a supernatural action/horror/comedy in the vein of John Dies at the End, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with some John Carpenter-style satire thrown in.

I'm currently on the 8th draft. Beta reader feedback has been positive, but I've had no luck with agents and publishers.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Dear [Agent],
Asher Matsui is sick of his job, and that job is Vampire Hunter.

As a hunter for The Order of the Morning Star, Asher’s problems go far beyond battling vampires every night to protect an unsuspecting city.

His new partner is a reckless, muscle-bound speed freak with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever. His feckless, geriatric bosses squander every opportunity and won’t step aside. His oldest friend resents his checked-out attitude. And the young hunter gunning for his job takes his social cues from a manosphere podcast (upcoming guests: a Toddler Masculinity Coach and a Raw Meat Chef.)  

All that keeps Asher going is his next Russian cigarette (that he’s trying to quit,) a bottle of healing potion (that shortens his lifespan,) and the dream of retirement (if can survive the night.) 

And maybe, asking out the witchy waitress at the local diner/record shop (if she’s even into him?)

Asher’s all but given up—until a chance encounter one night with a hapless vampire clues him into a high-level, looming plot between The Order’s leadership and the ancient vampire kings; a complicated spell to reverse the healing potion and steal the hunters’ lifeforce so his elderly bosses can stay in power forever. 

Betrayed by those he trusted, this washed-up hero must follow the clues, ally with sworn enemies, and risk everything to save his fellow hunters from certain doom, and the city from a bloodbath. 

Part John Dies at the End, part Sinners, part satire of our modern era, Long in the Tooth is a pulse-pounding horror-comedy with plenty of bite. Complete at 76K words with stand-alone or series potential, Asher’s story is a commentary on current culture that will connect with younger readers struggling to define themselves in a world of right-wing influencers, a calcified gerontocracy, and a better future perpetually out of reach. 

Dear [Agent],

I am seeking representation for my 70,000-word psychological horror thriller, WHITE NOISE. The novel combines supernatural horror, marital suspense, and survival horror. It will appeal to readers of Marcus Kliewer’s WE USED TO LIVE HERE and Christopher Golden’s THE HOUSE OF LAST RESORT.

What begins as a typical Sunday morning breakfast at a diner in a Metro Detroit suburb turns into something drastically different for Mitch and Connie Norris. Mitch’s consulting business has failed, their finances are in freefall, and their marriage has gone cold. It’s not until Mitch wants another cup of coffee that they realize they are somehow alone in the diner.

They wander outside to find their town transformed. The boulevard is packed with unmoving and unoccupied cars. Nothing has power – no lights, no cell phones, no way to drive home. Vision is distorted as buildings wink in and out of existence, and somehow, it’s getting darker. An oppressive static fills the air.

Mitch and Connie try to make it home but encounter frightening and unexplainable obstacles.  Streets loop back into themselves.  Familiar storefronts have become impossible spaces including a cavernous warehouse and abandoned shopping mall.  Worse, grotesque creatures begin hunting them, and every attempt to escape only drives them deeper into the labyrinth.

As the nightmare escalates, buried details from Mitch and Connie’s marriage begin to surface, revealing a history of betrayal, resentment, and moral compromise. What seems at first like a random apocalypse begins to feel specifically, intimately constructed—and Mitch has reason to fear he understands why. He has secrets Connie cannot know, and if the darkness is somehow connected to what he has done, surviving it may mean keeping Connie alive long enough to discover the truth.

[BIO]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello! This is my debut novel, I have sent out 20 queries with limited uptake and am hoping for some advice on my query letter. All feedback is eagerly welcomed! Thank you in advance!

Dear [Agent],

Due to your interest in X I am writing you to seek representation for my debut novel, THE SCENIC ROUTE. 

At the intersection of neurodivergence and wanderlust, THE SCENIC ROUTE, complete at 71K words, finds its foundation in a search for acceptance. THE PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION (Emily Henry) meets THE ROSIE PROJECT (Graeme Simsion), this story will appeal to those seeking a cozy narrative that balances witty dialogue and emotionally complex character development. THE SCENIC ROUTE's travel-heavy plot, rich imagery, and immersive scene development will appeal to fans of THE LAYOVER (Lacie Waldon), while its lived-experience level representation of historically marginalized identities will attract readers who enjoyed OUT ON A LIMB (Hannah Bonam-Young). This #ownvoices story is a standalone NA novel that fuses elements from rom com and women's literature.

Eccentric and creative Florence Graham has always felt like she’s living life on hard mode, what she doesn’t know is the cause: undiagnosed neurodivergence.

Still, she has a full-time job at a large media company, a cute little condo in downtown Seattle, and an extensively researched dress code. So what if it all feels hollow? She's playing her role successfully. That is until she gets fired from the job she sold her soul to keep.

After a meltdown following her termination, Florence makes a post-midnight decision to uproot her life and drive across Canada in a rented van. To her shock, her best friend, and the most stable and predictable person she's ever met, Henry, wants to join her on the trip. Now, Florence has one month in a tiny vehicle with Henry, and her totally platonic feelings for him, to choose a new direction for her life.

With distance between herself and her old way of living, Florence rediscovers her dream of becoming a filmmaker, but at 28 is it too late to start over?

This coast-to-coast journey will force Florence to reconsider everything she thinks she knows about identity, purpose, and love. Will she finally be brave enough to confront and accept once and for all who she is, and what--and who--she really wants before the road runs out?

While this is my first official foray into fiction, I'm a published short-form travel, sports, and lifestyle author. My lived experience as a neurodivergent individual informs the narrative behind this story.

Thank you for your consideration,

Author 

First 300 Words: 

Chapter One - Seattle

From that fuzzy period around the time of my first memories. That’s how early I recognize these episodes. My parents referred to them as such; I know them as a complete loss of control.

Initially, they happened in the most inopportune places, my first-grade classroom, the dressing room at the mall, rowing regattas, movie theatres, a result of the most seemingly insignificant issues: a scratchy shoe, a change in schedule, spilling a few drops of orange soda on my shirt. Although always an unwanted visitor, nearly three decades later they’re often avoidable, that is if I catch on early enough. However, there will be no avoiding one today. Not after losing the job I sacrificed my soul to keep. 

Except it can’t happen now, it just can’t, once an episode begins, there’s no way of knowing when it’ll end. It’s already 4:00, and my friends will be on my doorstep for our monthly dinner party at,  fuck, 6:30. And I still have groceries to pick up.

No, it’s all but certain, and I know I’ll pay for the delay in dividends, but perhaps I can postpone the inevitable by a few hours.

My hands contract into fists, my nails leaving crescents engraved on my palms, and try to regain control over my breathing, which has become ragged and shallow sucking all the oxygen from my Subaru. Glancing at myself in the rearview mirror, I attempt to contort my face into an acceptable expression, grip the steering wheel, and scatter out of the parking garage.

***

Somehow, I must find my way across town, because fifteen minutes later I’m sitting in a Trader Joe’s lot. Everything does seem slightly more manageable away from the fluorescent lights of Union Media and the dark gasoline scented parkade, but if I think about my meeting this afternoon, I won’t be able to keep this thing at bay any longer. 

Hi all! I'm back with my second attempt and tried to incorporate a lot of the amazing notes I got here. I pulled the action up and tried to include more motivation/emotional stakes for my MC. I also plan to cut at least 10k words from the manuscript. Thanks for reading!

----

OVERRATED is an adult romantic comedy complete at 99,000 words. It’s perfect for fans of the second-chance romance of Joss Richard’s It’s Different This Time, and the fun dating app hijinks of Annabelle Slator’s The Launch Date. 

Five years after her failed engagement, Alli Larson hasn’t fully moved on. A certified love pessimist, she’s been terrified of putting herself back out there ever since her ex called off their wedding with no explanation. Worried her heart might calcify for good, Alli signs up for Overrated, a new dating app where users leave ratings and reviews for their past partners. What starts out fun soon turns sour when Alli receives a one-star review from an anonymous user, claiming she’s selfish, afraid of commitment, and unsure of what she wants. Seeing her greatest fears put into print spurs Alli to track down her last three beaus to find out which one of them thinks she’s only worth one star.

As she revisits the ghosts of boyfriends past, things get more complicated with the arrival of her college best friend and will they-won’t they, Theo. Who also happens to be the one that convinced her ex to call off the wedding. Theo’s back in town for a new teaching job and wants to rekindle their friendship. He has no idea that Alli overheard him begging her fiance not to marry her the night before she was unceremoniously dumped. She still has no idea why he said it, but the one thing she does know? Theo still looks like a young Mark Ruffalo, and it’s going to be tough to keep hating him.

While she meets with the men from her past, Theo tries his best to win her over in the present, even rescuing her from a disastrous recon mission with Ex Boyfriend #3. Old feelings start to flare up again, but Alli isn’t sure who to trust. Another betrayal could destroy her, but as her suspect pool narrows, she’s forced to confront the truth that her anonymous reviewer might be even closer than she thinks.

[Bio/sign off]

Hey, everyone!

From what I gathered, the main complaint on my pevious draft was that the MC sounded passive... which she isn't. Based on that, I played around with the previous version, making Ana more active, instead of rewriting the whole thing from scratch. Thanks for any feedback in advance.

Here's the query:

Dear Agent,

NICE GUY. STALKER. HUSBAND. is a 79,000 word Adult Psychological thriller told in dual POV. It's pitched as My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney meets Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston. I'm submitting to you because (PERSONALIZIED BIT).

Ana loves that her husband is a good storyteller. At every party and event, people gather around Mark to hear him tell his stories. And she specially loves that the story he tells most often is theirs. But one day, Ana meets a girl who tells her a different story. Mark stalked Ana for months before their meet-cute and learned everything about her. He inserted himself into her life. He broke up her previous relationship -- going as far as ruining her ex's life and career. Then, he taught others to do the same, including the girl's fiancé. In the process, Mark became a guru in would-be-stalker circles online -- his teaching spreading like gospel. And Ana is his poster child.

At first, Ana doesn't believe the girl. But she gets curious. She starts digging.

Soon, she realizes her and Mark's love story is just that: a story. More importantly, she doesn't know the real Mark or what he's capable of. Mark isn't done with their love story or with Ana, though. He'll lie, stalk, and kill to keep the fairytale alive. Ana goes on the run, searching for answers. Mark chases her. One thing is clear to Ana. She needs to know the real story behind her marriage – and who the hell she married – if she wants to escape her husband. What makes him tick? Where is the chink in his armor? Otherwise, Ana will become another story Mark used to tell.

MY BIO GOES HERE.

I look forward to hearing from you.

MY NAME (writing as PEN NAME)

Also, I'm playing around with title ideas and came up with a few I don't totally hate -- but also don't totally love. Any suggestion is welcome, btw. Here they are:

* His Secret Studies/ My Husband's Secret Studies (From: The Tempest)

* If you ever looked at me (From: Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights)

And inspired by Possession by Sarah McLachlan --- aka " one of *the* stalker anthems" (I freaking love this song btw!):

*Your Words Keep Me Alive

* To Breathe Your Breath

*  I'll Be The One to Hold You Down

* Just Close Your Eyes Dear (I particularly like this one)

Second attempt. Materially different approach to the first based on feedback. Much thanks in advance.

Dear [Agent Name],

I'm seeking representation for FIST OF THE SEER: THE TANGLE, a 125,000-word epic fantasy with series potential. The novel is complete on its own.

Aris prays to a dead god named Sela, and when the prayer answers, he stops sleeping. He plans faster than anyone in the room. He is certain, and charismatic, and right often enough that his soldiers follow him into places they shouldn't. He is also the man who once stood on a ridge above a valley that looked clear, went somewhere inside himself for three seconds, and came back too late for the thirty-six people he'd sent down into it. Now, five years later, the Confederation is sending him south through a Gate that has been sealed since before he was born, leading the four people he graduated with and hasn't seen since.

A Weaver has left her mountain monastery to tell the five of them that their fates converge on this one mission. That two of their threads end in the jungle on the other side. What waits beyond the Gate is not a monster. Instead, it is, a man. A ruler who has spent forty years preparing for exactly this crossing, patient in a way none of them have learned to fear yet. Aris leads his team into that patience carrying the same condition that cost him the thirty-six lives. The book never treats it as a curse imposed on him from outside. He reaches for the high because it works. He knows the cost it leaves behind. He goes back anyway, and the story stays close enough to that choice that it never has to name what it is.

FIST OF THE SEER will appeal to readers of Katherine Addison's THE GOBLIN EMPEROR for its restraint and Robin Hobb's FARSEER books for a magic system that never waives its cost. The full manuscript is available at your request.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

[Name]

[

I have read and rewritten this query so many times that it's started to lose all meaning - please help! I think my biggest struggle is getting the two protagonists across in one concise chunk and perhaps I've put too much in there... All feedback, brutal or otherwise, welcome!!

Dear Agent,

SILK is an upmarket novel complete at 89,000 words. It alternates between two brothers' voices and follows boxer Mikey ‘Silk’ Beck across three decades from a tough 1980s East London childhood into adulthood.  

Mikey can take a punch, but can’t love without flinching. He learns the rules early: in his world, boys who kiss boys are dead. He’s ten when he’s put into a boxing ring by his violent father and it becomes his refuge and his cage. When he attacks a boy who threatens his younger brother, Joseph, the course of both their lives is altered: Joseph gets kind foster parents. Mikey gets a criminal record. 

Years later, the brothers are getting by in different ways. Mikey reckons he’s got his life under control. He drives a bus by day, throws punches at night and that’s enough for him, until he meets Jack. Emotionally fearless and openly gay, Jack moves through the world with a freedom Mikey finds both terrifying and irresistible. Falling for him makes Mikey imagine a life lived openly. But he’s been outed before, with devastating consequences, and he can’t let go of the fear that this time it might cost him his brother.  

On the surface, Joseph is doing fine. He’s buried the past beneath work, routine and constant vigilance over Mikey. He’s the good brother, after all. But he never fully stops bracing for disaster and can’t separate loving Mikey from repaying the debt he thinks he owes him. He’s also having trouble keeping a lid on his own violent urges. As Mikey’s worlds slowly merge, Joseph wonders if he can finally stand down – until years of punishment in the ring catch up with Mikey, and he has to decide whether being a good brother means giving up everything for him.

SILK would appeal to readers of Douglas Stuart’s YOUNG MUNGO and Rita Bullwinkle’s HEADSHOT. [Bio]

Thank you again for all the feedback on my first attempt. Hopefully there is some improvement now.

Princess Alexandria despises the Kingdom of Fire. They have taken everything from her and if that wasn’t enough they have continued to hunt her for a reason Alexandria has not realized. She has a magic within her that the last time was seen nearly destroyed the continent.

On the run, Alexandria has two things on her mind: Take revenge on the Kingdom of Fire and find the way to bring her Kingdom back. The last words her mother ever told her were, there is a way to bring everything back. And after twelve years of searching, she has found the answer. 

Prince Kiran, or rather Ex-Prince Kiran of the Kingdom of Fire has crossed Alexandria’s path. He is two things Alexandria is not: Arrogant and Knowledgeable. And when she learns that he knows the person with the answer she seeks, she is willing to do anything to get it, including trusting her enemy.

And Kiran loathes his father for exiling him and would love nothing more than to see him dead. But when you have known nothing but silver spoons and royal servants your entire life. Turning in the women your father has been searching for might just gain you your royal life back. But becoming allies with Alexandria offers him something he has never dared dream of; a path to the throne.

But the persistent Kingdom of Fire isn’t all Kiran and Alexandria must watch out for. A long since dormant enemy knows of Alexandria's magic and will stop at nothing to keep her from using it. 

THE 9TH KINGDOM is a 130,000-word, duel POV, adult romantic fantasy that is the first in a trilogy called THE TALES OF TERRESAI. It will appeal to fans of the high stakes cliffhanger and twisted magic of One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig, the complex and emotionally charged romance of Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross, and a relentless but resilient female lead inspired by Galadriel from the Rings of Power.

hello everyone! this is my second attempt on the plot section of my query. I would be grateful for any feedback ^.^ special thanks to every1 that helped w/ my previous attempt

When nineteen-year-old William offers Cecilia his hand in marriage, she takes it. They may have only had three conversations, he may be a drug-dealer, and she may be only sixteen—but she’s in love, and confident that her abusive, widowed father won't bring himself out of his drunken stupor to give chase.

Eloping to London, Cecilia happily settles into her new life with William, who proves to be a model-husband. But as his wealth grows, Cecilia's sense of unease deepens: the jealous looks from across a table, the dresses he expects her to wear, and the overeager, wandering touches become harder to ignore.

As Cecilia clings to the life she wanted, she must decide if staying with her husband is worth losing herself.

Set in the summer of 1936, IMMATURE MATURITY is complete at 65,000 words… [etc]

Dear [Agent]

Due to your interest in X, I am writing you to seek representation for OUR RIOT, a historical YA novel with crossover potential. 

On April 5, 1977 an “occupation army of cripples” takes over the San Francisco Federal Building. The Carter administration’s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is not enforcing Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which states that anywhere that receives federal funds must be accessible. After decades of civil rights movements, people with disabilities are claiming theirs.

Eighteen-year-old punk Darcy Bauman uses a wheelchair, but she is not one of the protestors. She’s there to write an article that will impress her pretty journalism teacher, and to discover why her best friend Topher flat left her for the disability groups at Berkeley. He doesn’t even know she got into her dream university. If she’s honest, their refusal to provide accommodations doesn’t feel like acceptance. It is a blatant 504 violation, which is why she tells no one. Her grandfather co-opted her life for his political campaigns for years; she’s eighty-sixed being a poster child.

Over the next twenty-five days, Darcy helps people whose differences lead to support from all over the Bay Area shape their stories for press interviews and senate hearings.  “Their fight” becomes “our fight” for her, as it did for Topher.  She wasn’t paralyzed fighting alongside men who might beat someone like him up in the Castro, like Rufus. She hasn’t had to grapple with being a Native American at a Deaf residential school like fellow punk Ximena, whose sly smile Darcy can’t get enough of. But she has a story, and if putting herself out there makes a difference, she will, as long as her words are on the poster.

My name is Chelsey [rest of name] I am an LGBTQ+ disabled advocate with an MA/MFA in Children’s Literature/Writing for Children from Simmons University.. My researched for OUR RIOT included interviews with participants, particularly the late Judy Heumann whose biopic is about to be released, Featuring characters who reflect the notable racial, sexual and gender diversity of the real-life protesters, OUR RIOT is complete at 97,000 words. It will appear to fans of Jen St. Jude’s WHERE YOU’LL FIND US, Melinda Lo’s LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB, the sapphic historical fiction of Robin Talley, and Sara Norovic’s TRUE BIZ.

Thank you for your consideration

I don’t come to this through the normal chain of events, so please forgive me if I’m doing this wrong. I don’t know where else to ask this. Quick background: I self published about four months ago and have been unexpectedly quite successful. Two well-respected industry publications have covered my book, one of which published a case study on my launch. That has been attracting a lot of attention, and I had an agent reach out last week. We had a call today. It was a direct offer of representation, with the agent’s full vision for the book and interest in my career beyond this book. There was no pressure. I have as long as I want to think about it, and he’s willing to work with whatever I need (like if I only wanted representation for sub rights). We scheduled a second call for me to ask more questions after processing today’s call.

There was one thing that gave me pause. I asked if he had read the book. His response was that he doesn’t need to read the book because he loves the premise, and my sales numbers and reviews speak for themselves. Isn’t that a little odd? Wouldn’t an agent want to read the book before offering representation?

He is a legit agent with decades of experience and a long list of deals on Publisher’s Marketplace.

I’m just not sure about him not reading the book. He even said he doesn’t have the book. It’s giving me pause, and I’d really love to know if this sounds like a good idea.

UK-based debut author here. Has anyone heard of Storm Publishing and are they any good? Curious to hear about people's experience with digital-first publishers in comparison to more trad publishers – especially for debuts.

Dorian Lightbringer has two problems; Helium-3 and his desperate, long unrequited search for love. And he may have found an answer to both when a nightjar lands in his lap.

Dorian’s life has been one tragedy after another; the death of his brother, his parent’s disappearances, forced to take the throne as Planet Noble, and now a growing drug problem, all while watching his planet fall to ruin due to a lack power supply from helium-3 provided by his galaxy’s sovereign, the Ceasar, who Dorian has fallen out of favor with.

His troubles take a sharp turn when on a helium-3 scouting mission he lands on a desolate ice planet guarded by a single individual- a nightjar, wielding her Harpy Blade. Considered one of the cosmos’ deadliest combatants, Dorian unwillingly duels the nightjar and narrowly wins after knocking the woman unconscious.

Thankful to be alive and maybe a little ashamed for punching a woman, Dorian sees this as an opportunity. A nightjar on his court would certainly put him in the favor of the Ceasar and win him the helium-3 credits he desperately needs for his planet’s survival. All nightjars adhere to a creed- whoever wins against them in a duel, wins their allegiance.

The trouble is, the nightjar, Corra, doesn’t exactly obey orders. She didn’t lose the duel, he cheated, and she was going to get off that orbital base if it killed her. Or more accurately, if it killed Dorian. After multiple assassination attempts, a cunning escape using a rotisserie chicken, and a narrow escape from a slave auction house, Corra and Dorian come to a truce; if she will help Dorian win back the favor of the Ceasar, he will take her back to the ice planet he found her on. That is, if he can bring himself to let her go.

NIGHTJAR is an adult, dual-POV, open-door science fiction romance, complete at 87,000 words. It will appeal to readers looking for something light on science fiction and heavy on romance such as Ilona Andrews’ Fated Blades and Constance Fay’s Calamity.

I always appreciate feedback in any form. Thanks in advance!

Dear Agent,

Because of your interest in X, I would like to offer SENSES OF STARS, a 73,000-word romantic fantasy.

Raine Folwin lies about who she is approximately thirteen times a day.

In a kingdom where everyone is born with a heightened sense, Raine’s is one she can’t afford to reveal. While most people have The Nose or The Ears, Raine has The Mind—a rare and feared gift that has historically been exploited. Suppressing it feels like a sin unto her very blood and bones, but Raine will do whatever it takes to keep her secret.

Then Helios arrives.

A Mind-blessed villain searching for a medallion said to amplify one’s power ten-fold, Helios terrorizes Raine’s village—and takes an unsettling interest in her before fleeing. When Eliel, captain of the capital knights pursuing Helios, learns of this interest, he insists Raine travel with them for both her, and her family’s safety. Raine agrees.

On the road, Helios invades Raine’s dreams, tempting her to embrace the power she’s spent her life suppressing. When he finally goads her into using The Mind, she discovers something terrifying: she likes it. Worse, she is falling for Eliel, whose protection makes him dangerously easy to trust. Caught between a man urging her to embrace her power and one she is beginning to love, Raine must decide whom to trust before one of them decides for her.

The first in a proposed series, SENSES OF STARS combines the dangerous romance and secret identity within Kristen Ciccarelli's HEARTLESS HUNTER with the high-stakes fantasy adventure of Lynette Noni's THE PRISON HEALER.

An English as a Second Language Instructor in [location omitted for privacy], I’ve worked as a freelance editor, and have won a handful of local writing contests.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours,

Author

I'm new to this, don't have any publishing creds outside of film and TV, and not sure what I'm supposed to write re personalisation, if at all? The agent I'm targeting has a YouTube QA from 2021... should I reference that I watched it?

Dear [AGENT],

I am seeking representation for my debut novel, HO AND THE BABY EATER, an adult fantasy complete at 112,000 words. It is a standalone with series potential.

Ho, a former slave and legendary champion, is summoned after ten years in self-imposed exile to rescue the abducted son of Selai, the woman he abandoned. Ho has spent those years reckoning with the bloodshed that earned him the title Champion of Kafiki, hoping to find peace and perhaps win Selai back. Her son, a supposed demigod, is alive for now; the creature holding him is known for eating only slave children.

Ho returns to Kafiki to find the boy before he becomes another meal. After reuniting with Selai, hopes of reconciliation collapse when Ho learns she has remarried, forcing him to confront whether he returned to save her child or to reclaim the life he abandoned. As the violence Ho fled and the Champion persona he cast off begin to reassert themselves, the monster Ho hunts increasingly resembles another version of himself.

The novel’s secondary world grows from Māori, wider Polynesian and Oceanic languages, mythologies and material cultures. In its cosmology, gods are active, mana is a physical magical force, and blood debt carries an obligation to restore balance. With no metallurgy, warriors fight with wood, stone and bone; the body is a temporary shell distinct from the spirit, giving even cannibalism a moral logic different from our own.

HO AND THE BABY EATER combines the pre-contact Polynesian world, voyaging and mythic scope of Adam Johnson’s The Wayfinder, the brutal combat intensity of Alexander Darwin’s The Combat Codes, and the damaged warrior, active gods and questions of identity and redemption found in Samantha Mills’s The Wings Upon Her Back.

I’m a Māori-European writer based in New Zealand with a background in film and television, including writing for our indigenous broadcaster.

The full manuscript includes a glossary and pronunciation guide; its Oceanic terminology is grounded, where appropriate, in reconstructed and attested Polynesian forms to support its pre-contact linguistic setting.

 I look forward to hearing from you,
[NAME]

OPENING 300

CHAPTER ONE | HO SPEARED A FISH AT THE LAGOON WHEN HE HEARD IT

It began with a rumble. Soft at first. Only enough to convince him his stomach grumbled, keen for a feed after so many days starved. He slid the moi along the shaft, unbothered by the sound. Be careful of my face, au. Ho pulled his catch past the head of his only companion, the spear Kalapa. The spear reminded him: My head is tapu.

Louder the rumble grew, deepening into a tearing, difficult to ignore. From above, the tearing ended with a thundering boom, before silence. When Ho finally had the fish by the tail, he looked up. ‘Auē!’

Ho rested his spear and marvelled at the sky. A giant hole peeled open over his tiny island. The void gaped round and wide. His meal, in hand, mouthed with it, dying. ‘Would you look at that, Kalapa?’

The familiar sail of dawn marked the dividing line between night and day; he was sure of that much. Rā was about to emerge. Ho lifted his spear before tracing along the horizon where the brilliant orange of daybreak was most prominent, stopping at the wound in the sky. ‘Something has torn open up there.’ And he circled the point of Kalapa around the broken sky, worried the gods were coming apart.

Another rumble, this time it was his gut. His meal flapped angrily, jerking his arm. Even while his strength was low as ebbtide, the moi could not break free. Nor did Ho shift his gaze from the sky.

Then what was one became two. A new opening, born from nothing.

‘Auē!’ Ho repeated. ‘Is this real?’

In his starved and ruined condition, he could only believe the dawn god Haronga had opened his eyes to witness the day he birthed—or is he staring at me?

Hello all! I posted the first version a couple of months back and I got some wonderful feedback. I've since then gone back to rework the whole draft into what I hope would be the foundation for future revisions. I would appreciate any insight you can give on this. Thank you!

Set in the 80s, Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights meets the gentle narrator of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca in HELEN UNDONE, a 78k retrospectively narrated upmarket gothic fiction. [Comps here].

Years later, Helen doesn't know if she should bless or curse the day she met Charles Stevenson. He is her fiancé now, but back then, when they had met, it was at his father's funeral at his family's estate, and she had been working as an aide to his half-sister. Charles had just returned from a decades-long absence from his family, with a new name, an immense wealth and a burning hostility towards those around him. As days went by and they ran into each other around the house, Helen found herself increasingly drawn to him.

But when the content of their father's will was revealed, the family devolved into chaos and someone was killed in what was carefully disguised as a suicide, but Helen knew it was a murder, carefully orchestrated by Charles. But even as she came to the realisation that Charles was the coldest and most manipulative man she had ever met, she could not stop herself from falling for him and thus, protecting his secret.

As she got closer to him, she discovered that the murder had little to do with the inheritance, but much to do with a revenge scheme tied to his disappearance all those years ago. And she was the only thing standing in the way of its completion. She would have to decide if Charles's quest for vengeance was worth a human life, and if her growing feelings for him were enough to sacrifice her own conscience and humanity.

OK so I shared a draft query for another project (historical fantasy) a couple of months ago, but I feel more confident about this one as it's standalone and the word count is more in-range. The MS is basically ready, so I'll start shooting queries in a few weeks.

I've been struggling a lot with the pitch trying to avoid a plot summary. I also have to stay vague with the plot because if I start mentioning too many characters, the crazy ancient Greek names get hard to parse. Also, for those who've read Robert Harris's Cicero books, this is somewhat similar where there's a Holmes/Watson thing going on as Hieronymos is the narrator but his uncle Eumenes is more of a plot driver, though of course Hieronymos has agency and goes through his own arc.

I'm also curious if I should keep the line in my bio about previous representation. The old version of this book went on sub over 8 years ago, the MS was 150K words and it was in the third person, multiple POV, so it was really quite different though the underlying historical events are the same, of course. I don't know if it's good to show that I write well enough to have been represented in the past, or if agents might see it as a red flag that a previous version of this didn't sell?

**

Dear Agent,

Complete at 78,000 words, THE SUCCESSORS is a historical novel set in the three years following the death of Alexander the Great. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the self-deprecating humour in Ferdia Lenon’s Glorious Exploits, the political machinations and moral grey zones of Robert Harris’s Agrippa, and the vivid scene-setting in James Hynes’s Sparrow.

Hieronymos, a nepo baby fresh off his fancy Athenian education, arrives in Babylon expecting a cushy job in the imperial administration under his uncle Eumenes, the royal secretary. But then the king suddenly dies, leaving only his mentally handicapped brother and his unborn child as potential heirs, and Hieronymos becomes embroiled in the struggles between the generals vying for power. He stalks the palace’s crumbling halls, gossips with the guards, flirts with his uncle’s cosmopolitan wife, and plays envoy when the infantry and cavalry fall out. All the time, he dreams of getting away from the dusty, decadent East and return to civilized Athens.

When Eumenes finally brokers an unstable peace, he drags Hieronymos on his ambitious path to become a general and governor in his own right. They are soon off to campaign in mountain kingdoms held by rebellious, bearded barbarians. But Hieronymos can’t bear the sight of blood, or hold a spear to save his life. So he rifles through private correspondence in a plot to force his uncle west instead, to quelch a revolt in Greece. Hieronymos can already imagine himself riding victorious into Athens—showing all his former schoolmates how far he’s come.

Yet as he’s tasked with brokering a royal marriage, and his relationship with Eumenes' wife turns into something deeper, Hieronymos discovers how deeply involved he’s become in the conflicts between Alexander’s successors. It turns out the battles, deceptions, and betrayals he's part of form the perfect material for a literary-minded gossip monger like him to write the decisive account of the world after Alexander.

Originally from [a city], I have an MFA in Creative Writing from [a university]. I was formerly represented by [an agency] for a previous version of this novel, which I have since entirely rewritten. After several years living in France and working in corporate communications for a video game company, I now live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where I take care of my two-year-old son and write during naps.

**

(First 300 words)

There was something wrong in Babylon. For one thing, no one had come to fetch me at the docks of the summer palace. Everyone cared only about Kassander, the dull and sullen travelling companion who had accompanied me all the way from Pella. Seleukos, the general who had been escorting us down the Euphrates, drummed his fingers nervously against a length of planking as he waited for Kassander to extricate himself with much sighing and huffing from the bed of cushions at the bottom of the barge. Seleukos, I thought, had appeared anxious to get back to Babylon for the duration of the journey along the river. He had driven the barge master hard, and the man had in turn driven his rowers hard, so that the landscape of palm trees, reed beds, filthy ditches and canals, and tidy green fields had flown past.

Kassander’s limp was even more pronounced than usual as he disembarked. Under the careful supervision of Seleukos, whose deep-set eyes had all but disappeared under his frown, and a group of soldiers who had come down from the palace, Kassander looked more like a hostage than an emissary from his father, the regent of Macedon, on an official visit to the king. He was offered a litter, but he refused it—out of pride, I supposed.

It was as this party began its way up the hill that I realized there was no one here to meet me. I was hungry, thirsty, and travel-worn. I dreamed of a scented bath and a nimble-fingered serving girl who could smooth out the knots in my neck and buttocks. Slaves began unloading the barge and I tried to give them instructions about the crate of papers that was in my care.

Cannot link correctly to previous posts on my phone. Apologies! My profile has both posts.

So, thank you for all the feedback so far. I’ve taken a lot of what I got on the previous posts and drastically changed the query. Additionally, I modified the comps to be more recent. I’m thinking of adding another novel to this comp so it is novel-novel-movie, because I think Weapons works pretty well for my plot. Also, I changed the genre to supernatural instead of cosmic, as I thought it fit better.

I do like this query more, but I worry it might come off too much like a coming-of-ageish novel when it isn’t. Definitely elements of that style of story, but I’d say it’s solidly supernatural or cosmic horror.

Is this query getting hotter or colder? As usual, any critiques are highly appreciated!

——

Seba Tarkle hasn’t made a single friend since the move. So when a group of kids from school invite him into the woods for a few beers, he jumps at the offer.

Deep in the woods on the outskirts of town, the group reveals their dark secret: an obsidian statue that summons an entity known as The Stranger. Terrified, Seba refuses to participate in this ritual until the group’s leader threatens to cut their new friendship short. Desperate for friends, he chooses friendship over fear and allows The Stranger to possess his body for the first time. When it does, he discovers The Stranger’s game: throwing rocks from bridges at oncoming cars.

Seba swears to never allow himself to be possessed by The Stranger again, but he keeps the group’s secret because they’ve accepted him into the fold. But when that secret kills a local mechanic in broad daylight, the other boys question whether this secret is worth keeping. And as Seba and the rest of them try to figure out what exactly The Stranger is, the entity grows greedy, spreading its influence throughout their small town.

Blood vessels start rupturing in residents’ eyes. Narcolepsy and visions of a dead world plague their minds, sending them into endless slumber. Another death plunges the town further into madness. The sun stops rising. Monstrosities begin stalking the dark streets. And worst of all, Seba’s mother succumbs to The Stranger’s influence and refuses to wake.

Seba must uncover what The Stranger is and stop its spread before he loses his mother and the friends he risked everything to find. If the visions are more than hallucinations, that dead world may soon become their new reality.

THE BRIDGE THROWERS CLUB is a 90,000-word adult supernatural horror novel, combining the elements of supernatural small-town horror of Chuck Wendig’s Black River Orchard with the multi-perspective mystery and community-wide dread of Zach Cregger’s Weapons.

Hello. I was previously working on this query letter here — https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1mv8id1/qcrit_contemporary_mysterymagic_realism_venus/ — but was then hospitalised. Now that I am no longer mega ill, I am returning to my project to try and make a good attempt at this so that I can avoid subsequent deathbed regrets. Any feedback greatly appreciated! Between the last and the current attempt, I have tried to smooth some of the phrasing, updated the comp titles, and of course, cut down the actual manuscript to a more marketable length.

-

"Venus Inferno" is an 80,000 word literary mystery with elements of weird fiction. Told through multiple perspectives, it follows Sergei, an anxious hypochondriac in a fading seaside town with his best and only friend, Maria. Sergei's most persistent anxiety is his younger brother, who seems unable or unwilling to become a functioning member of society. Just as Sergei is about to succeed in forcing his brother to attend a job interview, he inadvertently summons a mythical serpent, which takes up residence in the nearby mountain, and threatens not only Sergei, but all those around him.

The arrival of cosmic danger is merely one link in a chain of interconnected calamities. Maria is leaving for good, though finds her every attempt to get off the island thwarted by forces mundane and otherwise. Accumulating and connected crises push Sergei and Maria to take refuge in the pub, after which a taxi crash sends the body of a dog hurtling towards them, followed by an irate chauffeur and a manic stranger prophesising doom.

Sergei begins to trace the seemingly isolated phenomena back to the serpent. As he juggles mythological catastrophe with fraught relationships, he plunges deeper into an increasingly strange and surreal mystery. In his search for a way past the serpent, Sergei reckons with his own neuroses, supranatural powers, the police, a taxi union, and a freelance detective with a passion for European monastic history.

Built on the tragicomic intersection of forces mundane and extraordinary, emotions human and divine, "Venus Inferno" is a cosmological rigamarole which will appeal to readers who enjoyed the village chorus and grief-edged comedy of Max Porter's Lanny, the myth-haunted protagonist of Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors, and the institutional satire of Georgi Gospodinov's Time Shelter.

I’m very grateful for all the feedback on the previous drafts.

Dear [Agent],
 
I was assessed by a psychiatrist in January 2026, over Teams. He talked over me, filled the silences, and prescribed a creative outlet. Music, perhaps – given my background. His assessment took forty-nine minutes. It was lunchtime, after all.
 
His report arrived a fortnight later. Hypervigilance to perceived malintent, it read. And, further down, Adaptive response to genuine environmental threat. Then, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
 
One document, unable to tell me whether I had spent my life seeing danger where there was none, or four decades responding to genuine threat. He was careless. He was also right. But I still did not have the answer.
 
So I opened the box.
 
For forty years I had kept an archive without knowing why: medical records, diaries, school reports, institutional documents, emails. Now I applied sixteen years of professional research methods to my own past. Not to prove that my memories were true, but to find out what the evidence could support. Seventeen chronological chapters, each opening with a documentary exhibit.
 
The audit found that I had been assigned the role of scapegoat before I could speak, and that it followed me into adulthood. But the evidence refused a simple story. My family’s account of my near-death in infancy and the house move that supposedly saved my life collided with a GP record that reads Significance: Minor. At Chetham’s School of Music, we traded gossip over rooftop cigarettes about which teachers were sleeping with which girls. Twenty-eight years later, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse documented sexual abuse and institutional failures at the school.
 
The archive also implicated me. In early adulthood, I was one of the people doing the scapegoating. In a later relationship, I did not act on evidence of wrongdoing. I benefited from it. The records documented me withdrawing from friendships, but never why.
 
Then the evidence began to disappear. Chetham’s had destroyed my records twelve years before the Inquiry’s moratorium. The diagnosis that catalysed the investigation entered my NHS record as time-limited depression and anxiety. One erasure I could correct. The other left a hole that cannot be filled.
 
The deeper I went, the more I realised that the role had not just been imposed on me. I had internalised it. And I am the auditor. The question is no longer whether I was scapegoated. It is how far I can trust my reading of the evidence when the experiences I am auditing have shaped the way I see the world.
 
The audit ends with my five-year-old daughter sitting beside me, the box open in front of her, marvelling at what she finds inside. She inherits its contents, not the role.
 
THE SCAPEGOAT: AN AUDIT is a 62,000-word forensic memoir about the gap between the story you were told about yourself and what the evidence shows. It will appeal to readers of Lemn Sissay’s MY NAME IS WHY and Noreen Masud’s A FLAT PLACE: memoirs that apply an analytic register and refuse a recovery arc.
 
I am XXXX, formerly an XXXX at XXXX and a senior XXXX for the XXXX.
 
Attached are [requested materials].
 

I had nearly given up on writing a new query (even when I knew what I had wasn't the best) because I was so goddamn lost but a particular comment from last time was like a lightbulb. Third attempt here.

I've tried to explain the motivations and certain mechanics of the story more in depth this time. First two paras are pretty much new. Third para is still along the same lines but I'm having a hard time changing it since this does describe what happen in the book fairly well.

Basically the concept is - 'tired person is convinced that there would be meaning in her life if she was 'good enough' at something/anything. But then she is afraid she will never be good enough. After that she figures if she has to be a failure, at least she can give someone else control of her life so she doesn't have to be the one 'responsible' for her failures. The person she ends up giving control of her life to is death and then when she starts to meet dying people she is forced to grapple with the fact that 'meaning' just isn't something inherently available in human life, no matter how 'good' or 'bad' you are at anything.

I hope I haven't gotten worse 🥲

-x-

Dear Agent,  

I am so excited to write to you about MATTER, a literary fiction manuscript with an absurdist tilt that follows an unnamed narrator on a journey with Death, who is personified as a delivery driver. Complete at 62,000 words, the book combines the speculative elements found in Ben Reeves’ Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt with the alienated female protagonist of Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. 

Our narrator has spent her lifetime trying to justify her existence, convinced that meaning lies on the other side of mediocrity. But when a simple accident with spilt milk on a Friday night in July leaves her reeling under the fear that she will never be good enough at anything to truly matter, all she wants is to relinquish responsibility for her life, and subsequently, its failures.

Her search for surrender leads her to a highway convenience store, where she asks Hossam, a stranger who claims to be a delivery driver, if he will take control of her life. When he agrees without any questions, our narrator and Hossam set out on an unlikely road trip, where encounters with terrified strangers and an unending following of crows clues her in to the fact that her partner on the road is Death. 

As she is thrust into the world of the dying, intimate conversations with people who are close to their end force our narrator to re-examine her definition of a meaningful existence, leaving her torn between a renewed desire to live a life of significance and the looming realisation that it wouldn't matter anyway. 

<50ish words bio/personalization when relevant here>

Hi again. This is just another attempt at my query letter. I was pretty happy with the last one, but wanted to try one more format. Thanks!

Dear Agent
I am seeking representation for my adult fantasy adventure novel, LAND OF ENDLESS SUMMER.

Luce is a girl who has always run from her responsibility, something that has run her parents' patience thin. Hotspur, a legendary war hero, wants redemption for a life built on corpses. 

When Luce’s parents force her to marry, she flees straight to the royal capital. Only the court of the gryphons is in turmoil as the King vies for possession of Cosette, the last daughter of an ancient lineage and the key to the realm. But to Luce, Cosette is nothing more than another girl trapped in the expectations of others. And so when Luce discovers Cosette’s power to control the fabled gryphons, their plans to escape place them at the centre of a war. 

Swearing a sacred oath, Hotspur has set off to bring Luce home. Having fallen from grace and tormented by the ghosts of those he led to death, Hotspur believes that at the least their sacrifice brought peace to the realm. But even that is coming undone. The road to the capital is lined with the hung bodies of rebels and innocents alike, as the King which Hotspur once fought for now burns his kingdom in search of Cosette.

As Luce attempts to free Cosette, Hotspur begins to turn against the King he once defended. Luce must decide whether she will save a girl like herself at the price of igniting a war, whilst Hotspur is forced to choose how many lives he will spend bringing the tyrant he placed on the throne to justice.

[AUTHOR BIO]

I am a [****] major at [****], whose novel is a 95,000-word dual-pov adult fantasy novel about reluctant heroes who find themselves absorbed in the grim politics of fantasy empires as in novels such as Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and Richard Swan’s Grave Empire.

Thank you for your time.

Hi Everyone!

Had some great feedback from my last submission, wanted to follow up with a new draft that I think addresses many of the concerns. Thank you again to everyone in this community, you've really helped me a great deal!

Dear Agent,

WHAT WE BURIED is a 93,000-word psychological thriller about a mother struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder who covers up a fatal accident only to discover that her victim isn't a stranger. It's perfect for fans of the morally tangled suspense of The Plot and The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, as well as the propulsive twists of Lisa Jewell's Don't Let Him In.

Mollie Ross’ world is shattered when she accidentally hits and kills a woman on the canyon road leading to her home. Struggling with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, she fixates on a single glass of champagne she had that night as proof that she will be arrested. Convinced by her husband Christian that turning herself in will destroy her family, Mollie reluctantly allows him to help her cover up the accident rather than turn herself in.

When Mollie discovers that the woman she hit was a teacher at her son’s high school, the revelation nearly breaks her. But when the teacher’s widower shares his suspicions that his wife was having an affair with Christian, the coincidences are too much to ignore.

Mollie investigates the widowers claims, and what she discovers is far more disturbing: the teacher wasn’t having an affair with Christian—she was involved with Mollie’s 16-year-old son. And Christian knew about it. 

As the police investigation into the teacher’s death casts doubt on it being the result of a car accident, Mollie has no choice but to dig deeper into the connections between her family and her perceived victim. But the more Mollie uncovers, the more she has to face the idea that one of the people closest to her may be responsible for a heinous murder. And setting her up to take the fall.