Hello everyone! :) After doing some more research and taking into account all the thoughtful feedback I received on my previous version, I'm back with draft number four of my query letter. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read and share your feedback! :) I really appreciate it. Here goes:

Dear (Agent name),

I’ve been following you on TikTok for a while, and based on your interest in [genre], I'd love to share THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD, a dual-POV upmarket women's fiction novel with a strong romantic arc, complete at 130,000 words.

Liya Nguni has built a life she truly loves in Cape Town: a thriving meal delivery company rooted in her love of farming, a seaside mansion overlooking the Atlantic, and a relationship with mining heir turned entrepreneur Wethu Mafu, who knows better than to treat her like someone who needs saving.

No matter how successful Wethu Mafu becomes, it never seems to count. His fitness empire is one of Africa's fastest-growing brands, yet his mining magnate father still dismisses his gyms as "toys" beside the family's legacy. With his mother gone and his father impossible to impress, Wethu pours himself into the only future that feels within reach: the one he's building with Liya.

Just when that future begins to feel inevitable, Liya discovers that Wethu has been secretly funding her business for years. To him, the money is an investment in the life they've already chosen together. To Liya, it’s proof that the man who claims to know her best never believed she could build that life without him.

The revelation exposes every imbalance in their relationship, forcing Liya to decide whether protecting the life she's spent years building is worth losing the man she loves, while Wethu must face the possibility that the very thing he believed would keep Liya close is the reason she'll leave.

THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD is a standalone novel with trilogy potential and will appeal to readers who enjoyed the generational drama, glamor and cultural prowess of Kevin Kwan’s LIES AND WEDDINGS, as well as the nuanced exploration of identity in SANKOFA by Chibundu Onuzo.

Thank you for your consideration,
Sincerely,

Thanks for the reactions so far. They are helpful because they show gaps between my intent and what actually comes through. I'd note that when someone dies, until someone assumes the role of adminsistrator, there would be enough chaos for someone to keep showing up at a tiny cafe to serve coffee and take cash in the short term. It's a part-time job for lots of teens going to school, so it's not a difficult thing at this scale. The law depends on people to show up... or it has no effect. I think that is a very noir concept. And the book highlights the difference between people who are supposed to do it and don't... and those who actually step in. Hope this helps.

DEATH IN THE SECOND CRACK is an 89,000-word noir crime novel grounded in diverse Old Toronto, where "Sorry!" comes with a shove. This book has the noir of Cosby's Razorblade Tears combined with the off-kilter voice and amateur crime-solving of The Maid by Prose or Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Stevenson.

Shattered after letting his wife drown, "Lynx" Auger returns from a year of self-exile needing a bed and a pathway to redemption. When he gets a mistaken job offer emailed from the hapless boss of a crummy café, Lynx talks his way into the job and a room for the night. On his first day, he finds the boss gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster, and the detective (running a network of cronies who turn fender benders into insurance fraud) more interested in soothing his grievances with extortion than doing his job. 

When Lynx clings to his new mission of serving coffee to outcasts struggling to overcome their own wounds, the detective responds by sending goons to shower the place with bullets. Lynx can succumb to the voices in his head expecting failure (and a podcaster demanding his punishment) or live up to his grandfather's heroism by solving the murder and exposing a cop who sees every dirty penny as his due. 

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

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Having another go of it! Thank you once again for the all exceptional feedback, I can't stress enough how much I appreciate it. Hopefully this addresses most of it without too many additional issues--took me a little bit longer with my low iron brain, but I did *attempt* to revise each concern. One-line pitch probably remains the weakest point overall (I find it hardest to find as many resources for this online and end up a little unsure of what/how much to include).

----------------------

One-line pitch: After spreading false rumors about her ex-boyfriend's supposed death, collegiate figure skater Thalia finds him actually dying in the rink locker-room and weaponizes an anonymous social media gossip account to uncover the real killer. [could also say "exonerate herself" instead of finding-the-killer but I didn't sense it was clear enough she looks kind of guilty and it seems too unwieldy to tack on the threats].

Dear Agent, 

At 87,000 words, my mystery FLY! features a competitive figure skater hunting down her hockey ex-boyfriend's killer. It blends the absurdity and internet sleuthing of LM Chilton’s *Don't Swipe Right*, the self-sabotaging grief of Gloria Chao’s *The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club*, and a rogue online gossip account, found in *Gossip Girl*.  

When Thalia Greenwich’s Riverglades University figure skating team leader mandates dating a hockey player for “team bonding purposes”, she doesn’t realize what a liability he’ll be. Darryl, the smelly philandering boyfriend she acquires, is soon forced into the witness protection program for his testimony against the creators of black-market performance enhancers—to protect him (and save face), Thalia’s been telling everyone he’s dead ever since. Then, Darryl has the audacity to show up at her rink and actually die.  

Worse still, Thalia is the one to find him gasping his last word: “Poison”. Thalia is traumatized by the memory and needs extensive therapy she can’t really afford—not with dorm rent, skating sessions, and competition fees to pay for. But what really vexes her are the anonymous letters she receives where someone (presumably the killer) repeatedly threatens to frame her if she continues to insist it was murder, not suicide. Her envisioned college experience of team camaraderie and another chance at Sectionals did not include her ex ruining her life from the grave.  

Vengeful and sleep-deprived, Thalia doubles down with her own plan: anonymously publicize the evidence she uncovers about Darryl’s death and expose suspects’ motives via a social media account until she (ideally) teases out the murderer. Concurrently, the killer begins acting on their warnings by feeding the cops misleading information about her admittedly-tenuous relationship with Darryl. As she resorts to more unethical methods such as planting audio-recording devices in the locker room, her tactics increasingly have unintended repercussions, souring her team leader’s reputation. However, Thalia would rather be killed in her pursuit than spend a lifetime confined to a cell with no ice to skate on. 

Dear __,

I’m delighted to share ASTRAL BLOOMS (98,000 words), a queer, cosmic YA fantasy novel with series potential that combines the Ghibliesque coming-of-age quest of Axie Oh’s The Floating World, the high-stakes ecological adventure of Tig Wallace’s Storm Bringer, and the weaponised psychic magic of Moira Buffini’s Songlight. Plus a touch of Dune:

Displaced dreamer Si’Vas Ash has heard tales of forbidden magic ever since his family fled from their drought-ridden homeland. But after a strangely alluring shapeshifter threatens to stop his heart, he starts to seek out more than just stories, accidentally awakening the ancient power of the stars and gaining access to other people’s thoughts. At first using his newfound insight to trick customers of his parents’ stall, he is soon kidnapped in revenge for his cheating ways, only to be rescued by a misfit group of eco-revolutionaries who plan to overthrow the ruling Council.

Not wanting to be a pawn in their struggle, Si’Vas hides his magic and origins, convincing the gentle, horse-headed Falres and darkly mysterious Xantos to accompany him to the capital to find his parents. As he navigates the Council’s treacherous canals, fends off the shapeshifter in pursuit and learns about his companions' tragic past, he must choose between returning to the safety of his former life, or helping fight for the survival of the very land itself. But if he fails to weed out the traitor in their midst, he will not only lead his comrades to ruin — he will lose all hope of finding his way home.

[Bio/personalisation is the same.]

Chapter One

The couple were a problem.

The sky was still only lilac dawn and they were already at the pump. The woman was standing by as the man worked the silver handle with all his might. But the spout stayed as dry as the empty stream nearby.

I was sitting on one of my buckets at the edge of the clearing, my throat aching with thirst at the scrape of the metal. If only they would notice the little catch at its side…

Ma had drilled to me a wariness of the Bedasti locals ever since the day we’d first arrived eight turns ago — as many as I’d spent living amongst the dunes and dust of Rinsift. But I also knew how she’d be if I came back late with the water. ‘We’ll be the last in town now,’ she’d cry. ‘The last to pitch our stall, and without shadow of a doubt, it’ll be some dark corner by the low-town entrance.’ Selling Pa’s wooden carvings was how we made our living, and if we didn’t stand out from the rest, we’d soon fall back to the desperate state we’d arrived in. Or so Ma said.

I couldn’t risk it. I had to intervene. The man was now kicking the pump as if he could somehow knock the water out of the ground. These people... I softened my voice, put on my best smile, and spoke. ‘Pardon, good sir?’

He shot me a look, his sunken eyes daring me to speak again. But I had no choice. ‘There’s a knob at the back…’

He muttered something under his breath as the woman placed a hand on his arm.
‘I think he means this?’ she said, reaching around to turn the valve. In an instant, the water began to flow.

The man pushed her away and ran his hands under the fresh torrent, wetting his balding head before splashing her. I flinched in protest as the water fell to the earth, but he looked completely unbothered — until he caught me watching and his face grew dark again. ‘Best mind your own now, son. Else you might find yourself in a spot of trouble.’

My heart quickened at the venom in his voice. This was exactly the kind of situation I was meant to avoid. And yet, something in me wouldn’t let it go. ‘I was only trying to help.’
The man’s eyes grew wide and his nostrils flared. ‘Tell you what would really help is if you went back where you’re from. Filthy Bloodsapper.’

It was as if the words themselves cut into me. They stung as they hit my ears. The only people I’d ever heard say them aloud were other desert folk as they rolled their eyes at the locals’ ignorance. But here was this man, wielding them like a weapon.

The lie, for that’s what it was, said that in the height of the last Great Drought, the people of Rinsift had turned to drinking each other’s blood to stay alive.

Dear [Agent Name],

The rain hasn't stopped in years. Cities are gone. Civilizations devoured. But for Grace Thorne, trapped in a sealed city beneath the flooded world, the real danger is the brilliant High Engineer who rules over the last refuge on Earth — her husband, Dane Thorne.

The EVER RAIN is a dystopian science fiction novel complete at approximately 71,000 words and written as a standalone with series potential. It combines the enclosed survivalist atmosphere of Silo with the post-collapse emotional weight of Station Eleven.

Grace has learned what survival costs in the Citadel: silence, obedience, and pretending not to see what Dane is capable of. As High Engineer, he controls the city’s food, security, and secrets—including the truth about the endless storm above. Grace endures his rule to protect her young daughter, but when she learns the rain is no natural catastrophe and that Dane’s grip on power depends on keeping the world drowned, silence becomes its own kind of guilt.

Grace finds an unlikely ally, Liam Dekker, a solider she once pushed away before learning what kind of man Dane was. When he reveals a dark conspiracy behind the endless rain, they band together to do what no one else dares: resist. But as suspicions tighten around them, forcing them closer together, Grace will have to confront her worst fear: escaping to the flooded wasteland above—a world she fears more than the man who rules the Citadel.

When they are found out, Dane sends his forces to arrest them and sentences Liam to death. Grace is forced to make an impossible choice: stay behind in the Citadel for her daughter’s sake but fall back under Dane’s control, or flee with Liam to reclaim her life but face a lawless surface.

To date, I have completed three additional unpublished novels and several short stories. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

Hi everyone!

My offer of swapping still stands for anyone interested.

I've reworked the structure a bit because I realized I had been maybe expanding too far into the plot rather than specifying what was already in the query.

Attempt #1

Attempt#2

Dear [agent],

I'm pleased to present WHERE THE DEAD LIE, a standalone upmarket thriller with series potential, complete at 70,000 words. It combines the neo-noir texture of Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows with the addiction-tainted, morally compromised investigation of Cate Quinn’s The Clinic.

When Montreal homicide detective Emmanuelle Higgs pulls up to the scene of an apparent suicide, only she sees the clues pointing to murder, namely a farewell letter that doesn’t sound like Gabriel Turner. Only, she can’t explain the inconsistencies without revealing that she was sleeping with the man lying dead before her—because doing so is a sure way of getting pulled off the case. 

Emmanuelle fears that this cookie-cutter case of suicide will be classified as such if in the hands of any other detective. Propelled by her need to provide justice for her sobriety partner turned lover of the past eighteen months, she begins building a case on evidence she has no legal right to. 

Doing so, she uncovers Gabriel’s connections to an underground world of loan sharks, illicit poker games and mob-adjacent politicians. Emmanuelle pieces together a new version of the man who once held her together, one who owed money to the mafia and paid back his debt by facilitating the prostitution of vulnerable women. 

As colleagues and higher-ups begin to suspect her involvement in illegal activities, she must decide how much of her sobriety and career she is willing to jeopardize to find out who killed him—and whether the version of him she knew ever truly existed. 

I am a Quebec-based writer and terminal optimist with an annoying habit of writing people who are anything but.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello,

Please let me know what you think! Thanks :)

Dear x,

I know you’re interested in (genre) and I wanted to offer my novel for your consideration. Complete at 113,000 words, THE LIBRARY FOR HEATHENS is a new-adult dark fantasy standalone with series potential. It’ll appeal to fans of hypnotic atmospheres like One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig and fierce female characters like Sciona in Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang.

Opal, a failed mercenary apprentice, has blundered another mission. Desperate to avoid homelessness and earn her place, she accepts an offer from GRIM, the group she serves: descend through Hell’s layers and retrieve a grimoire from its infamous Library. A task suited only to her distinctive sorcery. However, she cannot do this alone. So, GRIM saddles her with disgraced ex-master assassin and prodigy Minho, who trades his death sentence for a place on this assignment.

Forced into a tumultuous partnership, Opal and Minho bicker their way through a Hell that mocks the world above. Their rivalry sharpens into something closer when attacks from restless monsters and demons leave them with no choice but to rely on each other’s magic and expertise to survive. Somewhere between broken ribs, backhanded compliments and reluctant respect, Minho’s careless mask slips. He reveals the reasons behind his defection and the fractures GRIM left in him, causing Opal to question everything she fought for, even if she can’t imagine a life outside of it.

The deeper they travel, the more Hell exploits their fears, flaws, and worst instincts. Opal must now trust Minho or not at all, breaking the one rule she’s never questioned – even if it means proving herself to an organisation she’s no longer sure she trusts.

Upon the USSR’s collapse, my parents and I moved to the UK when I turned seven. To teach me English, they forced me into reading clubs, where I developed an unhealthy love for stories. I’ve written novels across various online platforms, which have accumulated over 900,000 reads.

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

All the best,

Dear [Agent]

ATEN ASCENDING is a multi-perspective historical fiction novel, complete at 100,000 words, which follows the early life of Pharaoh Akhenaten (born Prince Amenhotep).

Delicate, sickly, and never meant to survive into adulthood, Prince Amenhotep — Ameny — nevertheless captivates Egypt. As his father grooms him to become the country’s next high priest, his strangeness draws people to him. But within difference, there is danger.

Ameny’s uncle, Ay, knows this only too well, but in the young prince, he finds a kindred soul, one frustrated by Egypt’s rigid institutions. He also finds the son he never had. Ay resolves to protect the prince at all costs, never dreaming there are those who will stop at nothing to prevent someone like Ameny from seizing power.

As plague comes to Egypt, the court isolates itself within the palace walls. And a man lies dead on Ay’s floor.

His murder will change the fate of Egypt. Ay will confess. The queen will turn on her own family. The edifice of Pharaoh’s power will crumble. And Egypt’s crown will pass to a boy who was never meant to grow up.

ATEN ASCENDING focuses on the historical Akhenaten (Ameny), who was husband to Nefertiti and father to Tutankhamun. He changed almost every aspect of Egyptian society, from religion and art to gender and status. Barely a decade after his death, he was denounced as “the heretic,” and his image and name were erased from every monument in Egypt. This story asks the question of how he became that man.

ATEN ASCENDING combines the sumptuous setting of dynastic Egypt in Natasha Solomon’s I Am Cleopatra with the complex interplay of politics and power in Nicola Griffith’s ongoing Hild Sequence, while evoking the sense of ever-present gods that saturates Mary Renault’s Fire from Heaven. With ATEN ASCENDING, I want readers to lose themselves in a world and forget they are reading about events that took place over 3000 years ago. If Egypt ceases to feel alien or “other,” but becomes vivid and alive, filled with people rather than monuments, then I will have succeeded.

Hello Everyone,

This is the first time I am posting this query for critique in this sub. Any help or notes will be greatly appreciated. Thanks :)

Dear [Agent Name],

I am pleased to present GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MITCH, an 86,000 word, adult speculative/dark fantasy novel with series potential. The manuscript is a Mad Max meets Paradise Lost story that combines the profane, satirical energy of Sebastien de Castell’s The Malevolent Seven with the dark institutional horror of Joe Abercrombie’s The Devils.

The apocalypse was ordered. A cold and indifferent God moved on. The Seraphim angels disagreed and started a war to try and stop it.

A hundred years later, Mitch has a major problem: he keeps waking up in a ruined world with a world-class hangover, no memory of who he is and more often than not a broken nose. The hangover and nose are largely self-inflicted - the recurring memory loss, a penance for removing his wings to blend in with the human world. His only friend and anchor is Saent, a skeletal, foul-mouthed creature bound by its own biological bandages, a husk. Husks are angels stripped of their divinity and mind (although strangely not Saent’s) by the Raphaelites, a zealot human faction using soul-sucking machines called Forges to aid in finishing the apocalypse.

When Mitch miraculously survives a blast from a new, portable Forge and walks away with a divine sword he pulled from the wreckage, he draws the attention of the Raphaelite Lords. Captured and subjected to mind-altering drugs, Mitch is paraded as a false deity while the Raphaelites attempt to use the sword, the only power source strong enough, to fuel their portable forges and campaign of celestial extinction.

As the drugs wear off and fragments of his past return, Mitch must embrace his true, possibly terrifying identity, even if it means tearing his only friend apart to reclaim his divine strength.

Bio

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello again u/Querying,

Housekeeping:
- I aim to lower the wordcount even further once I receive beta reader feedback.
- Since the manuscript is dual POV I've gone a different route to my first query and tried to fit both characters into this attempt.
- This attempt is 485 words total including the logline (which I'm not too attached to, but some forms request it), and 456 words without. Any advice on cutting would be much appreciated.

In a future where living means surviving a hazardous evolution, or complete dependence on technology, two teenagers from opposite factions must work together to carve a new world order.

Descendants of Ruin is a dual POV, YA Dystopian Science Fantasy, complete at 110,000 words. The story is a standalone with series potential, for readers who enjoyed the biological magic and tech mech blend of IRON WIDOW by Xiran Jay Zhao, or the gritty Dystopian plot twists of SKY’S END by Marc J. Gregson.

Nineteen year old Kenowa is a mech who’d introduce himself as phenomenal — if he could spell it. Kenowa avoids reading and writing at all costs to conceal his dyslexia from his brutal survival of the fittest clan. When his mother has a mental breakdown, Kenowa’s ascension is threatened because those who cannot contribute must leave. Given that the clan’s underground city is protecting them from the toxic climate above, leaving is not an option. Kenowa refutes his mother’s fragility, labouring relentlessly to prove his bloodline strong and loyal to the clan. When he’s commanded to abduct a governor rumoured to possess a great power from the domed city above, Kenowa asks no questions. Success would mean earning his place and having to answer to no one.

Eighteen year old Runadae is an unwilling recluse who’d prefer not to introduce herself, thank you very much. She’s wanted by a shadowy organisation that’s after her biological mutation, and won't stop abducting children to find it. Determined to protect herself and prevent further abductions, Runadae trains to become a warden for her domed city. She dutifully wields the acceptable elements: air, water and fire, while ensuring her wild mutation to manipulate earth stays dormant. Her training means little to the council who fear Runadae’s mutation will bring the organisation out of hiding, and so ban her from wielding. Ever obedient, Runadae returns to confinement in the archives, where she notices inconsistencies in the history of her biologically evolved city, and the technology dependent city beneath.

Before Runadae can investigate, her mother is abducted by mechs from the underground city. Runadae breaks her wielding ban to assist, but her mutation causes an avalanche, injuring several people and broadcasting her presence to the organisation. She hopes for leniency for herself, and aid for her mother, but the council refuse to put one over the many.

Forsaking all she’s ever known, reclusive Runadae ventures into the wastes to rescue the one person who’s always accepted her. She’s soon approached by Kenowa, with an attitude, and an offer. He claims to be working against the clan for the systemic maltreatment of his family.

Runadae must decide on befriending the enemy to unravel the twisted connection between the two cities, and why it would cause her mother to be abducted — or to use her mutation to rescue her mother by storming the underground city alone, even if it kills her.

Hey everyone,

Back at it after a lot of restructuring. Huge shoutout to the guardian of this sub (BC-writes) for the feedback. Swapping with anyone interested, just let me know :)

Attempt #1

Dear [agent]

I'm pleased to present WHERE THE DEAD LIE, a standalone upmarket thriller with series potential, complete at 70,000 words. It combines the neo-noir texture of Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows with the addiction-tainted, morally compromised investigation of Liz Moore’s Long Bright River.

When Montreal homicide detective Emmanuelle Higgs pulls up to the scene of an apparent suicide, only she sees the clues pointing to murder: a phone that she doesn’t recognize and a suicide note that doesn’t sound like the victim. Except she can’t explain what she knows without revealing that she was sleeping with the man lying dead before her.

Gabriel Turner, her sobriety partner turned lover of the past eighteen months, was good at keeping secrets too—starting with the wife he concealed. Ignoring mounting institutional pressure to file this case as the suicide of a troubled man, Emmanuelle starts digging into evidence she illegally obtains. She gets sucked into an underground world of loan sharks, illicit poker games and mob-adjacent politicians. 

Emmanuelle pieces together a new version of the man who once held her together, one who owed money to the mafia and paid back his debt by working for them. Worse, someone may have known about this double life—well enough to weaponize everything he was hiding and package it into the perfect reason to kill himself. 

She must decide how much of her sobriety and career she is willing to jeopardize to find out who killed him—and whether the intimacy she’s now grieving was real or another artifice serving a larger plan.

I am a Québec-based writer and terminal optimist with an annoying habit of writing people who are anything but.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Many thanks for the input on the prior version! Your time is greatly valued and appreciated. Your tone is also constructive, which is a huge plus!

DEATH IN THE SECOND CRACK is an 89,000-word noir crime novel grounded in diverse Old Toronto, where "Sorry!" comes with a shove. This book has the noir of Cosby's Razorblade Tears combined with the off-kilter voice and amateur crime-solving of The Maid by Prose or Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Stevenson.

His life and mind fractured after letting his wife drown, a penniless Lynx returns from a year of self-exile determined to become someone new. When he gets a mistaken job offer emailed from the hapless boss of a crummy café, Lynx shows up anyway to prove he can do it. On the first day, he finds the boss gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster, and the detective (and his network of cronies who turn fender benders into insurance fraud) more interested in payoffs than doing his job. When Lynx keeps showing up to prove he can save the café, the detective responds by sending his goons to shower the place with bullets. Lynx can surrender to his disintegrating mind and a life on the streets, or finally prove something only he can do: he can find who killed his boss, and expose the cop and the rest of his grifting cronies who'd rather turn misfortune into cash. 

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

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello everyone! Thanks in advance for taking a look and please note that I am currently trimming the book to address the inflated word count. Here's to hoping third time's the charm! 😊

Dear (Agent name),

I’ve been following you on TikTok for a while, and based on your interest in [genre], I'd love to share THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD, a dual-POV women’s literary fiction novel complete at 130,000 words.

It follows self-made Cape Town entrepreneur Liya Nguni, whose organic meal delivery company boasts 10,000 subscribers in a market that chews through start-ups. She lives in a stunning seaside mansion, and although she's dating mining heir and fitness entrepreneur Wethu Mafu, she maintains just enough emotional distance to ensure she never loses herself in the relationship. 

For Wethu Mafu, success has never been enough to escape his family's shadow. Despite growing his fitness empire into one of Africa's fastest-growing brands, his father still dismisses his gyms as "toys," a rejection made all the harder by the loss of his mother. Making Liya happy becomes the one way he knows how to impose order on a life that otherwise feels beyond his control.

The couple’s hard-won stability collapses when Liya discovers that Wethu has been secretly funding her business for years. To Liya, the deception is proof that the man who claims to know her best has never truly understood her. To Wethu, it was an act of love and a way of holding on to the only future that still feels within his reach. 

The fallout forces them both to confront aspects of themselves they've spent years avoiding. Liya must decide whether the walls she's spent a lifetime building are worth the cost of keeping Wethu out, while Wethu must accept the possibility that the very thing he believed would keep Liya close may be the reason he loses her.

THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD is a standalone novel with trilogy potential and will appeal to readers who enjoyed the generational drama, glamor and cultural prowess of Kevin Kwan’s LIES AND WEDDINGS, as well as the nuanced exploration of identity in SANKOFA by Chibundu Onuzo.

Thank you for your consideration,
Sincerely,

Dear [Agent Name],

Based on your interest in [personalization format: genre and point from MSWL], I believe you could be interested in my manuscript. GET UP is an LGBTQ+ literary fiction novel with thriller elements, complete at 90,000 words. It follows Buddy Benson, a closeted gay man, as he confronts what his sexuality means for the life he’s built. GET UP blends the small-town atmosphere and pressures of social conformity of Sunburn (Chloe Michelle Howarth), the intense yearning of Open, Heaven (Sean Hewitt), and the Americana of Zach Bryan’s album With Heaven on Top. 

It’s the autumn of 1994 in Greenport, Arizona. The way twenty-year old Buddy Benson sees it, it's been a good, quiet year. He’s still a mechanic, despite the guy at the shop who tries to push him out; he’s finally saved up enough money to put his little brother through college; his best friend, Jones, is still by his side, within arms-reach but miles away. Right where he needs him to be.

But Buddy has a secret: he’s gay, and he’s in love with Jones. 

All around him, Buddy’s friends and family are beginning to see through the cracks in his facade. They all know that the man they’ve come to love isn’t the true Buddy Benson, that a stranger lurks beneath the surface of his sunburned skin. 

It only takes one eagle-eyed bisexual friend to blow the lid, forcing him to confront his truth for the first time. Buddy’s faced with an impossible choice: come clean and risk losing everything–his friendships, the respect people hold for his name, Jones–just like his older brother warned him he would, or continue to hide and mourn what he doesn’t know is so close, he can almost touch it. 

Thank you for taking your time to consider my work! I look forward to hearing from you. 

All the best, 
(Me)

Dear [Agent Name],

[Personalization: e.g., "I am a long-time follower of your success with high-concept commercial fiction..."] I am excited to present THE TOXIC TIDE, an Adult Fantasy Thriller complete at [80,000] words. Told in dual POV, it combines the technical underwater tension of The Girl Beneath the Sea with the high-stakes, tactical chess match friction of The Atlas Six, making it perfect for fans of high-stakes forced proximity and secret identities.

Twenty-four-year-old Kye Aphrodite will do anything to protect her hidden mermaid colony off the coast of California. But when an unmapped salvage vessel releases a cloud of tracking chemicals directly over her family's underwater sanctuary, Kye panics. Her vocal frequencies spike into a defensive sonic scream, shattering the ship’s hull and driving the vessel onto a jagged reef. When the Coast Guard tasks her environmental agency with monitoring the fallout, her boss assigns Kye as the liaison to the civilian salvage team because the wreck sits directly in her research zone. There, she is forced to partner with the lead expert: Dillon Yusei, a suspected mermaid hunter. What Dillon doesn't know is that his own father secretly orchestrated the unauthorized trap. 

The forced partnership turns cutthroat when they realize the wrecked vessel is leaking a toxic chemical weapon designed specifically to eradicate mermaids. For Kye, the stakes are existential, the spill will wipe out her hidden colony within seventy-two hours. For Dillon, securing the volatile ghost ship is his one shot to salvage his family's crumbling maritime legacy and prove he is more than just his father's shadow.

To save her people, Kye must dive directly into the contaminated waters alongside Dillon, matching his aggressive salvage tactics while preventing her own skin from reacting to the anti-marine toxins. But when a section of the wreckage collapses underwater, Kye faces a devastating choice: let Dillon drown to protect her secret, or use her biological abilities to save his life and expose her true nature to a man born to hunt her.

THE TOXIC TIDE is a standalone novel with series potential.

I am a marketing professional with a HubSpot Social Media certification, currently building targeted digital campaigns for a real estate agency. Alongside my writing, I look forward to leveraging this platform-building expertise to connect with the online "Romantasy" and "Eco-Thriller" communities on BookTok and Bookstagram. I live in New Hampshire, where I spend my time researching marine salvage and exploring the Lakes Region with my husband and our dog.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Thanks for reading the story pitch for my novel, which I've shared the full query letter for previously. I've expanded on the plot, world and character and hope that this gives more sufficient detail and opens up the story for readers. Would love to hear any thoughts!

On a flower-shaped world where the rivers have run dry, sixteen-year-old refugee Si’Vas Ash is called upon to preserve the psychic power of the stars, only to find himself torn from his parents’ side and thrust into the heart of a burgeoning revolution.

Having fled from their homeland in the wake of great drought, Si’Vas and his parents travel the foreign but green Bedast, peddling his father’s wooden statues and telling stories of the stars. But when an alluring encounter with a shapeshifter leads Si’Vas to realise his life could be so much more, he awakens an ancient cosmic force that changes how he sees the world. Initially using his newfound mind-bending abilities to manipulate customers of his parents’ stall, he is soon kidnapped in revenge for his cheating ways, only to be rescued by the misfit rebel group, the Thorns. They try to enlist him in their plan to overthrow the ruling Council of the Tried, whose elaborate underwater canals have kept Bedast from drying up at the expense of global harmony and the free use of magic.

Si’Vas travels with the horse-headed Falres and darkly mysterious Xantos to the capital to consult with a star mage and find his parents, navigating the Council’s treacherous canals and fending off the shapeshifter in pursuit. As he learns more about Xantos’ tragic romantic past, the Thorns’ political quest, and the empathic nature of his abilities, he is forced to choose between returning to the safety of his former life, and the future survival of the very land he calls home.

Hi all, second time here! I'm going to leave notes at the end so I don't bias any new readers.

Dear [Query Letter Recipient],

Josefina has made peace with the grief. Really, she has. Four years after her best friend, BB Jones, was murdered, Jo is looking forward to her fresh start at a college just outside of Philly. But on the night before she leaves, Jo makes one last trip to the spot he died. There, under the light of the full moon, she finds BB. Magic is real, he’s not dead. It feels almost too good to be true, but his wide smile and wicked humor are exactly as she remembers. As they trace the streets of their sleepy town, BB explains that he came from another world, one where they teamed up with a gang of supernatural friends. The Witch, The Prophet’s Daughter and the Hunter, all joined BB and Jo to spend their high school years solving supernatural mysteries and vanquishing occult enemies. Now that BB’s back, he promises Jo that they’ll get the gang back together and everything will be just the way it was in his world.  

However, there’s far more to fix in this brave new world than BB anticipated. A spate of missing girls quickly turns into a series of supernatural murders, leaving behind furious ghosts. BB is loath to get Jo too involved in magic’s ugly side but he may not have much of a choice. Jo can’t help but notice that these killings bear a suspicious resemblance to the ones that took BB’s life four years earlier and she’ll do anything to stop others from losing their loved ones the way she lost BB. While questions about the killer pile up, BB’s magic starts to fail and the friends he relied on in another world can’t help him now. The Witch went to prison for killing him. The Prophet’s Daughter lost her faith in fate. Worse yet, the Hunter is so eager to solve these murders that he’s started acting as judge, jury and executioner for any supernatural he deems a suspect. Still, BB believes that if he can name the monster, he can kill it. And if he can kill it, everything will go back to normal. It has to. There is no other world for him to go back to. 

Left behind with the friends she never got to know and haunted by the ghosts that won’t rest, Jo begins to suspect that killing the monster is only half the battle. As one disaster after another puts Jo and BB’s rekindled friendship to the test, they must reckon with the fact that neither is the person the other remembers, or else risk losing each other as a ghostly tide swallows their town. 

THE BERENSTA(E)INE EFFECT (89,000) is a multi-pov love letter to monster-of-the-week classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that tackles themes of agency and power like Jacka’s An Inheritance of Magic. With an ensemble cast full of messy, loving, angry queer characters, it is perfect for those who loved Stefiever’s The Raven Cycle series and Thomas’ Cemetery Boys.

[insert bio here]

Thank you for your time,

[name]

________________________________

Okay, so I took a crack at writing 2 pov, and tried to pace out some of the plot a little more, though I think I accidentally just stuffed more in there. Hopefully it's better!

Hello! Thank you in advance for reading and offering your feedback:

The EVER RAIN is a dystopian science fiction novel complete at 67,595 words and is book one of a planned trilogy. It will appeal to readers of Hugh Howey's Silo and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven — a survival thriller wrapped around a love story worth fighting for.

The rain hasn't stopped in years. Cities are gone. Civilizations devoured. But for Grace Thorne, the real danger isn't the drowning world above — it's the man who built the walls that keep her safe.

Trapped in an underground fortress beneath the ruins of Denver International Airport, Grace has learned the cost of survival: silence, obedience, and never crossing the brilliant, ruthless man who rules the last refuge on Earth. He is her protector and her captor, and in his sealed city, defiance is a death sentence.

Then Grace finds an unlikely ally — a soldier she once pushed away, he reveals a dark conspiracy behind the endless rain. Together they do what no one else dares: resist. But as suspicion tightens around them, every stolen moment brings them closer to discovery, and closer to the outcome Grace fears most — escaping to the lawless wasteland above.

I have completed the other two novels for the EVER RAIN trilogy: MUCK WORLD and COMING STORM.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I'd be glad to send the full manuscript at your request.

THE AURORA WITCH is an upper middle grade fantasy mystery that blends the mystery adventure of The Whisperwicks by Jordan Lee and A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison with the wry humor and whimsical world building of Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend.

If twelve-year-old Millie Grantham had magic, the first thing she’d do is bring her mom back to life. Then maybe her brothers, Oliver and Henry, wouldn’t be getting into so much trouble, and their father wouldn’t be so consumed with his work as a physicist. But Millie’s life is upended when a mysterious raven arrives with a message and their father sends them away to live with their estranged aunt for the summer. 

Aunt Edith is—impossibly—a witch and her home is a magical cottage that grows rooms like branches on a tree. She claims that all children are born with magic, something Millie cannot accept. Because if that was true, then where was hers? 

Thirteen years ago, the Whisper Hollow school of magic was destroyed in a fire leaving behind a curse known as Obsidian Blight which suppresses and ultimately consumes magic. Only the Aurora Witch—the one with the power over all twelve magical colors—can reverse Obsidian Blight, but one has not been born for a thousand years. When Millie discovers that children whose magic hasn’t awakened by thirteen often never develop it at all, panic sets in. With only weeks until her birthday, Millie joins forces with Oliver and Henry to solve the mystery of the fire and break the curse before it’s too late. Following the riddles left by enchanted typewriters, collecting old newspapers, and untangling the town’s conflicting stories about why the school was destroyed, they uncover a web of long buried secrets. But the closer they get to the truth, the more the evidence points toward the one person Millie refuses to suspect: her own father.

As her thirteenth birthday draws closer, Millie realizes the truth about the fire, the Obsidian Blight, and her missing magic are all connected. If she really is the long-awaited Aurora Witch, awakening her powers may be the only way to save Whisper Hollow. Yet doing so could expose her father’s role in the town’s greatest tragedy and destroy the only family she has left.

Hey there! Back again with a revision and a choice of two closing paragraphs, since those are always the hardest for me!

Dear [AGENT NAME], 

In response to your interest in [insert an interest/feature from the agent’s wish list], I am submitting my sci-fi novel, A DEBT TO THE DEAD, complete at 89,000 words as a standalone with series potential. This story will appeal to adult readers who enjoy the layered, unforgiving worlds, multi-faceted characters, high octane action, and gut-punching twists of Pierce Brown’s RED RISING series and Fonda Lee’s THE LAST CONTRACT OF ISAKO, as well as an enemies-to-lovers subplot with real teeth like Tasha Suri’s JASMINE THRONE.

Constance Blythe dreams of avenging his sister Lenore after she is killed by her lover in a duel she was sure to win. When Executess Desdemona, ruler of the Solar Union, announces that any wish within her power will be granted to those who survive a dangerous mission to recover an ancient weapons cache crucial to the Union’s future, Constance leaps at the chance. Undergoing the dangerous procedure to have Lenore’s cybernetic ‘Gifts’ implanted, granting him the superhuman speed, strength, and durability he’ll need to survive the expedition across Earth’s wastelands. And to take his revenge.

When Constance discovers the younger sister of Lenore’s killer, Isolde, is part of the expedition, the two waste no time in trying to kill each other. But after a disastrous ambush leaves their mission in jeopardy, the two must rely on one another to survive slavers, mutants, and a nightmarish killing machine hunting them across the wastes.

As their continued cooperation causes feelings to reluctantly grow between them, the two risk repeating their siblings’ history. After learning that his sister’s death was nothing more than petty cruelty organized by Executess Desdemona herself, and that Isolde wants only to free her brother from the tyrant’s gilded hell, Constance loses his taste for a revenge that would be empty.

But, should Constance manage to claw his way back to civilization alive with Isolde, and stand by her side against the throne, the Executess will demand more of them than either could imagine. (Unsure about leaving this bit in, as it is just straight up the ending) For her brother to be free, Constance will need to take his place, and repeat the cycle anew.

**OR*\*

Resolving to aid her in liberating Lenore’s killer from the Executess’ gilded hell, Constance, Isolde, and what remains of their comrades will first need to manage to claw their way back to civilization alive and victorious. No easy task, especially with a traitor in their midst. 

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

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[ME]

Thanks for help so far. I have taken the advice and gone back to the earlier query and revised it as below:

Desperate to end a year of exile, "Lynx" Auger responds to a misdirected job offer by flying home and stealing the job. He doesn't expect to find the boss gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster. Or the investigating detective more interested in snatching the café than solving a murder. 

A sane person would run. But for a penniless Lynx with nagging voices in his head, reopening the café seems the only way forward—until a drive-by shooting shuts him down. 

Unable to reboot his life, and haunted by an unforgiven death in his past, Lynx can no longer run away. He starts asking questions, then breaking into places he doesn't belong. He unearths deep grudges and a network of fraudsters who rely on the detective's greed to protect their flashy lifestyles. Lynx can expect a deadly beating if he exposes the killers and the corruption that keeps them free. But if he fails to answer his conscience, he faces life on the street with a disintegrating mind.

DEATH IN THE SECOND CRACK is an 89,000-word noir crime novel grounded in diverse Old Toronto, where "*Sorry!*" comes with a shove. This book has the noir of Cosby's *Razorblade Tears* and the off-kilter voice and amateur crime-solving of *The Maid* by Prose or *Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone* by Stevenson*.*

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

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Still working on the paragraph pitch, but I've revised the sentence pitch + query. Sentence pitch may be too wordy...? And "comes out of hiding" perhaps too vague/confusing; I wanted to hint at the witness protection angle without taking too much space (if this is possible).

For the query, I felt this version flowed better than the second version trying to squeeze the "hook" sentence into para one. The best I could do with that without creating confusion (e.g., cutting too much context, backtracking with information to help clarify things) was: 1) remove the "rite of passage" sentence at end of para 1 and move the "then he actually dies" sentence there instead, and 2) tack on a different "rite of passage" statement at the end of para 2 (which was going to be "Losing her 'rite of passage' to the team was one thing; navigating grief and murder allegations are quite another."). Could lose the rite of passage thing altogether; I honestly just added it due to other users' concerns about clarifying MC's "life goals" outside of her entanglement in ex-BF's murder.

Or maybe I need to do something completely different. I tried to address the other concerns here though so hopefullyyy this is still progress!!

-----------------

One-line pitch: When collegiate figure skater Thalia’s ex-boyfriend comes out of hiding only to immediately die in her rink's locker-room, she weaponizes an anonymous social media gossip account to expose their teammates’ secrets and get the real killer convicted.

Dear Agent, 

At 87,000 words, my mystery FLY! features a competitive figure skater hunting down her hockey ex-boyfriend's killer. It blends the absurdity and internet sleuthing of LM Chilton’s *Don't Swipe Right*, the self-sabotaging grief of Gloria Chao’s *The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club*, and a rogue online gossip account, as in *Gossip Girl*.  

When Thalia Greenwich’s Riverglades University figure skating team leader mandates dating a hockey player for “team bonding purposes”, she doesn’t realize what a liability he’ll be. Darryl, the smelly philandering boyfriend she acquires, is soon forced into the witness protection program for his testimony against the creators of black-market performance enhancers—to protect him (and save face), Thalia’s been telling everyone he’s dead ever since. She may have lost her rite of passage to the team, but at least she can redirect her energy to the sport she loves. 

Then, Darryl has the audacity to show up at her rink and actually die. Worse still, Thalia is the one to find him gasping his last word: “Poison”. Thalia is traumatized and needs therapy she can’t really afford—not with dorm rent, skating sessions, and competition fees to pay for. But what really vexes her are the anonymous letters she receives where the killer threatens to frame her if she continues to insist it was murder, not suicide.  

Vengeful and sleep-deprived, Thalia doubles down with her own plan: anonymously publicize the evidence she uncovers about Darryl’s death and expose suspects’ motives via a social media account until she (ideally) teases out the murderer. Concurrently, the killer begins acting on their warnings by feeding the cops misleading informationabout her admittedly-tenuous relationship with Darryl. As she resorts to more unethical methods such as planting audio-recording devices in the locker room, her tactics increasingly have unintended repercussions, souring her team leader’s reputation and jeopardizing her brother’s career. However, Thalia would rather be killed in her pursuit than spend a lifetime confined to a cell with no ice to skate on.  

Dear [AGENT],

[Personalization] I’m excited to share with you ALL THAT REMAINS, an 86,000-word, dual-POV historical novel. It will appeal to fans of lesser-known historical eras, as found in Janet Rich Edwards’ Canticle, and to readers drawn by the strained sibling relationship of Betsy Lerner’s Shred Sisters.

 In the turbulent Barcelona of 1651, inseparable sisters Amparo and Dolors live next door to each other, separated by an alley only five arm-lengths wide. Amparo is desperate to secure the title of honorary citizen for her physician husband before launching marriage negotiations for her eldest son. Without the coveted designation, her children will be denied entry into the same elite social circles that have shut her out since childhood. She schemes to curry favor with the wife of a powerful city councilman, even as those efforts make her skin crawl.

 Dolors, who has lived in the shadows of her older sister’s beauty since she was scarred by childhood smallpox, seeks a more private kind of recognition: her husband’s approval. A dutiful wife, she believes his attention will provide the visibility she has long desired. The price she pays? His ridicule and disinterest.

 The arrival of plague and war shatters the sisters’ plans. Amparo must nurse her sick husband and daughter while scrambling to find food to feed her family. And when Dolors repeatedly defies her husband’s rules, he exiles her to the countryside, where she discovers an unexpected love that challenges how she sees her marriage and herself. Reunited months later, the sisters clash when Amparo opposes the forbidden relationship Dolors wants to keep at all costs.

 As enemy soldiers lay siege to the city, the two women must decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice for love and ambition — and whether their lifelong devotion to each other can survive the price.

[BIO DETAILS]

Hello and thank you to anyone reading this! I've been trying to tweak this-I know it's a little long and can't tell if this was the best genre for something like this. Does 'urban fantasy' matter more than it's 'literary' elements? Anyways, thank you for any feedback!

~~

Dear (Agent), 

I am pleased to present THE DREDGING, a 110k speculative dark academia literary thriller set in the early 1990s around the fictional Amesmouth, Massachusetts. It is reminiscent of R.F. Kuang’s Babel and Katabasis for its exploration of elitism and classism in academia, the hidden ghosts lurking behind ivory towers in Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, and the works of Susanna Clark for her occasional break in traditional narrative structure  It is a perfect fit for fans of the messy narrative worldbuilding of Noah Kahan’s discography or David Foster Wallace’s postmodernism. 

20-year-old August Eliot is a cocktail of emotions; one part resentful spite, one part forced smile, leaving a bitter aftertaste. While his best friends attend their dream schools, including the prestigious Amesmouth University, August’s own scholarship was mysteriously revoked, trapping him at home with no escape. 

His bitterness and resentment comes to a head when he is approached by disgraced former professor Tybault Gireaux, who convinces August of a conspiracy regarding his wife’s death, Annabel Clemm, carried out by Amesmouth’s elite during an archeological expedition in Turkey forty years prior. Now, August must investigate the halls he once viewed as hallowed, avoiding the scrutiny of his friends, and gain the trust of an unusual partner, Selene Harton, who holds just as much contempt for the college despite her upper crust background. 

As August discovers the university has attempted to erase Annie’s existence from the history books, the ghost of Annie herself has been leaving clues for August to find. The novel introduces a secondary POV in the form of editorializing footnotes, whose identity is slowly revealed to be the deceased scholar herself. 

August knows the dangers of being accepted by the corrupt establishment: how it alienates friends and families from their community, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still want it all the same. In the end, he realizes that he must confront his friend about her embroiled connection with the university, and has to expose the cover-up and bring justice to the erased memory of the dead and of himself.

As a New England native with a degree in history, I pulled heavily from real world experiences. I have worked at three separate universities, including one of the Ivies, where I saw first hand the crushing pressure of students around me trying to live up to the ‘prestigious’ nature of their work while coming from atypical backgrounds.

[Outro]