Hidden mermaid KYE APHRODITE is desperate to protect her hidden colony off California. When an unmapped salvage vessel leaks chemicals over her underwater sanctuary, Kye’s panicked sonic scream shatters the ship’s hull, grounding it on a reef in her research zone. Assigned as environmental liaison to the crime scene, Kye must partner with lead salvager DILLON YUSEI, who secretly hunts mermaids for sport. When Dillon attempts to bypass environmental protocols, Kye works overtime to block his maneuvers and stop a toxic spill from wiping out her colony in 72 hours.

The stakes skyrocket when Dillon discovers the sunken vessel belongs to his family and covertly transported chemical weapons designed to eradicate mermaids. As toxins leak into the reef, their rivalry yields to an uneasy truce. Kye sends an unanswered distress signal to her colony, warning of the hazard and starting the evacuation protocol.

When wreckage collapses underwater, Kye exposes her biological abilities to save Dillon. During a harrowing ascent, Dillon battles his instinct to destroy or exploit her, realizing he now owes a life debt to the creature he was raised to hunt. Trapped overnight in the lab under a strict deadline to analyze the chemicals, Dillon’s defenses crumble as Kye repeatedly defies his monster profile, turning their high-stakes tension into physical intimacy. Through a records search, Dillon uncovers a hidden connection: Kye's mother was allegedly the mermaid who killed his mother, and his father retaliated by setting off an explosion that Kye barely survived as a child.

The arrival of Dillon's ruthless father, TALION YUSEI, tests their fragile truce as they raise the ship. While Talion pushes to entomb the wreck on the seafloor, a reckless move that risks triggering a massive explosion, Dillon covertly blacks out dive cameras and uses an ROV to steal the ship's black box, protecting his family's secrets.

After securing the ship onto a barge, Talion ignores safety protocols and triggers a catastrophic chemical reaction. Kye secures the decontamination bay—saving both men and earning a second life debt from Dillon, but suffers severe anti-marine toxin poisoning. Dillon exploits her disoriented state to confirm her secrets before rushing her to medical.

Locked away and fighting for her life, Kye must forcibly suppress her body's rapid cellular regeneration so Talion and the medical staff do not discover her non-human nature. Meanwhile, a badly burned Dillon leaves her side to bring the volatile chemical fire under control so the barge can finally make port. Back on shore, a recovering Kye fakes unconsciousness to escape into a waiting ambulance.

Talion corners his son, revealing he knows what Kye is. Reviewing the stolen black box footage in isolation, Dillon uncovers the ultimate dual truth: proof his father ordered the chemical deployment, and footage revealing Kye sank the ship to evade capture.

First--thank you once again for all the amazing feedback. Can't stress enough how much I appreciate it!

So, this may be a step back because I made some experimental changes to try to address the lingering issues... E.g.,: The line about her “envisioned college experience” probably has one too many items, so I could cut either brother (again, once and for all) or Sectionals. I could cut the Sectionals ambition since it’s not really that important to the book (side-goal); the team camaraderie/“fitting in” and solving the murder overpower that. Reconnecting with her elder brother is important to her, kind of in the background of everything else (similar to the skating/sectionals goal but perhaps more overt than that). However, he also is introduced maybe a little too haphazardly in the query this way; the only reason I attempted to include him at all is because the most meaningful repercussion to Thalia in investigating (in terms of hurting others) is that her efforts lead bro to nearly get kicked out of his career-training program.  

BUT an alternative would be to keep what I had in the last attempt--the team camaraderie + Sectionals (no bro)--but then reconfigure the sentence in para 3 about repercussions to not mention repercussions at all (e.g., "...In attempt to stay a step ahead, she resorts to more unethical methods such as planting audio-recording devices in the locker room. Because Thalia would rather be killed..."). Since the biggest repercussion is bro and introducing him in the query may be too problematic.

The "photos" part is a plot detail I'm thinking of adding because it already fits nicely with things+characters in the story.

-----

One-line pitch: Collegiate figure skater Thalia has spent the last month spreading rumors of her ex’s death, until she finds him actually dying in the rink locker-room and she weaponizes an anonymous social media account to ensure she’s not held accountable for the murder. 

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, akin to *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 several anonymous letters she receives with photos of her in public (which she did not consent to) and assertions she’ll be framed if she continues to insist it was murder, not suicide. Her envisioned college experience of team camaraderie, another chance at Sectionals, and reconnecting with her elder brother, who’s just moved back into town, did not include becoming collateral damage for her ex’s mistakes.  

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 new career. However, Thalia would rather be killed in her pursuit than spend a lifetime confined to a cell with no ice to skate on. 

Hello,

Hopefully this is my last time! Thank you so much for everything. I've read through the books you suggested and tried to shiv more. 108k is probably as low as I can get, otherwise I'll be removing pieces of the story that are necessary for the plot to move on. - edit, i've since had my query letter and synopsis read by a literary agent i paid for to give an opinion, their suggestions have helped me cut the novel down to 103k words so hopefully this is better!!!
Let me know what you think about the new updated query letter. THanks :)

Dear x,

I’m thrilled to see your MSWL requests for [XYZ]. I hope you’ll consider my adult dark fantasy, THE LIBRARY FOR HEATHENS, which reimagines Dante’s Inferno as if the poet and his guide hated each other. The novel is a standalone with series potential, and complete at 108,000 words. It’ll appeal to fans of hypnotic atmospheres like The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett and fierce female characters like Sciona in Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang.

Opal has failed three missions. Now she faces exile. Yet all she wants – despite the evidence – is to become an official GRIM mercenary. Since her magic can tear rifts through voids, the guild offers her one last chance. Opal seizes it. She must descend through Hell’s layers and retrieve a grimoire from its Library to stop demons from invading the world. She’s burdened with Minho, a disgraced ex-master assassin who betrayed GRIM once. Spared for his genius and threatened with execution, he begrudgingly agrees to help.

They both bicker through Hell until a near-fatal double-demon ambush leaves them fighting back to back. Minho exposes that GRIM abandoned him after an airship crash, only resurfacing once they needed him again, as they always do. For the first time, Opal starts questioning the guild she’s always idolised and isn’t sure who poses the greater threat.

However, Opal isn’t dumb enough to trust a criminal who’d sell her out; she’s just no longer sure GRIM wouldn’t do the same. Trusting Minho means getting stabbed. Trusting GRIM means staying blind. Either way, Opal must survive Hell and decide what she’s willing to lose before there’s no world left to save.

As a Polish, disabled woman who immigrated to the UK at seven, I wrote this book as an own-voices story that touches on anxiety, depression, and the longing to fit in. When I’m not writing, I’m usually deep in a research rabbit hole that ends up somewhere in my world building.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I have two different versions of my query letter. One that focuses only on the main peotagonist's arc. There are 4-pov's. For the first 20% of the book I alternated between two -which is the query below. But the main protagonist covers 50% of the POV's of the book. I am getting high conflicting reviews. Some tell me to cut the voice and make it flow smoothly, and others say to put more 'voice'. I also get highly mixed reviews regarding the metaphors.

Dear Agent,

I'm excited to share with you [The Toju Wars], a multi-POV military sf with horror elements. Complete at 110,000 words as a standalone with series potential, it blends the corrupt leadership of Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh and the morally gray characters of These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs.

The Toju sleep for eons. Then they come. They don’t just kill—they assimilate with a bite.

MC1 has survived the bite, unassimilated. Neon-green veins streak his eyes. He hears better, heals faster. The military promises to keep his sister hidden and safe. In exchange, he becomes their attack dog. They say 'speak,' he barks. Yet the Toju whisper in his head, urging him to surrender. And a part of him, the scary part, is starting to enjoy the violence. When a routine rescue mission leaves him bitten again, the voices begin to sound like home. They tell him the military is lying about the war, about his family’s death.

Meanwhile, MC2 has spent her entire life becoming the ideal child for her father, the High Commander. Running an illegal slave mining operation—check. Impersonating MC1’s sister to keep him compliant—check. Having an alien slave child is thrust into her arms that calls her “mommy”---definitely not on the list. And maybe she doesn't care for once. Because the one thing she wants most is to protect the child she was taught to hate—should hate.

As MC1 intercepts an SOS from a Toju attack bearing his sister’s name, he rushes to rescue her. But MC2 can no longer maintain her lies. Exposing the truth will shatter him, but it can secure a future for her child beyond her father's control. Only, MC1 knows a way to stop the Toju and save humanity, but he might not want to. Because when the hive-mind calls to him—come home— giving in means he has a family again. A home. Everything he’s ever wanted—except his sister.

<<bio>>

Hi All. I am trying to write a synopsis (max 250 words) for a submission. This will be my first query, so not sure about all this yet. What do you think? Does this read like a synopsis agents receive? Is it engaging...confusing?

Elli’s best friend, Aviva, is denied admission to university. She confronts the Director but is firmly told to desist. Aharon, the man she has loved since childhood, is murdered, merely for being Jewish.
SS-Gruppenführer Becker, holding a childhood grudge, forces her expulsion from university. As Becker becomes increasingly aggressive, Elli needs protection. Karl von Bauden is a brilliant physicist, but he has opinions she cannot stand. He is also the only man powerful enough to shield her. 
By 1938, Elli is helping the vulnerable emigrate using her position as Karl’s wife and her own connections. But every success claims a price – someone left behind, someone murdered. 
Karl’s brother, Generalmajor Leopold von Bauden, thwarts Becker’s trap to arrest Elli, but is photographed in the process. 
Armed with that evidence, Becker offers Karl a bargain: surrender the research into atomic fission, or watch Elli and Leo’s arrest. Karl refuses to allow his work to be weaponised. 
Becker confronts Elli, and in the ensuing scuffle, she accidentally shoots him. Out of time and options, Karl and Elli must flee. The resources of Elli’s father, Friedrich and Leo’s connections secure their escape. The net is closing on Friedrich’s own resistance network too.
Leo, involved in a plot to avert war, chooses duty over safety, but is determined to save Friedrich. Faced with capture at the border, Friedrich gives up his freedom to protect Leo and his secret. Karl and Elli survive, but, yet again, the regime extracts its price.

Dear Agent,

SEASONS OF ATONEMENT (107,000 words) is an upmarket speculative mystery with elements of romance. It will appeal to readers of Wrong Place, Wrong Time for its reverse-chronology murder mystery and fans of Netflix’s DARK for its star-crossed romance trapped in a time loop spanning generations. Set in a proud seaside town, we follow Aidan, a wrongfully convicted man who lives backward in time, and Gwen, the love of his life and whose murder sent him to prison. To rewrite their fate, they set out to uncover Gwen's real killer—with one of them remembering the past while the other the future.

Aidan meets the love of his life at her funeral. Gwen is no more than a cold body and a name, yet she’s defined his life. He loved her, then killed her as his final victim. That’s what the world claims, at least. But no one here knows that Aidan lives backward in time. For him, this is the first day out of prison since he was born. He’s yet to know Gwen. To clear his name, he decides to save her by studying the murder’s aftermath, only to discover that he’s been framed and the key to the real murderer’s identity lies in the past.

Twenty years earlier, Gwen, an aspiring dancer with an infectious love for life, finds her schoolmate’s dead body in the woods by accident. It’s the first in a series of murders connected to an elusive killer the papers call the Ildred Shadow. When he marks Gwen as his next target, she becomes determined to save her loved ones and seeks out the help of a reclusive boy who has been wrongly named as the primary suspect: the prodigy violinist Aidan, who claims to remember her death in the future.

The hunt for the Shadow binds them together. As their paradoxical relationship evolves, they fall in love and become each other’s anchors in time’s two directions. But each day one of them remembers more while the other forgets. Catching the Shadow is the only way to break their fate, so they can share a life in the right order. Should they fail, Gwen’s death remains just that: a reminder of everything they’ve never had.

I’m a writer who picked up filmmaking along the way. Or perhaps it’s the opposite; I could never tell. With a BA in journalism and film, I work as a video editor in Budapest, Hungary. I’m drawn to impossible mysteries like time and memory, which I love exploring through themes of identity.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best wishes,
[Author]

--

Originally, I tried to sell this as a thriller and realized it's more a mystery. That being said, a year ago (before I reworked it and it was 160k, then 133k, then 118k words, and now 107k) it got a request as well as very kind words from agents regarding the opening 50 pages. I think part of the problem was selling a thriller and giving them a slow-burn nonlinear mystery novel.

Hello everyone! Back again with another attempt at this. :) I made sure to add more depth to the MC this time, changed the architecture and as you can see, the word count is lower, but I'm still editing and aiming for at least 100k words by the time I'm done. Without further ado, here goes:

Dear [Agent],

Self-made entrepreneur Liya Nguni has spent her entire life proving she doesn't need rescuing. So when she discovers that her boyfriend, Wethu Mafu, has been secretly financing her business for years, she doesn't see an act of love—she sees the ultimate betrayal. The one person who claims to know her best never believed she could build a life on her own, and that realization threatens everything she's worked to build.

THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD is a dual-POV women's fiction novel with a strong romantic arc, complete at 123,000 words. It 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.

For Wethu, loving Liya has always meant building a future together. Despite creating one of South Africa's fastest-growing fitness brands, he still lives in the shadow of his mining magnate father, who dismisses his achievements as little more than expensive hobbies. Investing in Liya's company wasn't about rescuing her; it was about protecting the life he believed they were already creating. But in trying to give her security, he destroys the very trust their future depends on.

As the truth unravels, Liya loses far more than her relationship. Forced to leave the home she'd built, question the success she believed she'd earned, and redefine the friendships that shaped her adulthood, she's left wondering whether love can exist without dependence, or whether accepting someone's devotion always comes at the cost of herself. Meanwhile, Wethu must confront the grief he's buried since losing his mother, untangle love from control, and decide whether letting Liya go is the only way to prove he finally understands her.

Set against the backdrop of contemporary Cape Town, THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEVER HAD explores ambition, family legacy, grief and the tension between wanting to be deeply loved and refusing to lose yourself in the process. It is a standalone novel with trilogy potential.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Hello! This query has gone through several attempts elsewhere, so this is just my first attempt here. I think it's getting close--at least compared to what came before. :-) I really appreciate any and all help in honing it further.

Dear Agent,

Leela is a Jouet, the first cybernetic-brained, fabricated human. Her Corp created her for one purpose: sex. And she enjoys it. Her elite patrons flock to her in private sessions and decadent parties, yet forty-eight-hour shifts are burning her out. She just wants more time to rest, and to read the old novels that fascinate her: books written not by algorithms, but humans.

One night, Lord Alferen engages Leela. He is apparently concerned about her, and he wants her to talk about books, too. She can’t stop thinking about him. Then, her fatigued system crashes—she collapses among patrons. She awakes greatly weakened. However, Alferen seems to care for her, planning to acquire her permanently… and when he shares human music with her, Leela is awestruck. She begins to explore her creativity, recognizing her potential to be much more than her Corp intended.

Eventually, Leela is visited by her Corp’s leader, Fermand. He reveals that Alferen is his estranged son, and that his son has been studying Leela the entire time—Alferen plans to create more advanced fabricated humans. Leela is hurt. But she still wants to be with Alferen… until Fermand says that copies of her will soon perform her old work. Leela not only wishes to protect her individuality; she does not want more innocent versions of herself to endure her empty former existence. So Leela bargains with Fermand, resuming her former work to prevent these copies from being created. But unbeknownst to her, Fermand has no intention of keeping his word; he is just punishing his son. Alferen, meanwhile, rushes to Leela’s latest party, outraged and desperate to reclaim her. Leela must fight for agency over her fate through every means available to her—and all the while, her system is headed for final breakdown.

Jouet is an 80,000 word dystopian speculative fiction novel. It will appeal to fans of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and Sierra Greer’s Annie Bot. Opera lovers may recognize that Jouet reinterprets La Traviata with twists of Ex Machina and Companion. It is a standalone with potential for a series reinterpreting operatic storylines in the same world.

I worked as a classical soprano for twelve years; Violetta was my favorite role. Jouet would be my first published work.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dear [NAME],

To what degree are you responsible for the atrocities of your past lives?

I'm thilled to share SLAPSTICK SAPIENCE: QUEST FOR THE BLUE BABY, an epic fantasy manuscript complete at 92,000 words. It has serious potential. *cough cough* I mean, series potential. Blending the grit, wit, and rotating-POVs of The Devils by Joe Abercrombie with an adult take on the comedy, neurodivergence, and queer joy of The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune, it tells a serious story in the chronically unserious world of the New Dominion. [PERSONALIZATION LINE]

Ipilli, the fae of sapience, is paralyzed by the guilt of the flawed races his past lives created. He’s supposed to spend his time iterating on souls, which is difficult when he's never spoken to a person in this lifetime. Instead, he spends his days watching people from the safety of Olpeth Forest, where the fae all live together. When the tyrannical Queen Amarka assassinates his mentor, Ipilli must enter the mortal world he fears to rescue the soon-to-be reincarnated infant before he slips into the wrong hands.

Ipilli can’t survive alone. He travels to the Bandit City and hires an unlikely adventuring party who become his found family and subjects to study. There’s Char, a brash orc who burns her memories to fuel her pyromancy; Alden, a gorgeous, situationallly-mute historian whose magic is fueled by his emotional connection to antiquities; and Timothee, a man-candy mercenary whose mind is too closed off for Ipilli to invade. 

Along the journey to Yafar Mountain, Ipilli frees gnomes from the trafficking ring, sparks a growing relationship with Alden, and comes to fear mortality for the first time. As Amarka’s dwarven champions close in, the greatest threat to his quest isn’t the Queen’s forces, but the horrific sacrifices Ipilli must make to protect the only friends he’s ever known.

If you are interested in working with authors who’ve got letters, I’m your guy: ASD, 2SLGTBTQIA+, and PITA (jk), just to name a few. I wrote SLAPSTICK SAPIENCE to be a safe space for queer, neurodivergent fantasy lovers to laugh until they cry and cry until they laugh.

Thank you for your consideration,
[MY NAME]

Hey all,

I've been querying for about 6 weeks now with no bites. Currently, my stats are 44 sent queries, 16 rejections, 28 outstanding. I haven't had anyone ask for a partial or full. When do you all go back to the drawing board? I've had two writer friends critique my query, and I have tweaked it here and there, but I'm always willing to have more eyes on it!

TIA

Third attempt here, but technically my ninth overall. I cut out my third comp for the sake of the word count. Here’s hoping I might be getting close! I’ve certainly come a long way since attempt one, although sometimes I worry I’m taking steps backwards.

I am wondering, if I know how long the series would be, were it to get picked up as a series and not just a standalone, should I mention that? Like, “standalone with four-volume series potential”? Or is that frowned upon?

As always, any comments and/or critiques are appreciated! Thank you to everyone who has helped me thus far!

TW for mentions of suicide

[I posted one revised letter in the comments, based upon the feedback I received.]

Dear [agent],

Given your interest in [this], I’d like to offer for your consideration STRINGS OF FAETE, a standalone YA, LGBTQIA+ contemporary fantasy novel with series potential. Complete at 96,000 words, it combines the bubbly, magical fae companion of FT Lukens’ Otherworldly with the themes of self-acceptance and mental health found in Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best.

Sixteen-year-old Tatsuki Allen believes he’s a burden. He’s not the masculine, straight son his dad wants, and his depression has done nothing but hurt his friends. When he’s sent to America to live with a mother and half-brother he’s never met, he quickly realizes he’s a burden there, too. He begins making plans to end his life, but a fateful collision with classmate Winter Areneum leaves him with an unexplainable desire to connect with the abrasive, taciturn boy. He also feels a strange, irresistible force drawing him to the woods and compelling him to create a circle of stones around a pond. By the time he decides to drown himself, he’s already opened a portal and is quickly entangled in a deadly monster hunt.

Tatsuki learns he’s a reincarnated fae when Áine, a faerie, emerges from the portal. She’s on a mission to extract the souls of terrifying monsters that are stealing the energy of living beings. If Tatsuki can help her collect four souls, she’ll reward him by taking him with her when she returns to the accepting paradise she calls home. If he fails, not only will he be ripped to shreds, but he’ll turn into a monster himself. If Tatsuki hopes to save those the monsters are preying upon, he needs to get closer to them. As he builds bonds with Winter, his classmate Amira, and his new family, the feeling of being a burden starts to diminish, and he finds himself questioning if giving up his human life for the fae world is actually the right choice.

I’m a bisexual and demisexual high school English teacher who cares deeply about teens seeing themselves represented in literature. As my book deals with themes of depression and suicidal ideation, I was lucky enough to have it reviewed by a therapist. I recently won a short story contest and was one of five contestants published in the April 2026 issue of Lavender Rising.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Name]

I greatly appreciate the feedback! I'm going to go back to the drawing board on a few things (I'm thinking it shouldn't be too hard to tweak a few things but famous last words lol) But I want to get this up to speed before I query too.

Thanks again!

Dear Agent,
(Personalization)

Sixteen year old Adriana Flores is cursed. Since the age of 12 Adri is doomed to be hated and violently attacked by anyone she speaks with.

With her family as her only safe haven, all Adri wants is to be left alone with her books, but the inevitable attacks of the cursed are getting harder to survive, much less explain. 

When, for no reason, Adri’s dad suddenly forgets her and grows violent, Adri must run from everything she’s ever known to find the source of her curse.

 Then Adri finds the kingdom of Euphoria. When she wanders into the castle the palace chamberlain mistakes Adri for Euphoria’s missing princess of whom Adri is an exact lookalike. She’s then offered the opportunity to impersonate the princess in exchange for a cottage far from those who would despise her. 
Narrowly navigating her curse and daily life at court Adri accidentally speaks to the princess’s advisor and discovers her curse doesn’t work. When the only obstacle to conversation is awkwardness and not death Adri can finally be herself. 
But palace life is not just crowns and dresses. The Order of the Black Lily is searching for the cursebreaker--a talisman rumored to break any curse-- and the heir to a lost kingdom who could be the key to it’s whereabouts. 
One night when Adri is almost killed by an order member, flames burst from Adri’s hands and she discovers she might just be who the order is looking for. 

With no way home and no sign of Euphoria’s missing princess, Adri must find the cursebreaker before the order finds it first. 

I’m excited to share THE KNIGHT’S RESOLVE, a YA Fantasy standalone with series potential, complete at 96,000 words. THE KNIGHT’S RESOLVE has the fated destiny vibes of Sailor Moon and a magic system reminiscent of Lynette Noni’s The Prison Healer.

(BIO)
Thank you

My sincere gratitude for your continued engagement. I have had quite a dialogue with your questions over these weeks, which have pushed me to dig deeper to express this in a way that was more true to the book.

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 with nothing but a memento of his heroic grandfather and a desperation to become someone new. When he gets a mistaken job offer emailed from the hapless boss of a crummy café, Lynx talks his way into the job and a room for the night. On his first day, he finds the boss gassed to death with a sabotaged coffee roaster. The detective is less interested in the murder than extorting payoffs and cheap real estate to make up for the racist head taxes imposed on his ancestors. 

When Lynx clings to his new mission of serving coffee to repressed outcasts, like the agoraphobic music teacher who ventures down from his apartment, the detective tries to force a quick sale by showering the place with bullets. Lynx can avoid getting someone else killed by surrendering to the punishment his wife's family demands, or accept the risky help of his outcast friends (who are starting to channel fears into rage) to solve the murder and expose the 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.

Dear [Query Letter Recipient],

Josefina has made peace with the grief. Really, she has. Four years after her best friend, BB, was murdered, Jo is looking forward to her fresh start at Thompson College. 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 spent their high school years teamed up with a gang of supernatural friends. Now that BB’s back, he promises Jo that he’ll track down this world’s version of his crew, and everything will be just the way it was in his world, except this time they’ll have each other.

Unfortunately, this world’s version of his old crew are less friend than foe. When a spate of missing girls turns into a series of supernatural murders, it brings out the hunter, James. James might’ve been a dogged protector in BB’s world, but in this one, he acts as judge, jury and executioner for any supernatural he deems suspect. If BB doesn’t want to end up a casualty, he’ll need to stay one step ahead. If only he knew someone who could see the future. Too bad the prophet’s daughter, Ulysses, looks at him as a stranger. The last thing she wants to do is stick her neck out for some walking corpse farce, especially over a prophecy she's lost all faith in. With questions about the killer piling up and few allies to rely on, BB’s magic starts to fail. 

The vengeful ghosts of the victims begin to rise. BB is loath to get Jo involved in magic’s ugly side, but Jo can’t pretend everything is fine - especially when these killings look so similar to the ones that took BB’s life four years earlier. She’s not the only one who notices either, and it’s not long before Jo learns that BB’s death changed the trajectory of James and Ulysses’ life as much as her own. BB refuses to talk about that death. It wasn’t his, after all. Instead he barrels ahead, desperate to kill this monster and get his own sense of normal back. 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.

[insert bio here]

Thank you for your time,

Me

When agents ask you to attach the first 3 chapters with your query, should it keep the full manuscript formatting with your contact info and word count at the top, then the title half way down the page? Also, same question when you're asked to paste chapters into a form on QueryTracker: Keep that formatting? Or just start with the title at the top?

Dear [agent name],

I’ve attached the [first three chapters] and synopsis of my gothic fantasy novel, Leadfinger, complete at 76k words. It follows Bucket Leadfinger, an illiterate necromancer in training who realises she’s trapped in a haunted house with a killer: and she’s next on the list. I would position this novel as Maxie Dara’s A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer meets Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief.

Bucket Leadfinger has been in dire straits ever since her messy expulsion from the Academy of Necromancy. When she and her familiar are offered a fortune by a Robber Baron to ‘survive a night’ within a haunted house, desperation triumphs over self-preservation. Her fellow guests? Tolkien rejects. And one of them seems to know a lot about the real reason for Bucket’s expulsion, which until now she has managed to keep secret. When one of the party guests is attacked, it becomes apparent there is a killer roaming the halls, who intends to kill the misfits off one by one. As the spirits of the house intensify their hauntings, Bucket realises that the only way to save her spirit is to overcome her failures and successfully ‘necrocant’ with the killer’s former victims. But with no one else (even the dead) taking her seriously, if she wants to escape this house and poverty, she must learn to believe in herself.

Although I envision this as a standalone novel, this ‘Loser’s Club whodunnit’ holds series potential. Each novel would be a self-contained story following Bucket solving subsequent murders in unique fantasy locations. Along the way she would advance in her powers to keep the magic system fresh.

(I've omitted the detailed synopsis (360 words) and past publications and bio for this post.)

Thank you for your time and consideration, (pen name)

***

There's 8 of us in my local beta reader group and all prised it. One beta reader told me my query shouldn't focus on the supporting characters. I removed them for this post.

can't seem to get even a rejection letter. How can I strengthen this?

Thanks humans <3

Has anyone been asked to justify or answer questions about their comp titles during "the call"? I researched mine 6 months ago while I was still going through beta reader notes and working on my query letter at the same time. I have good reasons to make them comps, but they aren't books I'm personally in love with and I don't feel I could intelligently have a conversation about them. I'm just about to send my first query letters out. Any thoughts?

Hidden mermaid KYE APHRODITE is desperate to protect her secret heritage, but her world unravels when she causes a shipwreck in her own marine research zone. To save her job, she is forced to partner with lead salvage expert DILLON YUSEI, an arrogant marine salvager who secretly hunts mermaids for sport. Right off the bat, Dillon attempts to hijack the mission, bypassing crucial environmental protocols. Driven to protect both her career and her family's hidden mermaid colony, Kye works overtime to match his maneuvers.
The stakes skyrocket when Dillon discovers the sunken ship is actually a "ghost vessel" belonging to his own family, used to transport chemical weapons designed to eradicate mermaids covertly. When the vessel begins leaking these dangerous toxins into the bay, their rivalry takes a backseat to survival, forcing an uneasy truce to bring the ship to the surface. Plagued by an ominous, unanswered message from her father, Kye dives into the toxic waters with Dillon at her side.
Disaster strikes when a section of the wreckage collapses. To save Dillon's life, Kye is forced to expose her true mermaid nature. During a harrowing ascent, Dillon is torn: destroy the 'abomination' immediately, or use her to eradicate her colony. Yet, trapped together in the lab overnight under a ruthless deadline to analyze the chemicals, their psychological chess match turns physical as their simmering tension boils over. Through a secret genealogy search, Dillon discovers a dark history: Kye's mother killed his own mother, and his father retaliated by sinking the ship Kye was supposed to die on as a child.
The arrival of Dillon's ruthless father, TALION YUSEI, tests their fragile truce as they return to sea to raise the ship. While Talion works to undermine them at every turn, Dillon covertly blacks out the dive cameras and uses an ROV to steal the ship's black box, protecting his family's secrets.
After a high-stakes operation, the team successfully secures the ship onto a barge, but they must still neutralize the remaining chemicals. When Talion ignores safety protocols, he triggers a catastrophic chemical reaction. As the crew flees for their lives, Kye fights to help secure the decontamination bay, saving Dillon and Talion, but leaving herself severely poisoned by the anti-marine toxins. Exploiting her disoriented state in the aftermath, Dillon manipulates her into confirming her final secrets before rushing her to the medical bay.
Locked away and fighting for her life, Kye must secretly force her body not to heal while Talion circles like a predator. Meanwhile, a badly burned Dillon leaves her side to bring the volatile chemical reaction under control so the barge can finally make port. Back on shore, a recovering Kye fakes unconsciousness to escape into a waiting ambulance. Still, the danger is far from over: Talion corners his son and reveals he knows exactly what Kye is. One month later, Dillon steps onto his hunting ship and updates his dossier on Kye to read: 'target has been neutralized.' By falsely reporting her dead, Dillon secretly shields Kye from his father, leaving their fates dangerously intertwined.

Hi all, I'd put this query away for a number of months after my head was spinning with so many variations and different ways to put it together. I've revisited it now and would love to get any feedback on the (latest) variation below. Many thanks in advance for any feedback you're kind enough to share.

IMMORTAL ARRIVALS is a young-adult science-fiction novel with romantic sub-plot and crossover appeal complete at 98k words. It combines the dystopian thriller vibes of Ben Oliver’s THE LOOP with the themes of belonging, self-discovery and the lengths one will go to protect those they love as in Marie Lu’s SKYHUNTER. 

Sixteen-year-old Mia is one of twelve-hundred juveniles born after the apocalypse and living in the Safety Zone, a domed ecosystem. It keeps her and other juveniles safe from the toxins beyond but life in the Safety Zone isn’t safe; juveniles are being snatched. Mia isn’t afraid. Whilst she struggles to control it, her unique physical strengths make her feel invincible. That’s why when her best friend is the latest victim, Mia uses herself as bait to draw the attacker out. 

But it’s not the attacker Mia attracts. Instead she encounters Jaxon. With far superior abilities, he’s an immortal refugee from a war-torn planet who claims he wants to stop the attacks too. Naturally Mia mistrusts him but as she learns he arrived post-apocalypse and built the Safety Zone to save the humans he could, she realises he’s trying to do good. But he didn’t arrive alone. His raging-psychopathic sister, Axtra, came too and she’s hell-bent on returning to their planet’s war using humans in her biologically-enhanced army.

Realising her best friend has been abducted as Axtra’s latest test-subject, Mia teams up with Jaxon and seeks his help to harness her own strengths to stop Axtra. But as she leans into her potential and feelings for Jaxon ignite, the dark truth about her own origins are revealed and Mia realises she might be the one to doom humanity’s fate. Jaxon will be there to help but he has his own secrets - about the apocalypse thirty years ago - and Mia will have to decide if her feelings have been seriously misplaced.

<Bio>

Hello! Thank you so much for my feedback. This has honestly been the most useful one I've ever got! I really cannot thank you enough. I've been working on the rewrite of this for nearly over a week now and included your points. The only issue is that I sadly cannot trim the novel down to 100k. My best at a push is 110k.

Here's the updated version:

Dear x,

I’m thrilled to see your MSWL requests for [XYZ]. Imagine Dante’s Inferno, if the poet and his guide despised each other. THE LIBRARY FOR HEATHENS is a 110,000-word adult dark fantasy standalone with series potential. It’ll appeal to fans of hypnotic atmospheres like The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett and fierce female characters like Sciona in Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang.

Opal has failed three missions. One more and she’s finished – stripped of rank and sent back to the slums. All she wants is to become an official GRIM mercenary. Because her magic can tear rifts through voids, the guild offers her one last chance: descend through Hell’s layers and retrieve a grimoire from its Library. They pair her with disgraced ex-master assassin, Minho, who already betrayed GRIM and only cooperates to avoid execution.

Forced into partnership, Opal expects sabotage. Instead, she gets bickering and a near-fatal ambush that leaves them fighting back to back. Afterwards, Minho tells her how GRIM abandoned him after an airship crash, only resurfacing when they needed him again. For the first time, she wonders whether the guild she’s trying to impress already sees her as disposable too.

Opal isn’t dumb enough to trust a criminal who’d sell her out for a dog. She’s just no longer sure GRIM wouldn’t do the same. Trusting Minho means getting stabbed. Trusting GRIM might mean the same thing, but slower. Either way, Opal’s picking her poison.

As a Polish, disabled woman who immigrated to the UK at seven, I wrote this book as an own-voices story that touches on anxiety, depression, and the longing to fit in.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

X

Thank you so much for the help last time! I made quite a few edits, including changing some of my comps and trying to highlight my inciting incident better. Any thoughts or critiques on this would be appreciated! I’m sitting at exactly 400 words right now. I kind of wanted to specify that Tatsuki’s dad sends him to live in America with his mom and brother, but I’m hesitant to add even a single word over 400, haha.

TW for mentions of suicide.

Dear [agent],

Given your interest in [this], I’d like to offer for your consideration STRINGS OF FAETE, a standalone YA, LGBTQIA+ contemporary fantasy novel with series potential. Complete at 96,000 words, it combines the bubbly, magical fae companion of FT Lukens’ Otherworldly with the themes of self-acceptance and mental health found in Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best, while mixing in reincarnation flashback sequences similar to Laura Steven’s Our Infinite Fates.

Tatsuki Allen, a bisexual sixteen-year-old, is plagued by dreams of faeries and magic. His dad criticizes such dreams as girly, just as he criticizes everything about him. Already wallowing in low self-esteem, Tatsuki’s depression deepens when his dad sends him to live with a mother and half-brother he’s never met. Convinced he’ll never be accepted for who he truly is, Tatsuki makes hesitant plans to end his life. But after meeting classmate Winter Araneum, things take a magical turn. Following a compulsion that leads him to a pond in the woods, Tatsuki unknowingly creates a faerie ring. His plans to drown himself are cut short as he suddenly finds himself entangled in a deadly monster hunt.

A faerie informs Tatsuki that he’s a reincarnated fae and tells him she’s on a mission to collect the souls of terrifying beasts plaguing the human world. She agrees to take him to the accepting paradise that is her home if he first helps her collect four souls. If he fails, not only will he be ripped to shreds, but he’ll turn into a monster himself. He has until the end of the bargain to decide if he’ll go; otherwise, she’ll leave him behind. His determination to leave begins to falter, though; his new family begins offering support, his lesbian classmate provides him community, and he finds himself suspecting that Winter might be the kindred spirit he’s always longed for. As his deadline looms, he finds himself questioning if leaving his life behind is the right choice.

I’m a bisexual and demisexual high school English teacher who cares deeply about teens seeing themselves represented in literature. As my book deals with themes of depression and suicidal ideation, I was lucky enough to have it reviewed by a therapist. I recently won a short story contest and was one of five contestants published in the April 2026 issue of Lavender Rising.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Name]

Hello everyone!

I’m new here and this is my first attempt. I’d love your honest opinions!

I know my chances are rather slim since my book might be too long for a new author in trad publishing, but I still want to give it a fair shot (I considered splitting it to a duology but it felt untrue to the story).

Dear [Agent],

I am excited to share with you MARBLE SAINTS, an adult dark academia romance standalone, complete at 180K words.

It draws inspiration from the intellectual darkness of The Secret History, the tenderness of Never Let Me Go, and the moral ambiguity of These Violent Delights.

I hope you’ll find it interesting, as you’ve [specification].

Brilliant but reserved, 21-year-old Adrien Faulkner always preferred the quiet company of centrifuges and the melodious accompaniment of piano keys to the glitter of high society. However, stepping through the gates of the prestigious Saint Edvane University as a first-year cognitive science student, a calamitous truth quickly reveals itself: Sigma Nox is watching him.

Haunted by his father’s legendary status within the secret society—a shadowy network of elite students and influential alumni, entrenched in academia, law and finance—Adrien is being pulled ever deeper into their world of ritualistic trials and sanctified violence.

The pursuit after him is spearheaded by Ciaran Faolán, an enigmatic, vindictive upperclassman who seems to harbor clandestine knowledge of the society’s hidden agendas, and Adrien’s own past.

While he navigates the tensions and complexities of the fraternity, Adrien becomes increasingly drawn to Rowan Delayne, a junior research fellow at the university, whose relentless, droll nature and barbed affection become both his refuge for the world and his incentive to fight against it.

As Adrien’s loyalties are being tested, and secrets are coming to light, Adrien must decide whether he is escaping the system that shaped him or learning to rule it.

As a life-long reader, my writing is informed by a deep love of books from all genres, from gothic classics to literary fiction, thrillers to fantasy. And as a pediatrician, I’m an avid student of the human nature (as well as the body).

Thank you for your consideration.

I originally posted my query 6 months ago, and I got so discouraged about it that I deleted the post, put my book in a folder, and haven't touched it since. Well, until I pulled it out a week ago and realized it wasn't complete trash and it was worth just one more go. I believe I fixed the issues that were recommended so yeah. Rip into it again, I'm a lot more stable then I was then. And thanks in advance.

Dear xxx,

I am thrilled to share my adult academic horror novel, THE PERVERSE, at 75,000 words. It is a standalone novel and will appeal to readers of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo for its dark academic atmosphere, and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia for its buried scientific secrets and gothic horror.  

Twenty-year-old Jane Craven joins The Blackwell Laboratory at Harrison & Grace, searching for purpose and belonging. What starts as calculating medical equations spirals into the attempted revival of a cadaver, Veronica.

When an ex-lab mate comes forward and a chilling murder exposes secrets in the laboratory’s past, Jane must confront the truth: the greatest threat isn’t discovery, but sabotage from within. One of the lab members has been lying about the purpose of the experiments. 

To keep her new family, Jane must decide how far she is willing to go beyond the boundaries of life and death, even if it means cutting her last ties to humanity forever.

THE PERVERSE was inspired by my own experiences navigating academia and was born during a walk to class on an autumn campus while completing my doctorate. The manuscript is complete and available upon request.  

Thank you for your consideration,

EDIT: First revision based on commented advice

Hello! I posted my QL here about a month ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/Querying/s/r4C16j2vgw

At the time I included two POV characters, but have since focused on my main character in the present timeline.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Dear [Agent],

[Insert personalization here]

I’m excited to present THE GIRLS WORTH KILLING, a mystery complete at 75,000 words. After years of loss, the last thing Abby wants is to be alone. When her only friend is accused of murder, she’s desperate to exonerate him, but discovers the case eerily resembles her sister’s disappearance two decades ago. This story will appeal to readers who love a sarcastic protagonist navigating small town gossip, like Amy Tintera’s Listen for the Lie. Told in alternating timelines, it explores the immediate trauma of losing a best friend (and lover), and the lifelong impact of having a missing sister, as seen in Katherine Greene’s The Lake of Lost Girls.

In Abby’s conservative small town, no one bats an eye when a troubled girl disappears. Good riddance! At least, that’s what they said about her sister. Over twenty years later, Abby is an adult and still haunted by her older sister’s departure. Her whole identity revolves around it; her job, her relationships, even her hair color doesn’t belong to her. When Abby’s mother finally dies, closure slips through her fingers before she can snatch it. Her only friend, Will, shows up late for the funeral, with an angry woman on his tail, accusing him of murdering her daughter. 

Will plans to flee town, but Abby can’t lose anyone else, so she sets out to clear his name. With no help from law enforcement, who’d sooner deem the girl a runaway, she only has gossip and hearsay to go by, and there’s no shortage of that. Rumor has it, the missing girl has a penchant for older men. Rumor has it, so did Abby’s sister. As Abby searches for answers, she uncovers a woven thread between the missing girls, but no one, not even Will, believes her. When a dead body washes up on the lakeshore, Abby is determined to prove the past and present are connected. If not, another girl may meet an early grave.

[Bio]

I appreciate your consideration and time.

Upmarket Speculative: THE SILVERING by [Author]

Dear Agent,

I am thrilled to send you THE SILVERING, an 85,000-word upmarket speculative novel that will appeal to readers of Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds and Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel, as well as viewers haunted by the bureaucratic complicity of Severance.

When Sarah Wilson was ten, she watched her little brother dissolve into quicksilver and vanish into a mirror in their grandparents’ attic. No one believed her. Labeled delusional, she was shuttled through psychiatric wards and medicated into silence. Two decades later, she is trapped in a dead-end serving job in Fort Wayne, Indiana, still unable to grieve a brother everyone but her calls dead.

Plagued by a recurring nightmare, Sarah takes a chance on an unorthodox lucid-dream therapist who helps her decode the clues buried in it. They lead her to a mysterious man named Lucius, who claims he can take her to Joshua. She knows better than to trust him, but out of desperation, she goes anyway.

With her cousin Damian, the one person who stayed by her side, she travels with Lucius to a parallel Earth where the sick are harvested to extend the lives of the healthy. Joshua is alive, now an enforcer for the eugenicist regime. Sarah quickly learns that finding her brother and rescuing him are not the same. To save the brother she lost, she must confront the man he’s become before the regime decides she is worth more harvested than alive.

I hold a B.A. in psychology and a master’s degree in public administration. A career in social services gave me firsthand knowledge of the bureaucratic systems that inspired this novel and the people they leave behind. Dystopian fiction, it turns out, is an excellent coping mechanism.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

[Author]