u/AcanthaMD

An interesting video essay - I did not know HBO kept tabs on piracy downloads.

Subject Line: Query: THE SKIN PAINTER'S FACE — [Agent Personalisation if applicable]

Dear [Agent Name],

THE SKIN PAINTER'S FACE is an adult dark fantasy with horror elements and a slow-burn romance arc, complete at 118,000 words with series potential. It combines the East Asian folkloric mystery of Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife with the gothic magic and body horror of Rachel Gillig's One Dark Window.

Nya thought she understood life by three simple principles: you can't go north of the Wall, keep your head down, and don't look behind you when a sulphur flame is lit. In a single week, she breaks all three.
When her brother is bitten by a corrupted spirit and doomed to madness and death, Nya signs a blood contract with a fox-masked sorceress to save his life, but the sorceress sees something strange in her—something that has been kept secret from Nya all her life. Indebted, she crosses the Wall and begins work at a guesthouse, hosting nobles and spirits alike.

But the guesthouse harbours a deadly secret. A demon walks its corridors, enchanting and killing at will, pursued by the handsome but terse Hatamoto who becomes increasingly convinced Nya is the demon he seeks. To protect herself, Nya strikes a bargain with the empress's charming spy, Kaito. Sparks fly between them—and so does blood—but the alliance plunges Nya into far more danger than she ever imagined. And the one man she cannot trust is the one she cannot seem to stop wanting.

When Nya uncovers the truth of the murders and vanishings—a demonic contract at the heart of the guesthouse—she must confront enemies who wear the faces of friends, and fight for the people she has come to love. If she fails, she loses them all. If she succeeds, she might finally find her way home.

[PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ME HERE]

This is attempt number two after some feedback from both an editor and an agent as well as some helpful feedback from last time.

Dear [Agent Name],

THE SKIN PAINTER'S FACE is an adult dark fantasy with horror elements and a slow-burn romantic arc, complete at 118,000 words, which works as a standalone but with series potential. It combines the East Asian folkloric mystery of Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife with the gothic magic and body horror of Rachel Gillig's One Dark Window.

1. You can't go north of the Wall.
2. Keep your head down.
3. Don't look behind you when a sulphur flame is lit.

In the course of a single week, Nya breaks all three.

When her brother is bitten by a corrupted spirit and is cursed to madness and death, Nya has no choice but to sign her life over to a fox-masked sorceress. Indebted to the sorceress's service, she crosses the Wall she has dreamed of her entire life to work at an opulent guesthouse, where she must learn to host nobles and spirits alike. The bathhouse is beautiful beyond her wildest dreams and she is taken under the wing of Io, one of the senior hosts.

But the guesthouse harbours a deadly secret. A demon walks its corridors, enchanting and killing at will, pursued by two very different men: Lord Sha, the terse but handsome Hatamoto sworn to eradicate all demons, and Kaito, the empress's charming but untrustworthy spy.

When one of the Hatamoto's men is found murdered, his skin split along his spine, Nya is discovered at the scene. To prove her innocence, she must accept Kaito's help—even though doing so might cost her life, and even as she fights her growing feelings for a man who lies as easily as he breathes. As the Hatamoto becomes increasingly convinced that Nya is the demon he hunts, she uncovers the true reason the creature is after her.

Caught between opposing forces, Nya must find the demon before it can execute its plan—to kill those she has come to love and tear open a gate to the demon realm. If she fails, she will never find her way home, south of the Wall again.

[Blurb about me here]

Hello! I would love a few beta readers to cast an eye over my book, parts of it, some of it, whatever you fancy.

Can do a critique swaps as well, I’ve previously written sci fi, romance, action adventure and am quite good with my structure and pacing if you need help with this.

Blurb:

Nya thought she understood life by three simple principles:

1. You can't go north of the Wall.
2. Keep your head down.
3. Don't look behind you when a sulphur flame is lit.

In the course of a single week, she breaks all three.

Nya learns that her brother's bite from a corrupted spirit has consequences—and that saving his life is not a straight trade. It's a contract signed in blood with a fox-masked sorceress who seems far more interested in whatever appeared behind Nya when the sulphur flame was lit than the small fortune offered up as payment.

Indebted to the sorceress, Nya crosses the Wall she has dreamed of her entire life, travelling with a caravan of spirit-realm traders to an opulent bathhouse where she must learn to host nobles and spirits alike. The guesthouse is beautiful beyond her wildest imaginings, and the spirits who visit are enchanting. But the guesthouse harbours a deadly secret beneath its pagoda roof. A demon walks its corridors wearing borrowed skin, and it wants hers.

****

There’s a bit of body horror in this as well as a slow burn romance arc. This book has a spiciness of 🌶️ just a lot of yearning and a hope of more 🌶️ and yearning in the future.

Excerpt from the first chapter below 👇 :

The cold air stung her eyes until they streamed, tears freezing on her lashes before she could blink them away. Nya pulled her scarf over her nose and pressed herself lower against Red-Lilly's neck, the burlap sack clutched in one hand, her bow and quiver thumping against her spine. 

Her brother Tabi had left at dawn to hunt deer on the south ridge. He had not come back. Never in her nineteen years had he done this. Tabi always came back before winter sunset.

In the sack were the things her grandmother had thrust at her before she rode out: a sulphur torch, a pot of sulphur paste, flint and steel. Her last words still crawled along Nya's spine as the Iwauma devoured the frozen ground beneath them, cloven hooves punching sharp prints into the snow.

“Do not look behind you when you light the sulphur, child”.

She had no time to decipher the cryptic message. Tabi was somewhere in the frozen valley ahead, and Nya rode. 

Any and all constructive criticism appreciated, its the first book in a series, many thanks for your time 🙏

Dear (agent),

Your wishlist—particularly your search for character driven non-Western fantasy where the stakes extend beyond romance—made me hope this manuscript might resonate.

Nya thought she understood life by three simple principles:

1. Don't go north of the Wall.
2. Keep your head down.
3. Don't look behind you when a sulphur flame is lit.

In the course of a single week, she learns that being bitten by a corrupted spirit has consequences. That saving her brother's life is not a straight trade—it's a contract signed in blood with a fox-masked sorceress who seems more interested in Nya's eyes than in the wingshard Nya offers as payment. That whatever the sorceress saw behind her in the blue-green sulphur light is worth far more than a fortune.

Nya has dreamed of crossing the Wall her entire life. She never imagined she'd do it in a caravan of spirit-realm traders, bound for an opulent bathhouse where she must learn on the fly to host nobles and spirits alike. The guesthouse is beautiful beyond her wildest imaginings. The spirits who visit are enchanting. And the sorceress who brought her there wants more than a pretty and unusual face.

The guesthouse harbours a deadly secret beneath its curving roof. A demon walks its corridors wearing borrowed skin, and its influence reaches deeper than anyone knows. As Nya navigates rivalries among the hosts, tries not to fall for the empress's enigmatic spy, and dodges a Hatamoto who is increasingly convinced she's the demon he's hunting, she must confront a truth that has been hidden from her since the tragedy that occurred along with her birth: she is a taboo Shinidarago—a living door between the human and spirit realms, protected by her dead mother's ghost, and hunted by every demon who wants to wear her skin.

In a world divided by the Wall, where Northerners and Southerners meet only at the Festival of the Coming Fire, Nya's simple act of saving her brother will unravel secrets that have been buried for generations.

THE SKIN PAINTER'S FACE is an adult dark fantasy with horror elements and a slow-burn romantic arc, complete at 118,000 words. It combines the dark fairytale atmosphere of Naomi Novik's Uprooted with the folkloric horror of T. Kingfisher, set in a world inspired by Edo-period and Muromachi-era Japan, Ming-dynasty China, and the Shu kingdom.

I am an academic psychiatrist and the author of numerous scientific articles. I won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Prize whilst at school, and on graduating medical school I was awarded the BMJ Clegg Scholarship, writing for the British Medical Journal.

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