[QCrit] Adult Gothic Fiction - LETTERS, MY LOVE (67k/First Attempt)
Hi! I've been in the process of writing a query letter for my gothic fiction novel, but wanted to ensure it was in the best shape it could be in! Feel free to provide any feedback whatsoever, and thank you so so much!
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LETTERS, MY LOVE is a dual-POV Rebecca meets Hungerstone sapphic gothic fiction about the influence of intertwining pasts and the unraveling of a household. Because of your interest in _, I believe LETTERS, MY LOVE may be a good fit for you. Complete at (67,000) words, it weaves the gothic tone of Carmilla with the literary influence of Wuthering Heights.
Arabella yearns for a life beyond the city of her youth, away from the visions that plague her; when she takes a position further North, she is thrown into the uneasy thrum of ‘the Chateau’ and its inhabitants’ livelihoods. Under the resident Lord Agard, a sickly recluse, she meets Francesca, who left the shores of Kystregion a decade prior. But with Lord Agard’s obsessions, a man from the islands fostering secrets from the past, and a fated ball, their lives are unraveled.
Arabella and Francesca find themselves in a healer’s cottage, at the scene of a cold-blooded murder, and to the sea as they venture to the Binham Estate. There, they unveil the death and decay that has followed them from the grayish East. But Arabella grows disoriented, her visions convincing her of a higher, ‘divine’ purpose, and those they thought they could trust whittling her down to a shell of herself. Francesca didn’t see it coming, not even as she left her crying on rain-soaked cobblestone.
With Arabella’s return to the castle comes a mutated dependency on Lord Agard and doubt of the nature of her return. All she must do is survive a grim, grand dinner. For if not, the poison will certainly spread.
LETTERS, MY LOVE speaks to the parts of ourselves we believe to be broken, and carries through a sustaining theme of love. I am a queer, British-Welsh writer and poet passionate about gothic fiction. Living in Arkansas, I am attending university in the fall for anthropology and folklore.
Please find _ attached below. Thank you for your time and consideration,
Liliwen Parry