r/Querying

Hopefully this is getting closer to a finished product...or maybe I'm getting a little overzealous because I'm not seeing a lot of posts here that have gone through as many attempts. You must be getting tired of hearing from me. Your help is invaluable. So here's my latest attempt and if things are looking good I'll leave you alone after!

Dear [AGENT]

I am pleased to present ECHOES OF THE IRON HEART, a dual POV romance with an action twist set in the Victorian Era, complete at 100k words. It is a standalone novel with sequel potential and it will appeal to fans of the intrigue and mystery of Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman as well as the strong, independent heroines and the adventure and romance in Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson or What The River Knows and What The Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez.

Gwaelyn Ellis resents her wealthy father giving her inheritance to the library where she works, all to prevent her from exploring the world in a society that undervalues women. That doesn’t stop her from studying ancient languages and cultures, even though she’d rather discover treasures long lost to time. So when a notoriously curt Croatian archeologist walks through the library doors, Gwaelyn leaps at the chance to connect with him.

Miško Jurić has dedicated his life to uncovering a lost city off the coast of Pag and is shocked when Gwaelyn uses her father’s connections to join his dig. Miško has no patience for distractions, especially not from an ambitious librarian breaking all of society’s codes. He passes her to his best friend, Ivan Babić, the dig foreman to get her out of the way. But where Ivan sees potential and becomes Gwaelyn's unlikely ally, Miško is worried she will impede their work. 

Enthralled after an unexpected encounter which begins to change his perception of Gwaelyn, and pushed by Ivan to accept her, Miško allows her (/After an unexpected encounter with Gwaelyn and pressure from Ivan to accept her, Miško's perception begins to change and he allows her... or a different version...I had a tough time finding a good way to turn this without using a million words) to help translate Roman tablets uncovered in their search. Working together intensifies an attraction Miško refuses to acknowledge. When they return to London, Miško publishes a paper appropriating Gwaelyn’s translations without attribution. Furious, Gwaelyn leaves, determined to use leads hidden in the tablet’s writings to find the lost treasure of King Alaric, rumored to be the resting place of King Midas’ gold.

Gwaelyn’s search leads to a mysterious book holding more clues, attracting the attention of Randall Bowman, a ruthless antiquities dealer who will stop at nothing to claim the treasure for himself, including torture. Miško rescues Gwaelyn from Bowman, but now, with a target on their backs, they must find the treasure soon or their dreams of success will die. Drawn to each other’s cleverness and resilience, Gwaelyn and Miško can no longer deny the feelings building between them. The pursuit that brought them together threatens to take everything each of them holds dear, and they must decide what they're willing to sacrifice, and what they simply cannot lose.

[AUTHOR BIO]
Thank you for your time and consideration.

All the best,
[NAME], writing as [PEN NAME]

Thanks so much for this amazing service!

A few notes after your last set of comments - Kaed has no surname. I didn't add the village name as I felt the descriptor of it being isolated added more value than the name? (Greiyna Lonn). But if it's really important, I can add it. As per the infographic you attached last time, I've only gone up to the midpoint plot wise. I can go further (showing the second half of the book, including his romance progress etc) if it feels like the secondary characters are left hanging?

I've tried to make it a bit more 'voicey' but since the voice is classic fantasy I'm not really sure how to do that... And I've added the first 500 words to the bottom, if that's ok!

LETTER:

After seeing you are a fan of X, I’m writing to seek representation for my debut novel, THEY WHO KNOW THE OAK, complete at 99,000 words. It is an adult lyrical fantasy book with a queer romance thread about overcoming loss, finding new purpose, and preserving the natural world. It will appeal to fans of Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang for its MC fighting a corrupt power structure, and The Book of the Ice trilogy by Mark Lawrence as it’s also a nature-centred story with a world tainted by a dark force.

As an outsider raised in his isolated mountain village since childhood, Kaed longs for acceptance. But during the ceremony to name him as Druid, the spirit of the lake interrupts and drowns everyone he’s ever known. His sister, dead. His mentor, dead. Stricken, Kaed almost takes his own life, but comes back from the brink and instead resolves to uncover the truth behind the spirit’s destruction.

Journeying to hectic Tàvhsan City, he reunites with his childhood bully Ruarih, who left the village. Despite a growing attraction between them, they separate after an argument, leaving Kaed alone with his grief once more. He finds a place in the slums healing the sick and unexpectedly becoming a Druid in the squalor. Here he befriends runaway princess-turned-tavern owner Tom and learns of Thaumaturges: powerful wielders of elemental magic.

Kaed establishes a mental connection with a forest, hearing it cry out in pain. He learns that Thaumaturges are based on a cruel lie. They bind spirits, eventually destroying them for their power. Kaed severs the forest-Thaumaturge’s bond, saving the spirit but making enemies of the entire organisation. He enters the otherworld and catches a glimpse of the corruption infesting its heart. The evil that caused his village to die and that threatens all life. It is connected to a human vessel, and to stop it, he must find them.

500 WORDS:

A cold wind scented of bark and honey whipped around Kaed’s face, colouring his cheeks and billowing his long black hair into chaos. Eyes closed, he frowned in annoyance, trying to focus on his breath. A deep inhalation. A slow exhale. Today was the most important day of his eighteen years, he needed to focus. Bowing grass brushed his hands and he heard the distant sound of lapping water.

But that was impossible. High up on the mountainside he sat well out of hearing range of the lake, cupped as it was in the base of the valley far below. The sound tickled the edges of his senses, keeping his sought-after meditative state at arm’s length. He tried to block it out but the rippling only grew louder, building until it sounded almost like laughter. A laugh that tipped from bright to mocking. 

Panic inexplicably clawed up his chest and he felt as though he was falling from his body and being swept away into the current of the wind, toward the source of the laughter. He had the vague sense of a malign shadow looming before him, stretching out as though to sink talons into the darkest parts of himself. 

Instinctively, he jerked away. 

His eyes snapped open, pupils wide as fear pumped through his veins. The laughter had ceased, as though it had never been, and the vista lay as he expected. Mist scraped across the tree-covered peaks—now swathed in the russet and orange of burgeoning autumn—despite the clear early morning skies. A flash of gold below declared the presence of the far-off lònn, its waters distant and inaudible. He shook his head, pushing the fear away. Had he actually touched the otherworld, or was his anxiety about the day ahead just playing tricks on him? Probably the latter. He had never been as adept at finding stillness as he would like. 

Really, he should already be in the village, but he found it easier to meditate amongst the sounds of the land than in the cloistered quiet of the shrine. Usually. He definitely was not avoiding the veiled whispers and sidelong glances of his people. The thought of the entire community’s scrutiny set him on edge, but he would have to pull himself together and get used to that.

A shadow fell across the valley as an errant cloud blotted out the sun and Kaed sighed. His hair, which he kept long as a marker of his dedication to Elrunae, goddess of creation and death, continued to flap. He unwrapped a thin rope of green thread—braided for him with love by his younger sister years ago—from around his wrist before forcing the hair into a semblance of order. He took one last moment for himself, filling his lungs, and held onto the spice of a changing season. 

Standing, Kaed began the descent toward the cluster of houses below: the remote village of Greiyna Lònn.

I'm back with another draft! Thank you for your feedback, it's been invaluable and I'm glad I'm moving in the right direction!

My setting is never named, it's based off Manchester where I live, so maybe I should just name it (it's a running symbol that things are rarely named and the power of names holds a lot for John so it's just a stylistic approach)

I hope I've answered some of the plot Q's here but please let me know how I can improve - I don't know if I should have introduced Thomas's father (also unnamed) but he's pertinent to the reason Thomas is stuck running the club.

Thanks again!

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of su*cide

---

Dear (Agent) 

I am pleased to share HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED, a 65,000-word literary novel set in Northern England on the brink of the Second World War. It will appeal to readers of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, exploring themes of class, masculinity and mental illness. 

1939. John Webb, a quiet man who lived a childhood under state care, sees Manchester emptied after most able-bodied men are enlisting in the new war. Struggling to find stable work in a city that has left him behind, he is forced to compete with a society that has ill-prepared him for life. A debilitating shoulder injury excludes him from any work he is desperate to keep leaving him unable to find somewhere willing to keep him. 

Stability arrives when Thomas Sallow, musician and manager of the exclusive venue, the Storey Club, offers him a job to work on the door.  A weekly pay packet and regular work provide John the stability, and between the familiar rhythms of the staff and Thomas’s growing reliance on him, it becomes the closest thing he’s known to belonging. 

To discover that Thomas is medically unfit for conscription, John recognises vulnerability in another man left outside of the war effort and trying to survive in a world not built for him. Unknown to John, a severe mental health crisis stopped Thomas from enlisting, and his father had worked hard to bury it. Scrutiny from Thomas’s father reminds John how easily his place can be taken away, and why belonging is conditional for men with his institutional upbringing.  

John’s grip on stability slips after he is glassed on his way home from the club. He pushes through a significant head injury to remain useful at the club by stitching the wound himself and fighting a worsening fever. John is unaware that he is not the only man concealing a condition to keep his place.

Everything unravels when John finds Thomas unconscious after a suicide attempt. As Thomas begins disappearing during performances and a disastrous concert threatens the club’s reputation and his father’s faith in its future, John fears losing it all. For the first time, the fear of losing his place in society becomes inseparable from the fear of losing another person. 

(bio)

Dear X,

Given your interest in X, X, and X, I thought my debut Gothic Fantasy, THE ANARCHIST, may be a good fit for your list.

Before Anarchy was the order of the day, it was a city in Ruin.

In this city, chaos reigns, and bounty hunter Reiya Falco makes her living hunting fiends; the victims of a mysterious disease that turns people into rabid killers. But when the Marshal of Anarchy offers her a chance at freedom in her most dangerous case yet and enough money to leave the bounty hunting trade forever, she's willing to risk it all.

This problem-addled case has one truly fatal flaw - she must work with her rival, Alec, to solve it. Their decade-long feud has consisted of games of sabotage, psychological warfare, and wounds to pride that never healed right but festered instead; now, they must put their differences aside to solve the case before their six-week deadline is up.

Battling figures from their past, their own bitter history, and a saboteur trying to derail them, their search leads them to the depths of the criminal underworld and a cult-like organisation called The Mysterium, where Reiya and Alec must pose as members to solve the case. But the higher the castle walls, the darker the secrets within; and as the attraction between Reiya and Alec grows and the plot they uncover becomes ever more insidious, Reiya will learn the hard way - all the best traps have the same thing in common. The prey never knows it's a trap, until it's too late.

I am in my twenties and live in London. I am a queer, neurodivergent Irish woman, and work in digital marketing. THE ANARCHIST is a fantasy novel of 98,000 words that blends romance, humour, and elements of gothic horror, with an anti-heroine at the heart. It is comparable to "One Dark Window", with its gothic setting and mysterious disease, and "Ninth House", with its blend of dark fantasy and horror.

Thank you for your consideration,

*** CONTEXT ***

I'm on my querying journey and have done *yikes* close to 100 queries without much progress. I've received 5 full requests, the majority of them early on in the piece which gave me confidence. One passed because it was too close to a WIP from an existing client, one didn't end up having the capacity to take it on, one was an R&R, and two just turned into form rejections.

It feels like the requests are slowing down, and I'm now wanting to review my query package and see how I can strengthen the query letter, or might need to review my opening pages.

Thank you in advance!

Hello, I'm in my second round of querying agents after getting rejected pretty succinctly (except for one who said 'maybe if you make edits' (without, of course, telling me what to edit)). This is a revised version from my first letter that went out. Thanks in advance!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear [Agent Name],

What if love could not die, but instead decayed across eternity?

I am seeking representation for THE FLAYED GOD'S DAUGHTER, a 117,000-word adult grimdark literary fantasy drawing on Mesoamerican and Norse mythology. Blending gothic horror, reincarnation, and tragic immortality across centuries, it may appeal to readers of Alchemised by SenLinYu, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, and The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang.

In ancient Teotihuacan, Zyanya is a gifted sculptor fleeing abuse and poverty in search of safety and meaning. After escaping exploitation by a powerful nobleman, she joins the priestesshood of the Temple of the Moon, where she falls deeply in love with a local farmer named Yolotli. Forbidden from forming attachments but unwilling to surrender either love or spiritual power, Zyanya makes a desperate bargain with the gods to bind their souls together forever.

Before the ritual can be completed, Yolotli is sacrificed atop the temple pyramid. In grief and defiance, Zyanya consumes his still-beating heart and transforms into an immortal creature sustained by blood.

Across centuries, Yolotli’s soul reincarnates into different bodies, genders, and even species, while Zyanya remains unchanged. Though she is always able to recognize him through an instinctive spiritual Pull, each reunion ends in loss. As the centuries pass, reincarnation itself begins to erode the coherence of identity, fragmenting the soul Zyanya is desperately trying to preserve.

Refusing to accept mortality, Zyanya gradually transforms from survivor into ruler, manipulating religion, empire, and entire civilizations in increasingly desperate attempts to control death itself. During one reincarnation cycle, the soul she seeks is reborn as the wife of a Norse warrior named Sigurd Mörkroth. When the woman dies in childbirth, Zyanya steals the infant child in a final attempt to preserve the soul she loves. The act destroys Sigurd, who bargains with the goddess Hel for immortality and founds the Order of the Dawn, a vampire-hunting organization dedicated to destroying Zyanya across generations.

In present-day New York, the conflict converges in Lucian, a young vampire hunter raised within the Order and descended from Sigurd’s bloodline. Sent to kill the oldest vampire in existence, Lucian instead finds himself drawn to Zyanya as she recounts her history to him at a vampire masquerade. He eventually discovers the truth: he carries the reincarnated soul Zyanya has pursued for two thousand years.

Terrified of losing him again, Zyanya attempts to stop time itself and escape the cycle of death forever, even as the gods themselves begin to awaken against her.

THE FLAYED GOD'S DAUGHTER is a standalone novel with series potential, told across multiple timelines and points of view.

[Author Bio, closing, etc.]

Hello again! The empress no longer controls the query.

Thank you for your help with all of this.

-

WORDBOUND is a 112,000-word adult high fantasy novel inspired by the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus. As a standalone novel with series potential, WORDBOUND blends the normalized queerness of Martha Wells' Witch King with the competition structure of James Islington's The Will of the Many and the emotional heart of Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor.

Kiris Avkonin didn't mean to kill his parent-figure, Prince Thaav. It was Prophecy—the capitalized, reality-creating kind—and Kiris isn't like the previous Prophets. He isn't a fate-commanding divine leader; he's a con-artist who can't control his magic, much less find the courage to tell Thaav his real name.

With a month before Thaav's Prophesized death, Kiris learns Thaav is being made to participate in the invading empire's Competition of Princes. It's Kiris' last chance to confess that he's the Prophet who caused their murder. Kiris disguises himself as a prince and enters the Competition to reach Thaav, hoping to avoid attracting the attention of the backstabbing princes vying for the empress' favor. When the empress declares whoever brings her Prophet Avkonin will win her favor without enduring her cutthroat trials—and Kiris discovers the empress has been using resurrection magic to try to revive her beloved wife—he shreds his confession plans.

If Kiris can master the empress' magic, he can save Thaav after they die. They'd never need to know he's the Prophet. But when Kiris' studies into resurrection hinder his ability to mask his magic, a rival prince who dares call him friend begins questioning Kiris' identity. With every day of practice, Kiris' godly magic becomes more volatile and the prince's camaraderie and suspicions deepen. Kiris' best chance to outwit his not-friend and outlive Thaav is by becoming his princely identity—with all the trials it entails.

May the best prince live.

First time here, thanks so much for your wisdom. I've sent a version of this out to about 12 agents so far (3 rejections, no requests) over the last month. Am now tweaking to try and improve as the brain-worms creep in!

--

Dear Agent,

After seeing you are a fan of X, I’m writing to seek representation for my debut novel, complete at 99,000 words.

THEY WHO KNOW THE OAK is an adult, lyrical fantasy book with a queer romance thread about overcoming loss, finding new purpose, and preserving the natural world. It is the first in a duology. 

Comps include Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang (a character fighting a corrupt power structure), and The Book of the Ice trilogy by Mark Lawrence (a nature-centred story with a world tainted by a dark force).

On the night of Kaed’s long-awaited ceremony to become Druid of his isolated mountain village, the spirit of the nearby lake appears and drowns his entire community. Left grieving and desperate for answers, Kaed sets out into the unknown seeking the truth behind these horrifying events.

On his journey he reunites with his childhood bully Ruarih and briefly finds respite in the underbelly of a city, healing the impoverished and overlooked. Here, he befriends runaway princess (now tavern owner) Tom and learns of Thaumaturges: wielders of elemental magic who destroy nature spirits for their power. His fragile new life is shattered, however, when he instinctively severs a Thaumaturge’s spirit-bond mid battle to save the nearby forest from destruction, making enemies of the most powerful organisation in the empire. 

Fleeing, he, Ruarih and Tom head for the capital city to seek aid from the Monarch. They meet a witch who helps Kaed hone his newly awakened abilities of contacting and freeing spirits. She explains that he may be descended from the only known union between spirit and human. In the capital, instead of finding answers, Kaed is branded a traitor for his actions and arrested. Convincing the spirit of the land beneath the city to possess him, he breaks apart the prison and in the chaos uncovers the secret of the corruption that infects the otherworld and threatens all life. 

I’m a queer vegan who has worked in the film industry for 15 years as a writer, director and documentary editor. My short films have won script open calls, screened at over 30 international film festivals and have over 1.2 million views online. I have a 1st class BA in Comparative Literature and Film Studies.

Please find my synopsis and first fifty pages attached. Thanks very much for your time,

In Cavaria, everyone has a home, food, and free education. But…the city is policed by seven-foot-tall faceless monsters. 

Atreya is Cavaria’s 18-year-old golden boy, with artfully messy hair and a dimple he wields like a weapon. He easily charms the entire student population—except his classmate Elise, an ex-Garrison girl who wears a tight braid every day. Atreya befriends the Prince of Cavaria, Kaseem, a slight 18-year-old who’d rather disappear into any available wall. They, like most Cavarians, have grown used to the faceless creatures that patrol their city, and they focus instead on making friends and falling in love.

But then Atreya’s brother is arrested for secretly marrying the Princess of Cavaria. The trio attempts a jailbreak, but they get there too late. They're forced to watch as Atreya's brother gets executed in a way that shatters their understanding of the city they grew up in. 

Because in Cavaria, the sentence for treason is a fate far worse than death.

Legacy of the Mazar: The Shattering is the first in a trilogy. It works as a standalone New Adult horror fantasy novel complete at 102,000 words. It has the coming-of-age warmth of Fangirl with the institutional horror of The Bone Shard Daughter.

[bio]

Thank you for the feedback on my first attempt! I've been working on this for a while to make sure it represents more of the themes and keeps my MC the focus of the query.

Please let me know your thoughts!

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of su*cide

Dear (Agent) 

I am pleased to share HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED, a 65,000-word literary novel set in Northern England on the brink of the Second World War. It will appeal to readers of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, exploring themes of class, masculinity and mental illness. 

It’s 1939. John Webb, a quiet man who lived his childhood under care of the state, faces immediate struggles to find stability and work in a community where most able-bodied men are enlisting in the new war.  He is left to compete with a society that has ill-prepared him for life, learning to cope with a debilitating shoulder injury that excludes him from any work he is desperate to keep. 

Stability and work arrive with a chance offer to work the door at an exclusive music club, and John’s usefulness finally outweighs his incapacity to fit in. The club becomes the steadfast anchor holding John in place, allowing him to finally belong somewhere. John’s grip on stability slips when he is attacked by a patron after his shift and the strategies he keeps to hide it no longer work. John’s carefully maintained distance collapses when he finds the club’s owner and musician, Thomas, unconscious after a suicide attempt.  

To discover that Thomas is also medically unfit to enlist, John recognises the vulnerability in another man left outside of the war effort and trying to survive in a world not built for him either. But belonging to the club means becoming entangled in Thomas’s life, which is growing more erratic and unstable. As Thomas begins disappearing during performances, enduring sleepless nights and a disastrous concert which threatens the club’s reputation, John fears losing stability. For the first time, the fear of losing his place in society becomes inseparable from the fear of losing another person. 

(bio)

Hello again!

Hopefully this clarifies what needed clarifying, and also doesn't muddle the waters with density.

-

Dear (agent),

WORDBOUND is a 112,000-word adult high fantasy novel inspired by the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus. A standalone novel with series potential, WORDBOUND blends the normalized queerness of Martha Wells’ Witch King with the competition structure of James Islington’s The Will of the Many and the emotional heart of Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor.

Prophecy creates reality, and Kiris Avkonin is the Prophet. He’s also a con-artist. When he accidentally prophesizes the death of Thaav, his parent-figure, it’s Kiris’ fault that Thaav will be poisoned at the end of the month. Thaav lives on the other side of a dozen squabbling principalities and an invading empire, but by disguising himself as a minor prince, Kiris hopes to reach Thaav before they die. He’ll do anything for their forgiveness. He murdered them.

Kiris’ royal disguise works great: he’s blackmailed, adopted by a real prince, and sacrificed to the court of the invading empire. The empress is staging a competition to determine which prince will collect her taxes and receive the backing of her army. When she declares that the prince who delivers Prophet Avkonin to her needs not endure the competition’s cutthroat trials, Kiris’ disguise turns from trap to lifeline.

With drugs and shackles, the empress will be able to manipulate Kiris’ fate-creating prophecies to make her colonization inevitable. Kiris has never been able to suppress his volatile magic for longer than a month; his disguise will fail, and he’s already attracted the suspicion of a rival prince. He needs to flee. But Thaav—Prince Thaav—is competing. If Kiris can survive the competition long enough to determine who will poison them—if he can make an antidote that will work immediately after their death—his prophecy will be fulfilled and undone. He won’t need Thaav’s forgiveness.

Thaav will never need to know he killed them.

I am a (short bio).