Does anyone have any querying or rep experiences with Curtis Brown UK?

I'm in talks with quite a few agents, and agencies tbh, but I'm seriously considering an offer from an agent at Curtis Brown. But I'm also a US author so I'm not sure if it would be the best choice or not?

Any tips would be great or experiences would be great!

I've had about 25 form rejections and 1 request for full, followed by a personalized rejection. My main question is comps, because none of my choices are newer than 1995 lol. I'm open to any and all feedback, and I appreciate your time.

Dear [Agent],

I’m delighted to present to you my literary coming of age novel THE WHALE SWAM ON, which is complete at 77,770 words. With lyrical prose and an introspective look at what it means to incorporate rather than bury a traumatic past in the journey of healing, this book will appeal to fans of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger and All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, and will sit on shelves alongside them.

Marie Blake, 12, lives in a barn in rural Indiana with her three younger siblings. After the sudden disappearance of her mother, Marie and her siblings are left at the mercy of their physically and sexually abusive father. Every day is a question of survival. While playing in a part of the barn forbidden to her, Marie finds a business card hinting that her mother may be in Los Angeles and, after watching her four year-old brother Verne suffer a particularly brutal beating, resolves to leave the barn and her father to find her mother. She and Michaela, 10, agonize over this choice. Michaela has accepted the abuse, as well as the lies her father tells them about the danger of the outside world. Marie can’t shake the feeling that something better is out there.

After a harrowing escape resulting in the theft of her father’s truck and the unintentional abandonment of the youngest child Joshua, Marie and her other two siblings travel across the country. Marie learned to drive from watching her father. She’s had to be both sister and mother to her siblings. Will her resourcefulness and love for them be enough to deliver them to a life free from abuse? Is that glimmer of hope Marie sees the dawning of a better world, or a mirage at the precipice of an abyss as harrowing and bottomless as the one they’ve left behind?

My name is [Name]. I’m 27 and live in [city]. Although I’m an avid writer and have written several novels and dozens of short stories, THE WHALE SWAM ON is the first for which I’m seeking publication. A close friend’s struggles with rural poverty inspired the writing of this novel, and with it I hope to show those with similar experiences that a better future is possible. I have a BA in Psychology from [School] and have worked extensively in social services, where my experiences have deeply informed my writing of adversity and trauma.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

[Name]

First attempt

Managed to cut the MS down to 100k finally. I know the title is not great, but I'll work on that later. I've sent this version out to about 15 agents so far and have had 3 full requests but I still want to make sure this is as tight as I can get it. Querying UK agents right now.

Dear [AGENT],

Thirty-year-old Georgia inherits half a mustang sanctuary from the father who abandoned her; the other half belongs to the man he raised in her place.

ETXEA (the Basque word for home) is an upmarket dual-POV novel, complete at 100,000 words, set among the Basque-American ranching families of northern Nevada and the rain-soaked fields of the Peak District. It will appeal to readers of Charlotte McConaghy’s Once There Were Wolves and Roisin Maguire’s Night Swimmers, with the emotional ache of Nicholas Evans’s The Horse Whisperer. At its heart is a question: can you grieve a father who was a good man to everyone but you?

Georgia can talk a traumatised pony out of a dealer’s lorry in the pouring rain, but three hundred and nine letters never earned a single reply from her father. He walked out when she was ten, and she hasn’t asked anyone for anything since. Now he is dead, and she flies out meaning to sign the papers and be gone within a week.

Waiting for her is Cal, a roundup contractor and surrogate son her father raised in her place. His large Basque family kept her father a seat at their long Sunday table for twenty years. Every one of them has heard about the daughter who refused to call. A mining company wants the valley, and its offer would save her struggling rescue back home. All she has to do is sign.

Then a helicopter drives wild horses into Cal’s pens, among them a bloodied grey mare her father watched for eight years and never caught. Georgia stays to gentle the mare, alongside the one man who knows how, and who wants her gone. She learns that Cal has spent years fighting for a kinder way to bring wild horses in, and slowly his family set a place at their table for her too. They teach her their word for home, etxea: the house, the people in it and the ones who came before. For the first time since she was ten, Georgia has what she always wanted and never dared ask for: an etxea of her own. Soon she is on her feet at a packed public meeting, defending the man she once despised, and falling for him in a way she can’t afford.

When her own horses are given weeks to leave their fields, the mine’s money becomes the only way to save them. But selling would drain the creek that keeps the sanctuary alive, and destroy all Cal has left of the man who raised him. Refusing would cost the valley the jobs some of Cal’s own family are counting on. And it would cost Georgia everything she has worked for, to save the life her father built to replace her.

[PERSONALISATION]

[SIGN OFF]

Hi everyone,
Long time lurker first time poster.
This is my first attempt at publishing and my first attempt at writing a query.
I am still unclear about what genre I'll end up pitching this under as it feels like a cross genre, however any feedback is appreciated please be harsh, I'm a marshmallow but I need to hear it and want this to be a successful query process.
_~~
Dear [Agent]
I am seeking representation for THE LANGUAGE OF MONSTERS, a 92,000 word adult fantasy [still debating]. Heavily inspired by Greek mythology this novel is set in Post Revolutionary Olympus, where the demigods rule. [insert comps]
‘In Olympus We Defend’ was the oath Klaude Mykferos swore as she graduated the most prestigious school in Olympus. And just two weeks after graduation, her definition of that very oath is being tested. The two things she cares about most in her life have been labeled monstrous after a deadly accident leaves a demigod dead.
Raised in a prominent family, Klaude has never escaped the expectations society has laid out for her, she has fought and denied them. The friend of a Neried, the local sea nymphs that killed thousands of demigods, she often wished she’d been born with fins.
When a creature kills a demigod it’s just the start of the chaos in Terenesis, the coastal island in Olympus. Pretty soon animals are showing up dead, and demigods are falling ill. Klaude suspects they’re all connected, but in order to find out how she’ll need the help of the most monstrous thing she can imagine: another demigod.
As the clues stack up, Klaude remembers her oath, In Olympus We Defend, and she must decide what it truly means to defend Olympus.

[Insert Bio]

Keeping it slim, but are you getting enough to get a picture in your mind? Too many characters mentioned? Leo and Henry get the most screentime, but I don't know if that's coming across or even if it should. I've got no novel publications, so not sure if the personalization at the bottom is meaningless.

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

GROUNDLINGS (adult upmarket contemporary fiction, complete at 76k) combines regional Philly grit, the family dysfunction of Jami Attenberg’s All This Could Be Yours, and the dark humor of Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

The Triple Horn has thirty days to live.

That's the verdict from a slick consulting firm after they take one look at Leo Murphy's decrepit dive bar in Delaware County, PA. Instead of turning it around himself, Leo outsources the task by leaking retirement rumors to his four adult children. Each of them assumes it’ll be theirs, and they’ll tear the family apart to get it:

·Henry, the smartass stepson with a grudge, tries to prove Leo stole the bar using a forged will.

·Liz, the eldest daughter, encourages her bartender husband to steal the title deed by force.

·Emily, hot-headed and underestimated, packs the house with deafening metal bands to remake the bar in her own hard-nosed image.

·Deedee, black sheep and dancer at a gentleman’s club, resists Leo’s bait and instead demands his respect.

As the month progresses and the siblings’ schemes collide, the bar becomes a battlefield, turning GROUNDLINGS into a foul-mouthed, big-hearted dark comedy about a family racing the clock to save the one worthless thing they can’t stop fighting over.

I’m a Delco native with a doctorate in Composition & Applied Linguistics and I taught college English for ten years. My credits include the Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla graphic novel series (twice optioned for television), the children's book Scientists A to Z, and narrative for video games. I also wrote/designed Crowns & Castles, a tabletop RPG that debuted as a gold bestseller in its first month.

I am writing to you to pitch my novel Uncommon Lodgers, an upmarket historical fantasy complete at 78,000 words.

An amnesiac consciousness awakens in the body of a new-born kitten in late Victorian South London with no idea what exactly it is. It may be a spirit, an accidentally summoned demon or even just a remarkably eloquent cat. Regardless, when it is delivered into the care of the young and brilliant but chronically ill Peg, she quickly names him Wolly after the proto-feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft.

Together the pair begin to build a small but peaceful life in their attic sanctuary. Yet the walls won't hold back the fast changing world forever. Because Peg's suitor Gus reeks of want alongside his love, even as he speaks of anonymous donors and great works, and the lodging house residents grow ever more suspicious of an unmarried woman with a black cat as a companion. It's a lot for a little Wolly and a struggling artist to think about, especially when there are toes to chase and bills to pay...

When their leafy suburban garden is sold off to a mysterious developer who begins the noisy work of building a great mansion, Wolly and Peg learn to communicate and work together in the face of traumatised ex-soldiers, radical saboteurs and whispering demons with promises of great power.

For the residents of the lodging house must soon decide how far they will go to protect what they love, while Wolly wrestles with an existential choice and inner demon of his own. But - more importantly - when will Peg return with the fish?

Uncommon Lodgers will appeal to readers who enjoyed discovering the world alongside the amnesiac narrator in Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, the non-human philosophical observations and themes of loneliness and illness in Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun and the occult-tinged Victorian atmosphere of Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent.

Uncommon Lodgers is my debut novel, although I have been a professional copywriter and part-time journalist for more than a decade

____

I know agents don't like rhetorical questions, but I do (lol) and I hope this works. Please let me know if that could really be a deal breaker and my darling should die and be replaced by the alternative version, or whatever else you think about this query attempt. Thanks!

Thanks in advance - my manuscript is done and I'm thinking of querying - this is my first novel.

Dear [Agent Name],

For eighteen years, Meredith Carter has lived two lives.

Every night, she falls asleep beside Ben, her husband of seventeen years, in the Memphis home they share with their four children. And every night, she wakes in another house beside Theo, another husband, with two children of their own. Meredith remembers both lives, but only when she is with Ben. When she wakes beside Theo, the other life disappears from her mind like a dream.

Meredith has spent nearly two decades believing that is exactly what it is: an impossibly detailed recurring dream. Then, at forty-two years and eighty-three days old, she sleeps straight through the night.

The second life is gone.

She grieves a husband and children she cannot prove ever existed, until she sees Theo standing at a Memphis bus stop. Except the man wearing Theo's face calls himself Ted. He has no wife, no children, and no idea who Meredith is. Then Theo begins appearing inside Ted for hours at a time. His first words to Meredith are: You left us.

Theo's children are real. They believe their mother disappeared without a trace. And the paintings Meredith left behind depict a house, a husband, and four children from the life she thought was real.

As objects, memories, and eventually entire places begin slipping between the two versions of Memphis, Meredith, Ben, and Theo discover that these are not parallel worlds. One is an eighteen-year-old fold in reality, created by a few lost seconds on a park trail. And the fold is coming apart. The only person holding Meredith's world together is the husband who accidentally created it.

To save the people she loves, Meredith will have to discover why reality split around her in the first place—and what it will cost to put it back together.

MEREDITH, TWICE, complete at 83,000 words, is adult upmarket speculative fiction with a strong romantic core. It will appeal to readers of Holly Gramazio's The Husbands for its alternate-life domestic premise and Adrienne Young's The Unmaking of June Farrow for its emotionally charged lost-life mystery. At its center is not the question of which husband Meredith should choose, but what makes a life real, and what love looks like when saving someone means agreeing to be forgotten.

[bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I can’t believe I get to write one of these but…I got an agent!

Stats:

Started querying: 31^st July

First offer: 9^th October

Queries sent: 85

Rejections: 36

Requests: 18 (10 pre-offer, 8 post-offer)

Offers of representation: 3

Bonus stats I was interested in when querying:

Average time between a query and a request: 7 days

Longest time between a query and a request: 6 weeks

Time between first offering agent requesting full and offer: 2 weeks

Number of agents who requested this project after requesting the first: 2 (and one is now my agent!)

My experience / thoughts:

I have been writing my whole life and this was the second book I queried. The first, last year, got 6 requests for a similar number of queries. The biggest difference this time was the speed of responses – I started getting full requests from the first few queries and form rejections much, much faster (they only trickled in after a couple of months last time). I also got quite a few referrals onto other agents this time – 7 overall – which made me think that I was onto something, although a bit worried it wouldn’t find a home! I paid for a Query Tracker subscription which was 100% worth the money and I dithered over Publisher’s Marketplace but in the end went for it and I’m so glad I did – again, definitely worth it. I took into account agent profiles / websites, manuscript wishlists and then checked that against QT data & PM stats to create my list. I intended to batch but then when I got two full requests quite quickly I decided to just smash them all out when I had time. I mostly queried in August and then again at the very start of October when some closed agents opened to submissions.

When I got the first email asking to set up a call I nearly threw up. I didn’t know it was an offer so naturally deep-dived on here and managed to convince myself it was probably going to end in nothing. I was honestly shocked to get a call as at that point I had had four passes on fulls in quick succession, all saying similar things (“love the writing but not sure how to sell it”) so wondered if I had simply written an unmarketable book. Obviously, that may well be the case and it could flop on sub BUT I then got lovely feedback from the three offering agents and it’s gotten me this far at least.

From the first offer to now has felt like a whirlwind. I nudged everyone with a full and an open query. The post-offer requests came in over the first couple of days after nudging and I then did a gentle nudge on fulls a couple of days before the deadline which shook out the third offer. I had imagined being in this position would feel amazing but I actually felt quite stressed out by the whole thing!

The first two agents offered on the call itself while the third offered via email first as I was quite close to the 2 week deadline and we chatted afterwards. Each call felt very different and there was a lot to think about in order to make a decision. I made lots of notes on the calls and ensured I had my list of questions in front of me (I’m so glad I followed this advice as my brain short-circuited and I would have forgotten everything without prompts!). There was a lot of conversation from all three about future projects, not just this one, and I also talked about books a lot – both ones in my genre and other stuff I have read recently - but then, I am an avid reader so I tend to talk about books a lot with everyone when possible!

For what it’s worth, I think the query letter doesn’t need to be perfect; in fact, I’d go so far as to say it is impossible to write a ‘perfect’ query. On the same day I got the email asking for a call, I also got a rejection to a query that basically ripped my query and sample pages to shreds so make of that what you will!

It’s worth noting I have zero writing credentials, do not have much in the way of social media and have no links to publishing or anything to catch anyone’s attention other than with my writing. I hope this is reassuring to people like me who are concerned you need to be an influencer-type or have some incredible achievements under your belt to get noticed! You don’t! I am also UK based and while I had a fairly even split of US and UK agents requesting, all three offers were made by US/Canadian agents. I see on here UK writers asking about querying US agencies and it’s definitely worth a shot!

Anyway, a massive thank you to this sub! I have lurked here religiously since I decided to start querying my first project and it is an absolute goldmine of information. I was not brave enough to post my query but used all the advice and critiques on here to write it.

Best of luck to everyone querying or gearing up to query! And I will definitely be continuing to visit for support once I’m on sub - which, frankly, sounds more terrifying than querying! Ha! I cannot believe I have an agent!!!!!

After a brief time querying I got an offer of rep (woohoo!) and notified everyone sitting on a query or partial.

Two agents with my full prior to rep stepped aside. Five when from query/ partial to full. Since then, nothing. I’m eight days in with a week left on the deadline and I haven’t heard a word from any of the five.

For those who have been through the notification window: when did your requesting agents actually come back? Did they trickle in across the window or did everything land in the last few days? Did anyone go past the deadline and ask for an extension, and did you grant it? Are most agents ghosting?

Mostly trying to figure out whether silence at the halfway mark means anything or whether this is just what the window looks like from the inside. So if you have days where your offers came in or days when the rejections came it that'd be awesome to hear!

NA dystopian romance, if that matters!

Thank you for your responses in advance!

Hi! After revising my query from the first attempt, second attempt, third attempt, and fourth attempt, I'm back with another attempt.

I'm really grateful to everyone who has given me feedback so far. Especially grateful to u/forgetfulelephant65 and u/hedgehogwriting for their help in the DMs ❤️ :)

I would like some general feedback, as well as answers to specific questions I have:

1. Is the plot clear? Do all the elements work together or do they feel disjointed?
2. Are the emotional stakes strong enough?
3. Do you feel curious about the story in a good way (like you'd pick this up in the romance section of a bookstore or request a full if you were a literary agent) or in a bad way (being confused about wtf is going on)?
4. How do you find the tone? Is it fitting for the genre?

Any feedback touching on something not mentioned is absolutely welcome!

Dear [Agent],

Given your interest in [PERSONALIZATION], I’m excited to share LOVE ME, LOVE YOU, my 71,000-word adult rom-com. Love Island meets the destination wedding backdrop of The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce in this single POV, dual timeline story. It will appeal to readers who appreciate stories where the setting is also a character like in How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang. 

Stuck at a weeklong destination wedding with the ex who dumped her on a dating show, risk-averse bridesmaid Grace Amobi can’t stop questioning whether love, or the romance-themed podcast she hosts, is meant for her. She’s ready for something new, but with the studio's time-bound offer to extend her contract, she’s scared about what it would mean for the only career she has ever known. Things only get more complicated when her bestie, and bride-to-be, blindsides her with news regarding the wedding: the ex from said dating show is filling in for the suddenly “unavailable” best man.

Mohan Pillai is still the same man with a dimpled smile who charmed her three years ago on the set of Love On Lock; a dating show where the prize is true love. Then, he was guarded, but she fell in love with him anyway because he could understand her in a way no one else could. So when he dumped her on national television, it shattered her heart and her ability to trust her own judgement.

Now, Mohan has gone to therapy, and is finally able to say everything he couldn’t back then. Being around him reminds her just how well he knows her, and Grace finds herself falling, once more, for the man she swore never to speak to again. As the wedding festivities fly by, and with time running out for her to give the studio an answer, Grace is forced to wonder if listening to her heart will be a risk worth taking.

I am a debut author with a certificate from NYU’s summer writing program, and an obsession with reality TV. I live in the DFW, but I long for a rainy city. In my free time, you can find me juggling between amateur photography, endless crochet projects, and working my way through my never ending reading and viewing lists.

Thank you for your consideration,

[WRITER]

Dear AGENT, 

TW: Sexual Assault, Suicide Attempt 

I'm querying you because [personalization]. IT WON'T STOP is a YA speculative contemporary, complete at 82,000 words, following a teen who walks into dreams to make sure the man who raped her never sleeps again. It pairs the survivor's rage of Kim DeRose's FOR GIRLS WHO WALK THROUGH FIRE with the aftermath of harm explored in Amber Smith's THE WAY I USED TO BE series.

Sarcastic, outspoken seventeen-year-old Anais Johnson has trusted Ty Walker, her older brother's best friend and the town's beloved youth coach, since she was eight. Then he rapes her. When she fights back, he turns the wound she leaves into leverage: tell anyone, and she's the one who'll be arrested for assault. Blaming herself is easier than believing what he did, and with Ty still at her house every day, the girl with a comeback for everything goes quiet.

Anais unravels until a suicide attempt leaves her in a coma. She wakes with an ability she can't control: every time she sleeps, she's pulled into other people's dreams. Once she learns to steer the pull, she finds Ty's. There, she isn't the girl pinned beneath him. She's the one in control, and she decides that if she can't live in peace, he won't sleep in it.

Night after night, she burns his dreams to the ground. The town sees a good man losing sleep, but when Ty realizes it's her, he comes for her where she's weakest: awake. In his dreams, Anais can break his mind, but nightmares can't hold him accountable in daylight. For that, she'll have to say what he did out loud, knowing that if no one believes her, Ty walks free, her brother keeps his best friend, and the town she grew up in brands her a liar.

[Small bio]

Thanks for reading,

X

300 words:

1: Almost Invisible   
October 5th, 2026 

Last night, I prayed for today to be clear. Blue should be the final color the sky gives Axel before his coffin is lowered, but God hasn’t heard me in a while, and outside, gray clouds are thick against the sky. Wind shoves me across the driveway and I settle in the backseat of Dad’s Escalade, which always smells like leather, but today it smells like cologne, thick enough to taste, and under it, a tang of liquor. At least it’s not a far drive. I click my seatbelt on, and the zipper of this stupid dress stabs into my back, which is what I get for trying it on an hour ago for the first time. In the passenger seat, Mom wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. Dad catches my eye when he starts driving, adjusting the rearview mirror clumsily. “Christ, Anais, fix your face. Did you sleep?” 

My face softens on command, then I inch my foot toward Aiden’s and nudge his shoe, our I need you signal; we’ve used it for years. He doesn’t nudge back or even look. Fine. But he’s not getting through Axel’s funeral without doing it. His black curls are all I get while he stares out the window. What would Axel make of Aiden’s great retreat from me? He’d tell me our big brother is in Grump Mode. 

His voice should be in my head, but lately it’s been harder to reach. Instead, I pop in an earbud and scroll to an old video of Axel lining up tiny soldiers, introducing each one by name. It’s almost perfect in the video; the pitch is right, but the aliveness isn’t.

———
Note: Ty is introduced right after my 300 word cut off. My questions this round:
- Do the comps work?
- Is it okay that the book is a slow burn when the query focuses on the faster moments? (I cut my slow-burn opener based on earlier feedback in the Q.)
- Is it ready/near ready to send?

Thanks in advance!

This has been revised over multiple weeks of comments, completely demolished and restructured. I hope it's landing the way I intend now.

Previous attempts:

First attempt: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/s/59YYGPygzu

Attempt from last week: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/s/HreUW7dcpO

Hello all,

I'm testing out a query and need a little bit of guidance. Without the bio it comes in around 350 words, is that too high?

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

Dear Agent,

Parasite X Bad Summer People

I’m excited for you to consider my XXk thriller, RATS & ROACHES. It mixes the lavish lifestyles and moral privileges of wealthy people as seen in Emma Rosenblum’s Bad Summer People with the dangers of individuals being in over their heads as seen in Rachel Koller Croft’s Stone Cold Fox.

While Callie Hall is breaking into the home of a wealthy family whose property she oversees, she stumbles onto a dead body floating in the pool. Her year-long plan of slowly weaving herself into the private lives of her residents had been going perfectly until this, and she isn’t prepared to let one dead body ruin it all. 

Jaylen Richards has been named as the new head pro for Palm Lotus’ tennis club. An underachiever, he’s more interested in flirting with the married housewives and rubbing shoulders with their cocky husbands, than dedicating himself to his craft. With his career aspirations long gone, and his life going nowhere, a little fun with a few well-connected people wouldn’t hurt.  

What no one at Palm Lotus knows is that Callie and Jaylen are siblings, and their jobs in the community are anything but coincidence. Jaylen thought it was silly; befriending these people to get “in” with them. But then he saw her plan; the man responsible for signing off on the life insurance policy of their late father is one of the residents, and a damning document that potentially incriminates them in his death has been sent to his address. With that family away for the summer, and the rest of the community firmly in their palms, this is their chance to erase that evidence and make sure these privileged fools get a dose of their own medicine. 

As the calming voice of reason, Callie’s role as property manager has provided her with a means of knowing all of the secrets of the neighborhood; and Jaylen’s charismatic nature has crossed several lines, leaving him with plenty of leverage. What started as a way to protect their ticket to a better future has turned into a dangerous game of power and control. 

I’ve worked for several years as the Director of Tennis at a country club and have seen all sorts of eye-opening behaviors of the rich and affluent. As a former behavior therapist, it has been a fascinating experience to view under a different lens, and has left me with plenty of real life experiences to draw from. 

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

First 300:

The booms and jeers from the party instantly faded as I closed the door behind me- hurricane proof windows can do that. My adrenaline was pumping, but at least I felt some relief being inside, and out of sight. There was an eerie calm as I looked around the sweeping foyer, and out to the moon-kissed pool that glistened ahead of me. I didn’t notice it initially and instead dashed behind a stone bar and slid my hand against the remote that controlled the automated blinds, slowly closing them shut. I just wanted to be hidden. Standing next to the sliding doors I could hear a few muffled roars, and the thumps of what sounded like a Sabrina Carpenter song, but I turned my attention to the main floor of the home that was now shrouded in darkness. Any temptation to turn on the light from my phone was quelled by the risk of drawing any attention to the home, especially because the Moros’ weren't due back for another week, and I had no business being there. The only choice was to work my way around the home in the dark, letting the small slivers of dusk guide me around. I’d studied their floorplan for months, in preparation, yet I felt nearly blind as I tried to familiarize myself. It was strange, because this moment had been planned for over a year, from that very first party and his loose-lipped drunken honesty, but I was riddled with both fear and excitement. My heart was pounding and my nervous breathing became the only thing that I could hear.

I made my way to Joseph Moros’ office, which was at the end of a walkway lined with smiling family photos on either side. Then it hit me- the object that my eyes had only moments ago ignored. I knew what I’d seen; what my eyes wanted me to ignore; what my mind tried to erase. The dead body.

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

I have another version that focused more on the neighborhood itself and the impact the dead body has on the two protags, but that version lost the "why" (their late father/ the inheritance). I feel like this direction gives them more agency, and explains their motivations, while still dropping hints at their underlying tensions of the story itself. Is that working?

Thank you again for the prior feedback. My first attempt is available here. I’ve since taken the recommendations to heart and made updates to my letter below. 

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

Dear [Agent]:

Dr. Cole Andrews is a family man who deeply loves his pregnant wife. He will kill her in three days.

Cole is living his dream: he works as a physicist, leading a team of scientists conducting government-funded research into the possibility of time travel. But when he is shot by a mysterious assassin who always seems to know his next move, the attack triggers a perilous chase through Columbus, Ohio. What Cole doesn’t realize is that his pursuer is himself: an aging Cole Andrews from the future. In the wake of the pursuit, a family friend is murdered and the police target Cole as the primary suspect. Confronted with Cole’s lies and DNA found at the scene of a homicide, even Cole’s wife is growing convinced that her husband may be a murderer.

Cole discovers some of his most sensitive research has been stolen and questions who he can trust. As desperation sets in, he is no longer the man who would spill his every secret when his wife utters the word pineapple. Now he is lying to her. He buys a gun (he hates guns). He befriends a backwoods bar patron with a distrust for authority. With the police closing in, Cole unwittingly races against himself as the two men seek to protect their family from the danger posed by the other. But as the pressure mounts, Cole’s spiral risks turning him into the very threat he is running from.

[Personalization] LAST REGRETS is an adult speculative thriller, complete at 76,000 words. The novel will appeal to readers of high-concept thrillers with family stakes like Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter, as well as stories featuring an everyman on the run, such as Joseph Finder’s The Oligarch’s Daughter.

[Bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

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

300 words - Prologue

Dr. Cole Andrews had never fired a gun before that moment. The grip felt foreign in his hand, the violence of the recoil unexpected. He stood paralyzed as the smell of gunpowder began to fill the room. His hand trembled as he dropped the gun, watching as it struck the hardwood floor with a quiet thud. Watching as it landed beside his wife, crumpled below his feet, body contorted in the most unnatural of ways.

Blood had begun to pool around her body, oozing its way into her beautiful, long brown hair. Dr. Andrews sobbed as he pulled at his hair in disbelief. He fell to his knees, burying his head against her as he pulled her lifeless body into his arms. His tears fell onto her floral dress, the one she had worn at her cousin’s wedding last year. It was a wonderful night, with friends and dancing and too much champagne. Never again.

Andrews’ gaze turned to his wife’s stomach. Her pregnant stomach. He sobbed harder, clutching her with both hands as the blood continued to seep through her dress.

They were entering the third trimester. He was so close to finally meeting their baby, his son. The child they had waited so long for.

They had laughed off the idea of a kid for years, even as family would persistently ask when they would try. “I’m so busy with work right now,” Andrews would say, before his wife would joke that genes as good as his shouldn’t be wasted. All while flashing her beautiful smile. The smile that Andrews had fallen in love with. The smile that he swore to honor and protect.  

But in an instant, one split second, it was lost. All of it. 

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The prologue continues before flashing back 3 days to begin Chapter 1.

I again welcome any feedback, including whether the update to explicitly include the speculative framing works. Thanks again!

Hi! I'm finally posting here after lurking for ages. I intend to initially query in the UK, where from what I've seen agents prefer a shorter summary. I've seen many places say 200 words and my summary portion is exactly 199 words haha. So I might not have much room to expand, but please point out anything you think can be cut or simplified. I tried to transmit voice/tone as much as possible, but it's possibly too much lol.

Any and all input is welcome, thanks in advance!

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((personalisation)) I’m pleased to share THE WAYWARD SISTER, an 88,000-word fantasy mystery about a streetwise witch who solves supernatural crimes while protecting her teen vampire brother.  Perfect for fans of mystery set in a unique fantasy world, such as in Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup and Premee Mohammed’s Wickhills, the acerbic lesbian protagonist might also appeal to readers of P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn.

Ruth Penrose, an unregistered witch, is unusually skilled at finding people who don’t want to be found. She knows what it’s like to live on the run— her brother is a vampire, stuck forever in adolescence, who Ruth must keep hidden from the authorities. The latest haven for the Penrose siblings is the industrial island city of Colpoole, where Ruth decides to put her talents to use as a private detective so she can fund her brother’s unique dietary requirements. She quickly lands her first case: a missing witch named Isla Rathbone.

Before she vanished, Isla worked as a magical nurse, administering haemoglobin injections to local vampires to prevent attacks on the human population. By digging in places she probably shouldn’t, Ruth learns of an affair between Isla and one of her patients, a rebellious “vamparchist” squatter, as well as uncovering threatening notes from a cheesemonger with a grudge against the undead. When Isla’s boyfriend reveals he turned her into a vampire, it’s clear this job won’t be the easy money-spinner Ruth had expected. Isla’s unlife may be at stake, but Ruth’s priority is keeping her brother safe, and she must decide whether it’s worth getting involved at all.

((bio))

Been many months since I an updated, so not exactly sure how many I've posted. (I delete most of my posts). Thanks in advance for feedback.

Dear [Agent],

SEE. SPOT. RUN. is a 90,000-word YA science fiction novel with thriller and romance elements. It will appeal to readers of Darkly by Marisha Pessl and The Singular Life of Aria Patel by Samira Ahmed.

Sixteen-year-old Melissa Miller sees things that aren’t there. Squiggles, spots, animals. A toad on her chest in the medicine cabinet mirror. A koala on her mom’s shoulders. A bull on Brett's chest, as distracting as his cleft chin. They all arrive with headaches.

The medication her taciturn, armed father drops off used to work. Used to. Not anymore.

“Alcohol may increase effects.” Challenge accepted, Small Amber Bottle. 

But she’s finished the gin from the painting shed, and the convenience store won’t sell her more.

The useless drugs? Not so useless, when they’re swapped for experimental ones. The animals vanish, because they were never there. Her brain put them in place to save her from madness. Melissa isn’t hallucinating. She sees beyond the visible spectrum, a trait she probably inherited from her mom. That makes her one in a billion, and worth more with her eyes out than in.

Now her dad has been arrested for stealing that medication, her mom is missing, and an FBI agent says Melissa’s DNA was stolen and sold to human traffickers. Cue the kidnappers. Cue the deadly side effects. Still, seeing through walls is useful when you’re hunting for a mother who ran away, or was kidnapped, or both.

Escaping the kidnappers herself? Not likely, unless Brett (he's blind, btw) steals the gun from her house, tracks her through a rideshare app, and trips them with his cane. All of which he does. The first kiss follows. Too fast, but it will have to do.

Does her life get dark? Yes. Will the girl who sees too much and the boy who sees nothing stay together? Not telling. Will she trade her eyes to keep her mother from being dissected? Absolutely.

Bio: [...]

Query below! I'm struggling with stakes and how to include voice / specificity without tons of extraneous details, so feedback on those two would be especially useful.

Dear [agent],

Karin’s emptied her savings and driven her mostly functional pickup truck all the way to Houston, only to discover her job offer has fallen through. She can’t possibly ask her new roommates to front her rent, so she applies for a job at Houston’s pro soccer team. The job is a parade of red flags, from the requirement to drive around their new player to the boss who cannot remember her name, but the paycheck makes up for it.

Patrick's been loaned to the Houston Thunder from his Bundesliga-winning team, and he’s counting down the days to get back to his far superior home team and his hospitalized twin sister. Everything annoys him: Karin's duct-taped pickup truck, her terrible taste in music, and worst of all, her habit of calling football soccer.

Karin will be damned if she lets one grouchy man get in between her and this paycheck. If she brings him coffee every morning in a sparkly thermos, it's just to troll him. Same if she makes mixtapes for their morning drives. She can't possibly fall for a professional athlete, especially not her boss.

The longer they spend together, the more Karin sees the private Patrick – the one who calls his sister every morning and sends gifts for Karin’s roommates. As Karin builds a life and career in Houston, she falls for him. But admitting her feelings would mean losing her job – and Patrick’s only in Houston on a loan.

ONLY WITH YOU is a 85,000 word slow-burn romance. It has the slow burn of One Golden Summer and the warmth and found family of The Name Game. I grew up in [a relevant location] and now live in [a somewhat relevant location]. I write a travel blog with more than forty thousand monthly readers. 

Hello all, I am back again at another attempt! I'm still in the midst of editing and thinking to query sometime next year, but I'm getting ahead of myself haha.

It's been almost a year since my last attempt and I now have a better idea of what my storv is. I've tried incorporating past feedback (reduce proper nouns, focus on 1 POV vs 2, etc).

Dear [Agent],

I'm pleased to submit for your consideration A MANGROVE OF GHOSTS, a 105k-word dark fantasy novel inspired by Southeast Asian folklore. Perfect for fans of Shannon Charkraborty's *The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi* and Sunyi Dean's *The Girl With a Thousand Faces*, it features a grieving mother's journey to resurrect her daughter that descends into visceral body horror reminiscent of Cassandra Khaw's *The Salt Grows Heavy*.

Ever since her daughter died at birth, Suriya has searched far and wide for a sorcerer to bring her back to life. For now, she's a hantu--a malicious ghost that terrorizes the archipelago.

Most sorcerers are swindlers, or worse, hantu hunters like herself attempting to slay her child. But when Suriya hears rumors of a pirate-sorcerer Jaberu, who has mastered the art of transferring souls to living flesh, she takes the chance and sails the seas. If her daughter's soul is transferred to a new vessel, can she live and breathe again? Her quest intertwines with a young sorcerer apprentice, Warih, who claims to have known this sorcerer, and that his father's disappearance is tied to him.

As they move in Jaberu's pursuit, Suriya realizes she's not the only one. There are many like her seeking Jaberu to resurrect their loved ones. However, it becomes clear that he never intends to bring anyone back. Driven by revenge against the sultan, he exploits their grief to amass souls, using them to raise a sea monster long thought to be dead. Past secrets surface from the depths, tragic tales that eerily reflect Suriya's and Warih's wounds. They are forced to contend with their regrets and question their place in life--whether closure is ever possible--before their home is destroyed for good.

[Bio]

Thank you for your consideration.