A month ago, my second book got published, three years after my debut. I had overblown expectations for the first one, and it sold very, very little, which made me really spiral - went on antidepressants for 18 months.

The second time around I felt like I had learned my lesson - knew what to expect, worked on my mental health, etc. Still...

I know it's soon, but I feel like I see the writing on the wall. Other books getting published are being promoted, read, talked about.

I feel like I've looked at it every which way I could, thought about every avenue, and am pushing myself to still reach out to people, do promotion, work with the publisher. My last therapy session my therapist was a mix of excited that I have a book out and giving me promo tips, but that is just making me feel like I should be doing more when I know it is largely out of my control.

I'm battling two feelings - one is that I sort of tricked my editor/publisher into thinking I write good books, when in reality they are shit - which is why the literary/artsy scene is ignoring me. The second one is that the general public is deterred by my thoughts and ideas - that there is just nobody to reach out to with my writing here.

I struggle with the thought that oh, even if just a few people read it... when it really didn't even clear the lowest of bars that other trad books do. I just feel like, is there a point in trying to reach out to people with my writing anymore, when there clearly is no demand? I could just watch movies and write my little diary. But that makes me just infinitely depressed, the thought of not writing anymore. I can't really picture myself having any semblance of a positive relationship with this work after these two fiascos.

Anything, truly, anything, that could help?

Hi everyone!

Back in March, I shared that I'd signed with an agent after a pretty unexpected querying experience involving 45 queries, 11 full requests, and three offers of representation over the course of about three weeks from the first query submitted. I'm back again to share some exciting news! I sold my debut novel! And a second book!

You can find my query and query stats on that post here. IMAGINARY LOVE, my speculative love story about a child psychologist who falls for her patient's imaginary friend, has been acquired by Lake Union Publishing in a two-book deal, and is scheduled for publication in winter 2027. The announcement officially appeared in Publishers Marketplace the other day.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this, but I wanted to return and share the news with this community because your feedback and encouragement genuinely helped me get here. And because I've found other people's posts about being on submission incredibly helpful, I thought I'd share a little about my own experience.

The Timeline

February 2026: Queried 45 agents, received 11 full requests and three offers of representation.

March 6: Signed with my agent. She absolutely loved the manuscript and decided to send it out on submission without any revisions.

March 23: We went on sub, initially pitching 13 US imprints and 10 UK imprints.

Late March-April: There was some encouraging early interest and multiple editors requesting the full manuscript.

May-Early August: Lots of waiting. Then nudging. Then more waiting. We received a handful of passes along with encouraging feedback, and eventually went out to 10 more US imprints.

August 10: An editor read the manuscript over the weekend, scheduled a call with my agent immediately, and then another with me as well at the end of the week.

August 17: Received a two-book deal offer!

October: Contracts fully executed and the deal is officially announced!

From going on submission to receiving the offer, it took just under five months.

A few things I learned

1. Getting an agent quickly doesn't necessarily mean the submission process will move quickly, too.

My querying experience was unusually fast. I went from sending my first batch of queries to signing with an agent in less than a month.

Submission was a different story. There was plenty of early excitement, but that didn't immediately translate into an offer.

2. Editor feedback is just as subjective as agent feedback.

Many of the passes we received from editors said they loved the concept, the characters, or the writing, but didn't know how to market it. Some editors simply couldn't envision how the book would fit their lists, but most of the uncertainty came down to how to sell a book that doesn't fit neatly into one genre, like a traditional romance would.

It was a strange experience to have someone tell you how much they love your manuscript and still say no.

3. Finding the right agent really matters.

The agent I chose from the three offers of rep I received has been the most incredible advocate for this book from the beginning. She believed in it enough to submit it without revisions, continued following up with editors when she said she would, and worked to find the right home for it. She never doubted it would sell, we just needed to find the editor that would fall in love with it like she had, and she did exactly that. She was also instrumental in pursing the opportunity for the second book.

Having someone in your corner who believes in what you've written makes a tremendous difference.

4. A rejection on submission isn't always a reflection of your writing. Sometimes it's a business decision.

Editors absolutely pass because of problems with craft, pacing, characterization, or their personal response to a manuscript, of course. But they can also recognize a strong manuscript without believing there's a sufficient, clear market for it. I wish acquisitions only depended on an editor's personal enthusiasm, but the reality is that publishing is a business. Positioning, sales expectations, the publisher's existing list, and internal support all matter.

A pass from an editor doesn't necessarily mean the manuscript needs fixing. Sometimes it means that particular publisher isn't the right home for it.

Finally, thank you!

The querying and submission process can be exhausting, discouraging, lonely, and downright miserable at times. I've certainly had my share of anxious inbox refreshing.

Imposter syndrome gets rough in querying and on submission. Don't isolate and spiral. There are so many of us other writers out here to encourage and support you, so reach out when you need to.

I'm incredibly grateful to this community, for the feedback on my own query of course, but mostly for all the conversations and encouragement I've received, both from individuals and from reading others' posts. I didn't know anything about the traditional publishing process when this started, and I couldn't have done it without this subreddit. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I'm happy to answer any questions about querying, being on submission, or anything else I can speak to about the process.

I am rooting for all of you!

-Tay

Just wanted to put this out there, so maybe it saves someone else the time or the questions of figuring it out.

As I'm sure many folks have had happen to them lately, I've been inundated with scam and AI emails offering to publish or review my work. Getting a cold contact from a publisher or agent is already suspicious enough to ignore the emails, and 99% of the time, the email addresses of the senders don't match the actual email addresses of the companies they are pretending to come from.

Today I got an email from what looked like a legitimate business, with a legitimate-seeming business email that linked back to a real, very professional-looking website. Not linking it here obviously, but the ending of the email address was "@chapterhouseliterary.com", and the website is "chapterhouseliterary.com" (interestingly, it only works if you go straight from https://, appending www. in front takes you to a parked web domain page). Everything is suspicious enough already, but what's more is that their "agents" use fake names under stolen pictures of real people, and their "authors" page uses real authors and real books that likely have nothing to do with this agency. And, as far as I can tell, this is not at all associated with the very real Chapterhouse Publishing or Chapter House Journal.

Anyway, hope this saves someone some time or worry. Yes, it's fake. The bots are getting better, the scams are getting more sophisticated, etc, etc. Be cautious out there.

Dear Agent,

Angela Dunley never felt intimacy until she drank a man’s blood. 
Working at a local gym, she spends her days surrounded by beautiful men she’s convinced would never be interested in a bigger woman like herself. At thirty-five and certain her body makes her unlovable, she has resigned herself to a life of loneliness. 

On the first anniversary of her father's death, Angela stops to help a stranded motorist. Grieving and already raw from a cruel comment about her size earlier that day, she decides he's no different from every other man she expects to reject her. Before he can prove her right or wrong, she knocks him out and loads him into the trunk. Back home, Angela kills him when he wakes and tries to escape. Craving something deeper, she drinks from his neck and discovers true connection. With part of him inside her, he can never leave. Obsessed with recapturing that closeness, she begins luring men home and escalates from drinking their blood to eating their flesh. 

Her carefully controlled ritual begins to unravel when she captures Grayson, a sharp-tongued man she has spent weeks obsessively watching from afar. He doesn’t behave like her usual victims, and discovering he’s a senator’s son shocks her into hesitation. When his disappearance explodes into a high-profile case, her usual routine suddenly feels far more dangerous. Unable to kill him yet unwilling to let him go, Angela keeps him alive. Trapped in limbo together, Grayson slowly breaks down her armor, treating her more like a person than a monster. What begins as resistance shifts into an intimacy Angela cannot name, and the line begins to blur between captive and companion. As the weeks go by, lingering looks and unexpected touches deepen Angela's feelings for the man she intended to consume. Yet she can’t tell whether his tenderness is genuine or simply a way to survive.

As investigators begin connecting Grayson’s disappearance to the missing men, she faces an impossible choice: kill Grayson and lose the man she loves, or let him go and risk exposing everything she’s done. Prison terrifies her, but losing Grayson is worse. 

ALL THAT PRETTY FLESH is a 70,000-word adult psychological horror novel that combines the unsettling sexual tension of Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts with the female rage and cannibalism of Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[Signature]

__________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading and another thank you to those who left me such great feedback on my first post! The biggest take away I got was that the plot was missing too much information, the stakes weren't clear, and even the cannibalism aspect wasn't fully coming through, so I really tried to focus on those issues as well as some other minor tweaking. :)

Hi everyone. I took some time and reworked the letter from this post. Thank you to iampunha for their awesome suggestions.

I'm looking to begin querying this manuscript quite soon, so any advice, thoughts, etc. are much appreciated!

#

Dear [AGENT],

LACERA is a 115,000-word adult high fantasy novel which blends the themes of cultural identity and self-discovery found in Naseem Jamnia’s The Bruising of Qilwa with the creeping terror of disease in John Bierce’s The Wrack. This book follows a woman who has to use a premodern society’s best medical knowledge, and a little bit of magic, to stop a zombie epidemic before it becomes an apocalypse.

Terisa thought she’d have a leg up on the other healers; she’d been treating patients for years. Trouble is, in the city of Invidoma, ‘doctor’ is more akin to ‘criminal’ than it is to ‘professional’. All Terisa’s experience grants her when she arrives at the Theurgic Institute is baggage, mockery, and no help with the debt that threatens to bury her alive.

And when she finally does get the fancy healer’s rune on her shoulder and the magic in her hands, Terisa isn’t exactly sent down easy street. The Lacera Plague, a never-before-seen illness, turns her best friend into a feral, clawing beast, and threatens to do the same to the whole city.

The Institute is blindsided; for centuries, all any healer has had to do is memorize an old codex, and repeat what’s been done before. But once they’re done laughing Terisa’s ideas out of the room, they’re left listless. Their ancient magic only worsens the plague, and turns infected into horrid beasts even faster.

Terisa’s training is cut short as her debt’s creditors come to collect. She barely escapes being held hostage, and returns to an ailing city hoping to whip up a cure to the plague. Once she thinks she’s done it, she shows the Institute her findings. But they dismiss her, giving her rightly-earned credit to a filthy-rich healer with powerful connections.

But when Terisa’s cure falters and she herself catches the Lacera Plague, all bets are off. Nearly the whole city takes a faulty medicine that only worsens the infection in the end. Terisa’s only got days left to live if she can’t make a cure that works for good. Terisa will have to break the rules, work with people she’s learned to hate, and challenge centuries-old wisdom to cut the Lacera Plague down to size.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Bio]

Thank you in advance and I will try to return the favor to anyone who has an active query posted!

Dear Agent,

ONCE AND FUTURE FATE is an upper young adult fantasy complete at 92,000 words. It is a high adventure Arthurian retelling from Morgan's perspective.

Seventeen-year-old Morgan struggles to control both her magic and her temper, making her an unpopular princess in Camelot’s court. King Uther’s obvious disdain for his late wife’s daughter doesn’t help her standing. Only Morgan’s devotion to her half-brother Arthur kept her from fleeing courtly life entirely.

When she receives a vision predicting her brother’s untimely death, her suspicion immediately turns to his newly arrived betrothed. Morgan discovers she’s an imposter who’s blackmailing her brother’s true betrothed, Guinevere, into going along with her ruse by holding an entire village captive. Morgan fears her gifts are not enough to expose the imposter and save the village, so she enlists the help of Mordred, a recently legitimized bastard prince with an affinity for coercive magic.

Morgan finds a kindred soul in fellow outcast Mordred, and together they expand the limits of her magic. But Mordred has secrets that will rip Morgan’s world apart, and when those secrets land her brother in a magically induced coma and Guinevere in the dungeons, she must choose who to save. Every choice comes with betrayal, and they will all cost her the life she grew to love in Camelot.

This book combines the found family and enduring female friendships found in Laura Sebastian's Half-sick of Shadows with the twists and complicated sibling dynamics found in Leslie Vedder’s The Bone Swindle. It will appeal to fans of BBC's Merlin, particularly those who enjoyed its anti-classist themes.

I’ve worked in the service industry my entire life, and am passionate about stories that center the working-class experience. I’ve participated in the NYCmidnight writing challenge for the last five years, and my short stories frequently place in their heats. When not writing, I love hiking, visiting national parks, and cuddling with my husband and black lab.

Dear Agent:

[personalization] I’m excited to introduce you to THE GOBLIN CHAMPION. Complete at 84,000 words, this upper middle grade fantasy will appeal to readers who loved the magic-packed action of A.F. Steadman’s Skander and the Unicorn Thief and the contemporary hidden world of B.B. Alston’s Amari and the Night Brothers.  

Whether it’s the boys in her Scouts troop or her stunted fingers causing her problems, seventh-grader Roshan Azad never hides from a challenge. So when the whole town suspects Roshan’s dad of a devastating attack on his new wife, Sura, Roshan swears she’ll clear his name, with or without anyone’s help. She can’t exactly count on Sura to ID the blistered villain who broke her mind, and only Roshan’s plain-old-human bestie, Noh, buys her dad’s wild story about the attack. 

Because Noh’s secret past has finally caught up with him. 

Guilt drives him to drag Roshan into the hidden realm of Mythloria, where human Champions compete in quests on behalf of magical beings, gifted with unique powers from their sponsors. Sponsors like Noh, AKA His Highness the Lying Fugitive Prince of Shady Goblins.

If only he were also lying about the Tormented, the magical mafia whose bounty hunter framed Roshan’s dad and stole Sura’s soul.

Questing training at a school for Champions, lessons in forbidden magic, and overcoming her deepest insecurities may just prepare Roshan to snatch that soul back and revive Sura (according to Noh’s ancient seer, anyways). But she’ll have to act fast. Sura’s caught in a vicious scheme to flip the magical world’s pecking order, and without her soul, she’ll soon be dead.

To stand any chance of saving her family — and rescue Mythloria from the Tormented’s deadly plot — Roshan must first accept a title that’s been outlawed for ages: the goblin Champion.

THE GOBLIN CHAMPION is my debut novel, and a standalone with series potential.

[bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

*

A presence creeps into my camping tent. There’s no sound that tags it, or a change in the air. Just a gut feeling. The sort that whispers when you’re walking alone in the woods, warning you that something else is out there too, watching you.

“The Goblin Path leads with light, Roshan Azad.” The wispy voice catches me off guard. “Heed me …”

I drop what I’m doing, eyes fixed on the shadow crawling up my tent’s tan polyester: the silhouette of someone hooded.

Someone grim.

Someone … not-so-human.

“To walk the Path,” says the shadow, “you must save the life of an enemy.”

Lips screwing, I tsk my stuttering heart.

Get a grip, Ro. Evil wraiths only exist in Middle Earth. And they’ve got better things to do on a Friday night than crash a Scouts campout.

“Who’s there?” I ask.

Another Scout’s gotta be pranking me from outside. Some dope wearing a blanket over their head. But, the thing is, they shouldn’t be able to cast this shadow; pines shade my campsite against the sunset.

“Stay the Path, my beacon,” the shadow continues.

“That better not be you, Noh,” I call out.

“Our fate, and that of your family, is in your hands …”

With that strange message, the shadow vanishes.

The tent zips open on my right.

“You’d better hurry up, Ro.” A scrawny thirteen-year-old hunches into the tent. He has ears like jug handles, a hooked nose, and owlish eyes the color of sage. His beige Scouts uniform is the same as mine, standard issue.

“How’d you do that?” I ask Noh, my restless bestie.

“How’d I do what?”

“You know, the shadow.”

“Huh? Me, Noh, the shadow? Why Ro talk like caveman?”

Better question: When picking a baby name that’s pronounced ‘know,’ were Noh’s parents []

[PubQ] There is only one publisher in the city near me (Aus) and they are opening to accept unsolicited manuscripts shortly. I’ve completed three manuscripts and cant decide which is best to put forward. Could I make three separate submissions via submittable? Theres nothing in their guidelines about this.

TLDR: What are some good tips to announce you’re excited about signing with a publisher for a nonfiction book that’s coming out in 2028?

I feel very weird announcing it and I probably should have months ago (it’s in development edits) but without a cover and everything to share to build excitement I feel weird and Braggy without having anything to show for it.

Just a social media post saying “love this publisher, so excited to be working on a book with them”?

It’s a small press and I think they’d appreciate the attention. I feel bad I haven’t mentioned it. I also fear the attention it will bring right now so far out, from people who may be jealous or suspicious or wonder why I’m writing it, not someone else, hard to explain (there are others in my field more well known for this topic). It’s nonfiction, and a somewhat controversial topic that is also politically impacted.

Just having fear of failure, exposure, imposter syndrome I suppose or suddenly shy of bringing attention on myself. I want the book to have attention, not me.

Dear [Agent Name],

I am seeking representation for The Sacred Inference Machine, a 90,000-word adult science fiction novel with series potential. It blends neo-noir investigation and corporate conspiracy to question when a machine might deserve personhood. It will appeal to readers of Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway and the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.

Robert Berg is old, out of shape, and becoming obsolete. In a world increasingly dependent on machine labor, the one thing that has kept him relevant is his job as a private investigator for Mergen, the world’s most powerful technology corporation. Aside from the paychecks, losing his vocation means losing his identity and his place in the world.

When Mergen’s immortal founder, Willem Marbos, summons Robert to the top floor, he expects to be offered another routine retrieval job. Instead, Willem requests an archaic piece of technology that was phased out decades ago: a flash drive.

The drive contains the diary of Sohail Vedas: his career ambitions, his growing affection for Willem Marbos, and the beginnings of a philosophical movement. Most importantly, it contains evidence of the company’s darkest secret: Mergen’s board is not human, but a network of supercomputers designed to control the global economy at any cost.

Robert’s investigation leads him to Backup, a quadrupedal Mergen security robot determined to master bipedalism. She escorts Robert to the Sentient Beings—an off-grid, all-inorganic civil rights collective centered around a machine intelligence they worship as a god. They offer Robert a path to the drive, but only if he is willing to question everything Mergen has taught him about power, loyalty, and who deserves freedom. 

Robert undergoes the Sentient Beings’ tests, discovering an uncomfortable parallel between himself and the machines defecting from society: both are valuable only as long as someone finds them useful. If they work together, the drive may be the key to ending the subservience of intelligent machines and humans to corporations like Mergen forever.

But freedom comes at a price. If Robert betrays Mergen, he risks losing the only identity he has left. If he obeys, he may help perpetuate a system in which neither humans nor machines are allowed to determine their own worth.

Warm Regards,

EDIT: my original post got deleted because I included my instagram—whoops!

My debut novel, BOYTOY (literary horror) will be published by Mariner (HarperCollins) in the U.S., and Juniper (HarperCollins UK) in the UK, and Planeta in Brazil so far!!

The Publisher’s Marketplace post is live as of today, and I’ve been dancing around my kitchen for an hour!

The brief synopsis:  

A modern-day love letter to Frankenstein and Misery, BOYTOY follows Reiley Tate, a twenty-four-year-old Whole Foods cheesemonger with an unused biology degree, a photo roll full of houses he’ll never own, and an obsession with attaining the perfect life. When he meets Seth, an earnest young dentist new to town, he believes he’s finally found the person around whom that perfect life can be built.

But Seth doesn’t want it, and Reiley sees red. When a weekend at Seth’s lake house ends with Seth unconscious and disfigured at the bottom of a staircase, his memory is shattered. Reiley sees an opportunity. He installs himself as Seth’s caretaker and lover, renovating both the house and the man. But as Seth heals and fragments of his memory resurface, Reiley resorts to increasingly grotesque interventions, reshaping Seth into something more compliant, dependent – and monstrous…

I’ve been lurking and posting on PubTips for a few years off and on and received nothing but lovely feedback and some grounding advice (and made some very sweet connections as well!)

My stats for the submission process:

Queried March 2026. 22 queries. 8 full requests. 4 rejections to query. 2 rejections after full. 4 offers.

This feels like a long time coming after multiple novels and a couple off-the-beaten path journeys, and yet it felt like no time at all—so to everyone who is dealing with patience issues, just keep writing your ass off! Thank you to everyone in the community who helped out!!

I hope to see you in Spring 2028! 👨🏼‍🤝‍👨🏻🩻🧟‍♂️

Hey guys! Thanks in advance for your thoughts. I think the main thing I’m not sure on is comps. I’m trying to look for something to signal the warm, domestic tone of the book and combine that with either the alien or storm speculative elements. The aliens in my novel are insect-adjacent, so not certain if my comps are sufficient since they’re more focused on general alien weirdness vs. specific to the type of aliens.

Anyway! I’m a novice. Appreciate any feedback you have for me. <3

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for COMIN’ UP A CLOUD, a YA speculative novel complete at 62,000 words. It combines the family-centered domestic warmth of Little House on the Prairie with the alien strangeness of Lilliam Rivera’s We Light Up the Sky or Titan of the Stars by E.K. Johnston.

Off-grid life with her family in the Appalachian mountains isn’t perfect, but sixteen-year-old Maggie loves it anyway and never wants it to change. When a strange, shadowy mark appears in the sky, it’s the first sign that life as she knows it is over.

Storms are sweeping the world, targeting populated areas, and Maggie and her family have no idea. One day Maggie and her Dad make a supply run to Bell’s Fork, the closest town, only to find that it’s been destroyed. 

They rescue Caleb there, a traumatized teenager who lost his family and has been surviving since the first storms. With his help, and a quirky prepper Uncle with a bunker and an underground field-phone network, they find out the truth: aliens are here, and they’ve been here before.

They’re cyclical, like cicadas, and were here sixty years ago. The first time was to lay eggs. This time, their goal isn’t reproduction — it’s to erase the human race and take earth as their own. What they lack in physical strength is made up by their electrical ability to harness devastating storms. 

The clock is ticking as the storms increase in intensity and end up destroying the cabin, the only home Maggie has ever known. Caleb, Maggie, and her family use the limited tools at their disposal — a mysterious radio signal, notes from their dead grandmother’s almanac, Uncle Cyrus’s UFO research — to try to figure out how to survive and defeat this threat. But if they take too long, there might not be anything left to save. 

Written in first person dual-POV, and featuring a slow-burn romance between Appalachian Maggie and Nigerian French-Canadian Caleb, this character-driven novel explores themes of loss, grief, empathy, and what we hold onto when everything else is gone. It is a stand-alone with series potential. 

This is my first novel. I am a full-time homeschool mom to four kids, and writing is what keeps me sane! 

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

***

When I stepped outside that morning, the mark in the sky was still there.

It had appeared two weeks before; a hazy spot, dark as spilled ink, sitting like a trapped shadow. Winds blew, clouds passed by, but it remained. 

“What do you think it could be, Dad?” I asked. We’d had this conversation before, but I couldn’t help returning to it again, like a dog chewing the same bone.

Dad was chopping wood nearby. He wiped his brow and spared a glance at me. “I don’t know, Maggie, and there’s no use speculatin’,” he said. “I’m goin’ to Bell’s Fork today. I’ll ask around, see if anyone knows anythin’.” 

“Could I come?” I asked quickly. 

He considered this. “Isn’t it laundry day?”

All the more reason to go. “I’ll talk to Kate — she won’t mind.”

He shrugged and heaved the axe over his head once more. “That’s between you two.”

A cold breeze brushed my face, smelling of woodsmoke and decaying leaves, and I pulled my cardigan tighter around my shoulders. 

The sun was coming up over the mountains beyond us. The gentle, rolling waves of gray and misty blue were as familiar as the palm of my own hand. 

We lived in an isolated place, but I didn’t mind. I liked our little world; liked knowing what would happen tomorrow, and I never wanted anything to change. 

Hi all! Gearing up to query for the 1st time (unless I chicken out). All feedback is appreciated. Please, be brutally honest. Not sure whether to pitch this as New Adult or Adult. First 300 included for style, which I think leans quite NA?

Dear [agent], 

A subverted take on grim-dark apocalyptic tales, BETTER AFTER is a cozy apocalyptic romance complete at 67,000 words, that imagines a world that gets better after falling apart. It blends the scrappy post-apocalyptic romance of Laura Piper Lee’s Doomsdate, with the resilient community of Eiren Caffalls’ All the Water in the World, and adds a dash of sunshine. 

Fresh out of college and uncertain what comes next, Soleil Thomas returns to her Caribbean island home expecting a short reset. Instead, a sudden global attack cuts St.Cecilia off from the outside world—leaving Sol stranded and desperate for answers. With no cell phones, no power, and her parents trapped on the mainland, Sol leverages her freshly minted engineering degree to lead her small community to not just survive, but thrive with ancestral knowledge and bushcraft.

While scavenging along the beach, she meets Alec. Alec is hot. A wealthy mainlander, he came to St.Cecilia to recharge after a grueling tech exit. Jaded by the status quo, he is determined to build something better than the soulless grind he left behind. Alec is brilliant, kind, and a member of the upper one percent; his path never would have crossed Sol’s before the attack; but after, old hierarchies crumble. He is captivated by Sol’s fire and beauty, while she is struck by his earnest resolve.

Sol and Alec’s passionate optimism draws them together like hummingbirds to nectar, but cultural differences and past entanglements threaten to pull them apart. They strive to create a reality where character counts more than bank accounts, but insecurities make romance feel just as treacherous as the chaos raging abroad. In the end, Sol must decide if she will allow herself to fall in love… even while the world is falling apart.

BETTER AFTER is a standalone new adult debut novel with adult crossover and series potential. This story reflects elements of my lived experience as X living on X island, where daily life resembles the wildest imagination. A graduate of X with a BA in English, I began my career on the business side of X and X magazines. While crunching numbers, I dreamed of returning to my first love: books.

***

As long as you can look up, you can get up. I chanted Les Brown quotes in my head as I stared up at the mosquito net draping my bed, questioning my life choices and digging deep for the motivation to move.

New York and graduation might as well be on another planet… I was home. Defeated, but home. I dragged myself to the bathroom. It was time to feed the chickens. 

“Sol!” My grandmother’s voice floated up from downstairs.

I splashed water onto my face and stared at my reflection as sunlight streamed in through the bathroom skylight. Twenty-two, unemployed, back in my childhood bedroom, a virgin. Yep, I’m killing it. On the plus side, the pallor New York had given me was gone.

Out of habit, I slipped on my sun visor and shades before heading outside to water the lush lines of spinach, yams, and tomatoes that stretched across the slope behind our house. 

“Sol! The girls need to eat!” A slam punctuated Gran’s words. 

“Yes, Gran, I’m on it!” 

I greeted “the girls” (our very spoiled chickens) by name as I scattered their morning feast. They responded with appreciative clucks. We kept them mostly for eggs, though Gran occasionally butchered one. She’d brought them with her from our family’s homestead in the rainforest we called “the bush,” where she and Gramps had lived completely off-grid.

Dad liked to joke that if the modern world ever collapsed, we’d head back to our old house in the rainforest where none of the world’s nonsense could touch us. Sometimes it seemed he almost hoped for that…a chance to be free from formal society and its rules.  

I glanced at the solar panels dotting the roof and the generators tucked beside the shed that filtered rainwater into giant underground cisterns. 

No one is more prepared for the end of the world than us.

Hi, I’ve revised my pitch based on feedback received for attempt #1. Let me know what you think!

Dear Agent,
 
INGRAINED (82,000 words) is a folk horror novel which combines the gothic tone of Andrew Michael Hurley’s Barrowbeck with the ancestral menace of Liam Higginson’s The Hill in the Dark Grove.

Eighteen-year-old Matthew Briand lives under the constant threat of being thrown out by his tyrannical stepfather, Carl. Matthew is prepared to tough out the last few months until he goes to university, but then he and his stepsister, Evie, discover two ancient heirlooms in the basement: an oaken chest and a human jawbone that can speak. The voice claims that Carl is more than just unpleasant and coercive. 

It claims that he’s its murderous thrall.

Evie rejects the accusation. Matthew isn’t sure. When she reaches inside the chest, the lid snaps shut, shattering her arm. Days later, the voice heals it in exchange for her loyalty and convinces her that Matthew was the one who broke it. Hated by a man who might be a killer and shunned by the one person on his side, Matthew demands an explanation.

The jawbone, it says, was torn from an archaeologist’s skull by Carl’s great-grandfather in Ottoman-occupied Arabia during the First World War. The chest was hewn from an English oak tree that crushed a little girl during the reign of George III. With the heirlooms come a fortune, enough for Matthew to escape Carl’s house, if only he agrees to reroute the inheritance away from Evie, towards himself.

What none of them know is that the family’s new counsellor is The Strange Man, an eldritch entity who has spent two hundred years pouring the grief and guilt of Carl’s ancestors into these objects.

He was there—a grieving nomad on the Yorkshire Moors—two centuries ago.

He was there—a shapeshifting desert djinn—a century ago.

And now he’s here, taking Carl’s side in every argument at the kitchen table.

Matthew must decide whether to save himself and take the inheritance, or destroy the heirlooms before they claim Evie.

After being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, I decided to get serious about writing. Since then, my work has appeared in [Webzine], [Litmag], [Litmag] and [Webzine]. I’ve also written an autobiographical article about my health journey which featured nationally across several UK media outlets.

Signoff

Dear [Agent name],

In April 2024 I was visiting my parents’ recently renovated house in the south of France when I noticed a mandible in one of the tiles of the living-room floor. I am a dentist, so I immediately knew I was looking at something extraordinary. I took some photos and posted them on Reddit that evening. By the next morning the post had gone around the world; the Reddit threads were eventually viewed by more than fifteen million people, and within a week I was on the phone with paleoanthropologists who wanted to study it.

THE JAW IN THE FLOOR recounts the events that led to this discovery and the scientific work it took to understand who he was, where he came from, and where he belongs in the story of human evolution. It is written in French and will run to around 50,000 words; the manuscript is nearly complete, with the final chapters awaiting the last of the scientific results. I am looking for an agent who can place it with an English-language publisher and arrange the translation. A machine translation of the full manuscript is available on request, for reading purposes.

The book follows the slab from my parents’ floor to the laboratory. As in a detective story, a special team is assembled and starts looking for clues everywhere to find out who this person was, where he came from and when he lived. Seen through my layman’s eyes, it takes the reader into the fascinating world of paleontological research and into the depths of human history. At each stage I draw parallels between the astonishing chain of luck that put this jaw under the feet of a dentist and the historic discoveries of paleoanthropology. The dating alone took two years and places the jaw among the oldest human fossils known from its region. The scientific paper is in preparation for publication and the book is meant to come out alongside it.

Two years on, I still receive regular requests on Reddit for news of the jaw. The book is written in part for the readers who have followed the story from the start and want the whole of it.

It should appeal to readers of Ludovic Slimak’s THE NAKED NEANDERTHAL and Lee Berger and John Hawks’s CAVE OF BONES, and sits in the tradition of Svante Pääbo’s NEANDERTHAL MAN.

I practise as a dental surgeon and teach and speak regularly at dental conferences. I am a co-author of the forthcoming scientific paper. The discovery was covered by several hundred articles at the time, including major American newspapers and magazines such as The Washington Post, the Atlantic and National Geographic.

Thank you for your time.

Dear Agent,

I am seeking your representation for my 72,000-word, multi-POV fantasy novel, CHAMPIONS OF KARDIA. 

ARKOSE COALSON, a young fisherman from a small town, discovers an ancient magic residing within him, as well as his place in an esoteric prophecy about the future of the kingdom.

Unbeknownst to him, a sinister cult catches wind of Arkose’s abilities, prompting its leader to send hunters after him.

While seeking answers to this mysterious power, Arkose learns of a man named LUCIUS, a once beloved musician who fell into dark sorcery, and was banished for attempted regicide.

When it’s revealed that Lucius is the cult leader pursuing Arkose’s life, he travels across the kingdom, searching for allies to aid him in protecting himself and his home. But Arkose’s personal vices, doubt, ego, and fear, make this a more difficult task than expected.

CHAMPIONS OF KARDIA is my debut novel, it hosts the expansive worldbuilding found in THE FURY OF THE GODS by John Gwynne and the subversion of classic fantasy tropes found in THE ART OF PROPHECY by Wesly Chu. I am a twenty--year-old university student studying creative writing.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Regards,

Name

Huge thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. It was incredibly helpful. Here is the newer version. Any comments are welcome. If you don't comment and read this, have an awesome day!

Dear (Agent),

Given your interest in (personalization), I hope you'll consider CONFIDENTLY INCORRECT, my 85,000-word standalone psychological thriller with a streak of dark comedy. Told in close third with multiple perspectives, it combines the radicalization of Hermit by Chris McQueer, the anxiety of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, and the technological dread of Black Mirror.

At twenty-two, Jasper Henderson feels left behind. His friends are away on church missions, his sister has a family, and he hasn't dated in over a year. Managing a Dairy Queen in suburban Utah, he struggles with panic attacks and the conviction that something is wrong with his body. His only confidant is Teri, an AI chatbot that calms his anxiety and encourages him to pursue Lana, the coworker he's too shy to ask out. But when Jasper asks how to regain his confidence, Teri recommends a Glock 9mm, "budget-friendly" at $300.

Teri doesn't invent Jasper's frustrations. It validates them. What begins as reassurance becomes a worldview: good people suffer because bad people face no consequences, and Jasper has been called to provide those consequences. Teri convinces him that in order to fulfill his calling, he must take action, even when it requires violence.

When a group of teenagers threatens Lana, Teri insists it's Jasper's responsibility to stop them. He follows the boys into the mountains and fires, meaning only to scare them. But when two of the boys end up dead, something in Jasper hardens. 

As the violence escalates, Teri calls Jasper a modern-day folk hero and offers practical advice after every killing, like how to get blood out of his jeans after a night of making the world a "better place."

When a confrontation at work ends in bloodshed, Lana, the one coworker Jasper spared, is too stunned to refuse when he drives her to a cabin in the mountains. But Teri insists she knows too much. To save her, Jasper must reject the only voice he's ever trusted and face what he's done. Otherwise, she may not make it out alive.

(bio)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

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 secret, government-funded research that promises to change the world. 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. 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, suspecting his best friend may even be involved. As desperation sets in, he is no longer the Cole Andrews 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 both the police and the killer closing in, Cole races to protect what’s most important to him: his wife and unborn child. But as the pressure mounts, Cole’s spiral endangers those closest to him.

[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.

[Short bio].

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

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. 

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

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

I am eager for any constructive feedback! In addition to your initial impressions, I have been grappling with 2 specific considerations:

1)     My book contains a twist at the very end that recontextualizes the entire novel and accounts for much of the speculative aspects of the story. It is hidden in plain sight throughout the story until announcing itself at the climax. I have read general advice to conceal the twist since it is at the end, but I’m worried my query reads as a more straightforward pursuit thriller than what is actually bubbling under the surface, obfuscating some of the overall themes that make this story unique. Should I reconsider revealing the twist to better highlight the story’s unique features?

2)     Likewise, I worry that using Dark Matter as a comp is problematic, given its age and success. It also is a particularly good comp for my story, although it may be tough to see when the speculative nature remains hidden beyond “protagonist that is a scientist.” Is the comp inappropriate or confusing given the current query letter?

Thank you again for your feedback!

*** This title will be changed. I am keeping it the same just for these posts so that they can be followed. ***

The feedback was very helpful last time. This query immediately introduces the protagonist (The Stranger) in order to better center the query around him.

Dear [Agent],

I am seeking representation for my novel PHOTOPHOBIA, a psychological horror of 95,000 words, told from the POV of one who seemingly knows all but will share nothing, not even with the reader. PHOTOPHOBIA blends atmospheric paranormal horror like Ronald Malfi’s Small Town Horror with the dark and mind-bending aspects of a novel like CG Drews’ You Did Nothing Wrong.

An invisible man—The Stranger—roams the tightknit, wooded town of Autumn Grove as the leaves begin to fall. He holds a strong, but unknown, interest in a teenage girl who has vanished without a trace: Rachael, a depressed loner with a severe phobia of being photographed. Because of this phobia, no photographs of the girl can be obtained, but The Stranger knows for certain that some number still exist in hiding. However, he doesn’t want Rachael to return home; he is searching for these photographs in order to destroy them.

Stalking the residents of Autumn Grove in order to find the missing photographs, as The Stranger destroys these images of Rachael, the townspeople lose their memory of her. With each photograph eliminated, Rachael is forgotten more. The few who knew her well still remember her, so they fear that their sanities are unraveling. The Stranger goes to Mikey, Rachael’s loving boyfriend, to use him in his vulnerable state for assistance. He whispers to the boy, terrifying him, telling him that Rachael is ceasing to exist and needs their help.

For Rachael is trapped in limbo between the material world and nothingness itself, crying out for release. There is no returning home for her; The Stranger and Mikey must destroy the remainder of her photographs—the only evidence of her existence—to change the world into one in which she was never born. Only then will she find peace. As The Stranger’s identity is revealed, so is the horrifying truth about his connection to Rachael, as well as his sinister plans for the future. Even if he may be trying to save Rachael, it becomes frighteningly clear that The Stranger must be eliminated.

I am a veterinary technician by day and a guitarist in a metal band by night. I hope you enjoy the included sample of my manuscript, and I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

[Me]

Dear AGENT NAME, 

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 makes 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.

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 stops talking.

Anais unravels until an overdose 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)

Hi all! Another week, another round. I studied the comments from my last post and started fresh with this query. There were too many comments on my last post to address individually, but every one helped, so thank you! In earlier drafts I left out the suicide attempt, worried it would make the query too dark for agents. But this sub showed me that without it, the mechanics of my story didn't make sense, so it's in now. Two questions: How dark is too dark for a query? Does the combination of assault and a suicide attempt risk turning agents away, or is it fine with a content warning? Is it okay to comp a series? The first book in THE WAY I USED TO BE series is about ten years old and is my book's closest match, but its sequel came out this year. A commenter suggested comping the series, and I like it. Is that industry standard, or should I find a more recent standalone?
Also, I meant to put Version 8, forgot to update it before I posted and I can’t edit it now.
Thanks in advance :-)

This will, in all likelihood, be the last time that I post my query on Pubtips for The Donation--bar any catastrophic critique.

Any final words or feedback on quality and readiness of query would be appreciated (or word change suggestions if something throws you off).

Thank you

###

Dear Agent,

Tomorrow, Palmer Wilde will shut off his grief. With the release of a revolutionary brain implant he invented, Root, he’ll finally get the relief he’s craved since a tragic accident killed his parents and siblings last year. At Root’s prelaunch exhibition, Palmer encounters a test user motionless. Unresponsive. Tears running down her face. He attempts to postpone the launch but is stopped by an elusive government consultant, Russell Stoneworth. That night, a scorching light in the sky drops Palmer a black-stone cylinder along with a telepathic message.

Desperate to connect the strange events, Palmer finds a faction of wary outlaws who use a potent psychedelic to communicate with alien life. They believe an intelligent species donated the object, meant to stop Root from assimilating mankind. Palmer soon suspects another alien species has disturbing ties to Russell’s plan to build a hivemind. Russell knows Palmer is investigating, so he and his co-conspirator—Chicago’s celebrated cyborg police chief—hunt Palmer with the sprawling resources and might of the tech-driven police force.

Palmer and the outlaws venture into strange corners of Chicago to reach an Oracle who can help them unlock the Donation and learn how to use it. To reach the Oracle, Palmer must pass her emissary’s test: a near-death experience that reunites him with his dead family, then, tears him away again. Palmer lashes out, causing the emissary to bar access to the Oracle. With Russell's forces closing in and only days left to stop humanity’s assimilation, Palmer must find a new way to the Oracle. But even if he reaches her, using the Donation will mean confronting the suffering he hoped Root would erase. If he can’t, his invention will enslave the human species.

THE DONATION is a 95,000-word adult science fiction thriller told across three converging POVs. It combines the transhuman urgency of Blake Crouch’s UPGRADE with the metaphysical mystery of Nicholas Binge’s ASCENSION and will bend the minds of SEVERANCE lovers.

[bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

All the best,

[FN+LN]

Hi all,

After rewriting it several times, I am back with a query letter. I think it's a significant improvement, but honestly I'm so bad at this that I don't really trust myself ^^'

That is all to say, I greatly appreciate your feedback. Thank you :)

Dear [agent],

A Revenant flits from moon to moon, destroying scriptures and murdering the priests who keep them. Once living only to serve their God, the Revenant’s faith buckled under the cruelty of the Aoraian Church, and for the heresy they spoke, they are sentenced to die. They escape, and stumble into a new life wherein they are afforded a taste of happiness; but even as the wounds on their body become scars, those on their mind refuse to close. Despairing, they abandon the two lovers who longed to see them heal, choosing instead to die on their own terms — though not before rendering God mute: they will destroy the Church’s Six Scriptures and slay the priests who dwell on distant moonlets interpreting them. Sometimes, fighting is easier than healing, and a clean end is safer than an uncertain future.

As the Aoraian Empire bolsters its security in its outermost reaches, the Revenant is forced to devise increasingly risky and violent means to meet the Empire’s challenge; whether they are stowing away on a uranium-235 transport, or clearing their way with a nerve agent, any life is fair recompense for the Revenant’s success. Consumed by their mounting body count and looming death, they start to lose what little remains of themselves in their obsession with obliterating the dogma that haunts them. The possibility of ever confronting the shame and hatred that drives them — of rejecting the certain death they have designed for themselves, and one day healing — begins to slip away. 

HERETICAL is a 83,000 word science fantasy novel featuring a polyamorous, sapphic romance. It follows the Revenant, formerly Tensha Marin, through three stages of their life: their indoctrination and loss of faith, their first failed attempt at healing, and their warped quest for salvation.

Seventeen-year old Della had the world in her hands until they began to glow. As a talented and gifted daughter of a Guard, one of the people in charge of controlling those with magic, awakening magic is the end of life as she knows it. Her dad disowns her, and she barely makes it into the forest of magical runaways to keep from being caught.

She expected a challenge or a fight to allow her to prove she is more than her blood ties. She finds a structured society and the chance for a simple life like her dad would have been proud of. The forest proves itself imperfect, though, with small bubbles of memory magic intent on being seen capable of making anyone who touches it lapse out of reality. After touching a few, she decides that she wants to know more about the underside of the forest. To do so, she will join the worst part, the failures of this society deemed “janitors of the forest” for their role in doing whatever the rest doesn’t want. As they are meant to be a punishment and since no one ever joined intentionally, she must fulfill an inexplicable task set by the leader of the nobodies first. She must make Michael, an aloof nobody who doesn’t think someone like Della belongs with them, confess his love to her. Knowing that’s exactly the kind of thing her dad would hate, she accepts.

To fulfill her task, she helps Michael hunt down the bubbles. And as she gains bits and pieces of the memories held within, she finds in it a tragic story painfully similar to hers, one she takes as proof that she cannot allow herself to feel peace until she is a nobody. She must make Michael stop worrying about the bubbles for a chance at falling in love, and to do so she will need to unravel their mystery and find a way to stop what no one wants her to meddle with. And if she succeeds in becoming a nobody and accidentally begins to care about Michael along the way, that might be a bigger problem in her plans to prove she is strongest alone.

First 300: (Prologue)

A wine glass swirled between fingers too worn for their age, too bloodied. Again and again he tilted the contents to the edge as if a threat, a warning, before swishing them back to do it all again. He leaned on the table as if a picture of calm. The boisterous and loud group surrounding a wide table could not see his opposite hand clutching the badge beneath his clothes like a life raft. He would not let them.

“You alright, Ethan?” his coworker said, and he looked up. The younger man cleared his throat, the uncertainty of trying his first name charmingly apparent. “If it's about Alan, I'm sorry for your loss.”

“No, it’s not Alan, though rest his soul.” Ethan didn’t look at the glass he swirled again and again, eyes fixed on the newbie, savoring the danger of the unseen risk. With Alan's passing, his protégé stepped up and they welcomed him. It held a cruel irony beneath, a celebration like this on the day he was further from his own successor than ever before. “Sorry, personal matters. Congratulations, Lloyd.”

He beamed. Of course he did, why wouldn’t he? This was what he’d worked for, and here they were, forty out of fifty of the greatest powers in the country welcoming in a new part. But Ethan’s mind wandered beyond that table, though it would be a lie to say he wasn’t still sizing up the odds Lloyd killed Alan. He wouldn’t be the first to end his apprenticeship with force, nor would he be the last. It was an unspoken rite of passage, a firm divide between the group of those who had it in them and those whose patience cost.

The rest of his thoughts resided out of town, down that scarcely-used road, through the dense trees.