Gabi - YA Fantasy
Rep: Naomi Davis at BookEnds
Alright, so here are my query drafts for Sing Me to Sleep!
A bit of backstory: my query letter didn’t change much once I was actually in the trenches. Because of that, I included a draft with comments from a friend who helped me pre-querying (thanks, Kristen!)
Query Draft 1
Dear Agent,
Personalization.
Seventeen-year-old Saoirse is fighting a losing battle against the urge to lure unsuspecting men to an early, watery grave. With the call of the water demanding she kill, she slakes her thirst as a seductive assassin known as the Temptress. She lives by two rules: make enough gold to keep her adopted family safe, and keep her existence as the last siren in Keirdre a secret. When the fae prince Hayes offers her a job as a member of his guard with a starting salary she can’t refuse, Saoirse accepts. Begrudgingly.
As the water’s pull becomes harder for Saoirse to resist, the Temptress’s body count creeps up. When Hayes volunteers to lead an investigation into the beautiful assassin, he recruits Saoirse’s help. Forced to finally ask questions about her victims, Saoirse realizes each target is part of a larger plot to kill the Royal family— starting with Hayes.
A pawn in someone else’s game, Saoirse has to decide what matters most: keeping her secret, or protecting the first man she doesn’t have to sing for to bewitch. SING ME TO SLEEP is a 92,000-word-thousand-word YA Fantasy with the dark seduction of The Shadows Between Us, and the torn female “monster” protagonist of Fire.
As an African American author, this novel is #ownvoices. All of the characters are shades of Black and Brown.
Bio.
Note From Kristen:
This story is compelling and unique, and the stakes are clear. It’s just the details that are escaping me. How is it that she’s become implicated in these Royal murders? Is there a relationship that’s developed between her and Hayes? (Make that a bit clearer)
My Thoughts:
This query was never sent to an agent but I’m going to critique it from where I am now.
There are too many proper nouns. I said the name of the Kingdom and the name of my MC’s alter-ego. Both of which don’t really add anything to the query aside from another name to keep track of.
I completely agree that this is missing clarity. What happens if Saoirse’s secret gets out? Why would the Prince recruit Saoirse’s help in the first place?
And the last line before the meta-data is clunky.
Query Draft 2
Dear Mentors,
Seventeen-year-old Saoirse is fighting a losing battle against the urge to lure unsuspecting men to an early, watery grave. With the call of the water demanding she kill, she slakes her thirst as a seductive assassin for a nameless employer. Disguised by day as a soldier in the military, she lives by two rules: make enough gold to keep her adopted family afloat, and keep her existence as the last siren in her kingdom a secret. When Prince Hayes offers her a job as a member of his guard with a starting salary she can’t refuse, Saoirse accepts. Begrudgingly.
As the water’s pull becomes harder for Saoirse to resist, her bodycount rises like the tide. When Hayes volunteers to lead an investigation into the beautiful assassin, he recruits Saoirse’s help, unaware of his new guard’s alter-ego. Forced to finally ask questions about her former victims, Saoirse realizes each target was part of her employer’s larger plot to kill the Royal family— starting with the increasingly charming Hayes.
A pawn in someone else’s game, Saoirse has to decide what matters most: keeping her secret, or protecting the first man she doesn’t have to sing for to bewitch. SING ME TO SLEEP is a 94-thousand-word YA Fantasy with the dark seduction of The Shadows Between Us, and the torn female monster protagonist of Fire. With its central female protagonist teetering between her image as a hauntingly beautiful Siren and a disguised member of the army, this novel is reminiscent of the split-face movie poster of Disney’s Mulan.
As an African American author, this novel is #ownvoices. All of the characters are shades of Black and Brown.
I’m a native St. Louisan with the midwestern accent to prove it. I spend most of my time finding beautiful places to hike and enjoying the endless snow in Maine. I have no prior publishing experience, but I write constantly — both novels and jotting down orders at the restaurant where I wait tables.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Gabi Burton
My Thoughts
This one I revised based on comments on the initial query. I cut down on the number of proper nouns and clarified how much the Prince knows about Saoirse. I didn’t fix that last line though. And I still think it’s clunky.
This one also didn’t really get queried widely. I sent it in to AMM (Author Mentor Match) to kind of test the waters for this query. I ended up getting a full request! Initially, I decided to keep my query as is if I got a request from AMM. However, this isn’t the final version of my query.
As some of you may know (and sorry for bringing this up all the time) I participated in #SFFpit in February 2021. This was my official entry into the query trenches with Sing Me to Sleep.
I got an amazing reception to that first line. So even though the query letter I sent worked (meaning it got a request) I wanted to reframe my query around this pitch because it had proven itself to be effective. Which is how I came to my final query!
Query Draft 3 (Final)
Dear Agent,
Personalization.
With a smile she can bring any man to his knees, with a song she can guide him to his grave. To slake her siren bloodlust, seventeen-year-old Saoirse lives a double life; soldier by day, assassin for an unknown employer by night. When she’s assigned to Prince Hayes’s personal guard, she’s determined to hate him— after all, his father slaughtered the rest of her kind and left her the only siren in her kingdom.
When Saoirse kills a friend of Hayes for her employer, he launches an investigation into the mystery woman assassin and recruits Saoirse’s help. Forced to finally ask questions about her former victims, she realizes each target is part of her employer’s larger plot to kill the Royal family. Worse, he’s starting with Hayes, who seems less like his father with each passing day.
A pawn in someone else’s game, Saoirse has to decide what matters more: keeping her secrets from the Royal family she’s always despised, or protecting Hayes— the first man who doesn’t need a Siren Song to fall for her. SING ME TO SLEEP is a 95-thousand-word YA Fantasy with the dark seduction of The Shadows Between Us, and the siren protagonist struggling to hide her identity of A Song Below Water. With its central female protagonist teetering between her image as a hauntingly beautiful Siren and a disguised member of the army, this novel is reminiscent of the split-face movie poster of Disney’s Mulan.
As an African American author, this novel is #ownvoices. All of the characters are shades of Black and Brown.
I’m a native St. Louisan with the midwestern accent to prove it. I spend most of my time finding beautiful places to hike and enjoying the endless snow in Maine. I have no prior publishing experience, but I write constantly — both novels and jotting down orders at the restaurant where I wait tables.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Gabi Burton
My Thoughts
This is the only one of the three drafts that I actually sent to literary agents, but it was effective. It ended up getting 24 full requests and 1 partial request.
Ok, ok, and I also included my drafts for my first book. A YA mystery. For those of you who don’t know, I queried two books (A YA mystery and a YA fantasy). They both had similar request rates and the mystery ended up getting an offer of representation but I won’t go into that (if you’re curious, the story is here).
Anyway, I snuck it here at the bottom here torn between wanting to be transparent and hoping no one would read it.
That said, I want to add the caveat that these are my query drafts from when I jumped into the trenches in 2020 and NOT the letter I wrote at sixteen. I’m taking that one to the grave 😂
Query Draft 1
Bruce Lumere was a wealthy casino owner, a terrible father, and now, he’s dead.
All fifteen-year-old Lucy Lumere wants is the truth. When her wealthy casino-owner father is shot in front of her, she learns that his killers have pockets deep enough to control Vegas P.D. Armed only with her father’s casino and three strangers, Lucy tries to find her father’s murderers.
All seventeen-year-old Vander Lumere wants is to protect his little sister. When he agrees to help Lucy in their father’s murder investigation, his only goal is to keep her safe. Vander reassesses his priorities when their search leads them to nineteen-year-old Tiffani Brooksfield who’s been kidnapped—and all signs point to their father as the culprit. As Vander grapples with the revelation that his father is the villain, not the victim, he has to decide what he’s willing to risk to find Tiffani.
Lucy and Vander, and their three once-strangers scramble to find Bruce’s killers, rescue Tiffani, and right the wrongs of their dead father who just might be behind it all.
BOOK is an 80,000-word YA mystery told from the points of view of siblings Lucy and Vander Lumere and the three soon-to-be-not-strangers who witness their father’s murder. With its ensemble cast of characters working to solve a mystery, unraveling secrets, and growing closer to each other in the process, it will appeal to fans of One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus.
Notes:
This query is for a multi-POV book, but I only used 2 POVs in the query itself. I picked the two most important characters— the ones who kickstart the plot— and focused the query on their POVs. This is a personal preference, but I think making the query as narrowly focused (in terms of characters) is easiest.
This query had a good request rate (around 25%). Even still, I wanted to know if I could make it stronger, so I tried again.
Query Draft 2 (Final)
She thought he was the victim. Turns out, he’s the villain.
The first time fifteen-year-old Lucy Lumere defies her father, he ends up dead. When Lucy lets her older brother talk her into a “fun night out” in their father’s casino, they meet three runaways who become fellow witnesses to their father’s murder. When it turns out the Las Vegas P.D. is working for her father’s killers, these three strangers are Lucy’s only allies in bringing his murderers to justice.
Investigating her father’s murder means finding her estranged, lily-white mother, sneaking into a rival casino, and, worse—digging into her father’s past. Lucy used to think her father’s worst crime was perpetually forgetting her birthday, but that was before she found out he was complicit in the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Tiffani Brooksfield. Lucy and her three once-strangers are no longer investigating a murder—they’re tracking down a missing person.
Grappling with the revelation that her father might be the villain, not the victim, Lucy must decide what she’s willing to risk to right his wrongs. With her father’s murderers threatening to kill again, Lucy has more to lose than ever if she wants to save Tiffani: the lives of herself, her brother, and the three strangers who have graduated from casual acquaintances to friends.
BOOK is an 81,000-word YA mystery told from the points of view of the Lumere siblings and the three soon-to-be-not-strangers who witness their father’s murder. With its ensemble cast of characters working to solve a mystery, unraveling secrets, and growing closer, it will appeal to fans of One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus.
Note:
I narrowed the POVs even further. This query had a significantly higher request rate (60%) and is what ultimately led me to an offer of rep.