Bethany Baptiste (YA Fantasy)
Author: Bethany Baptiste (@StorySorcery)
Age Range: Young Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Agent: John Cusick, Folio Literary Management
The Query Letter:
#PitMad Pitch: As a civil uprising brews, a witch must weaponize love potions to protect her sister and fight in a revolution before a dark sentient magic devours her free will.
Dear John Cusick,
There are many ways to make love and each one has the potential to kill you.
Eighteen-year-old Venus Stoneheart knows that all too well. Her darksome past has propelled her into Washington D.C.’s underworld of crime as a brewer, concocting and selling illegal love potions to pathetic love-starved humans. Brewing, however, is a fatal art that beckons blood, breaks bones, and chars flesh. If one’s lucky, of course. Every walk into her kitchen to brew is like a willing march to her own death but dying in the comfort of her home is much better than surviving the divided world beyond it where her kind, witchers, live in constant fear of humans.
Murder, blackmail, and a blood oath leads Venus into the clutches and employment of a ruthless Grand Witcher. Thrust into a lawless landscape of pride, power, and politics, the only way she and her sister, Janus, will come out alive is by using love as a weapon.
With a single sip, she can sway enemies, make the skeptical fall for her ideas, and build an army against all else in a world already on the brink of war. But love might not be enough to stop the ravenous magic within her, aching for a taste of freedom. A sentient magic determined to turn her into its lovely monster.
LOVE MONSTERS is a multicultural young adult crossover urban fantasy. The novel is the first in a planned duology and is complete at 90,000 words. Readers who enjoy PRACTICAL MAGIC, THE HATE U GIVE, BREAKING BAD, and #blackgirlmagic will be bewitched by this gritty tale of family and street survival. Attached to this email is the full manuscript as interested.
I am a 28-year-old inner city math and science teacher writing underneath a pen name. I have an immense passion for writing stories that feature underrepresented voices.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Bethany Baptiste