Laura R. Samotin (YA Fantasy)

Author: Laura R. Samotin (@LauraRSamotin)

Age Range: Young Adult

Genre: Fantasy

Agent: Hannah VanVels, Belcastro Agency

The Query Letter:

Dear Ms. VanVels:

Liya is a captive priestess who spends her days tending to the virtuous ones—mortals who come to the sacred mountain of the gods to willingly sacrifice their lives. She has never felt as though she belongs, and wants nothing more than to see the mortal realm to which her mother fled—but escape means risking the wrath of the gods, and she lacks the courage to challenge them. Her life of grudging acceptance is upended, though, when Adara arrives. Unlike the other virtuous ones, full of faith and enthralled by the gods, Adara’s sacrifice is for the boy she loves. Liya is drawn to Adara, wanting to unravel the puzzle of what it would be like to care so deeply about another.

When Adara arrives on the sacred mountain and sees that the gods are more interested in drunken revelry than the poverty and sickness that people pray for them to fix, she decides she certainly doesn’t want to die for them. Convincing Liya to help her sneak off the mountain seems like the perfect way to avoid death—if only Liya wasn’t so annoyingly determined to do her job.

Liya is tasked with persuading Adara to willingly participate in the rituals that will kill her, but instead she is gradually inspired by Adara’s defiance. Risking the punishment of the gods, Liya and Adara escape back to the mortal realm, where their relationship blossoms. But the gods do not forget—or forgive—and Liya and Adara must find a way to end the power the gods have over the mortal realm, or suffer a deadly curse for their disobedience.

BURY THE VIRTUOUS DEAD, a dual POV 95,000-word YA fantasy novel, is a standalone novel with duology potential. It explores devotion, duty, and identity and will appeal to fans of Nina Varela’s Crier’s War, Rory Powers’ Wilder Girls, and Ari Aster’s film Midsommar. The relationship between the two female-identifying main characters reflects my perspective as an LGBT+ #ownvoices author.

While this is my first foray into fiction writing, I’ve published book chapters with Georgetown University Press and Cambridge University press as a PhD student in political science at Columbia University. I enjoy using my academic research on military tactics, power politics, and leadership to enliven and inform my creative writing.

If my submission materials intrigue you, I would love the opportunity to send you my full manuscript for review. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Laura R. Samotin