Lindz McLeod (Adult Fantasy)
Author: Lindz McLeod (@lindzmcleod)
Age Range: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Agent: Laura Zats, Headwater Literary Management
The Query Letter:
Good afternoon Laura,
Thank you for liking my pitch via the recent Twitter pitch day. I am delighted to present you with BEAST, an 83,000 word blend of Gothic fairytale and historical magical realism, best described as a cross between 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Downton Abbey', veined with the dark humour of Yorgos Lanthimos's 'The Favourite'.
Being the butler of a large castle in rural France has some great perks - Le Majordome thoroughly enjoys micromanaging the household down to the very last spoon. After all, his father groomed him since childhood for this particular job, and his rigid, abrasive personality suits it perfectly. But when a peasant army abducts the adults of the noble family and guillotines them without mercy, honour dictates that he must hide and protect the remaining members - the spoiled, selfish 13-year-old ‘young master’, and the young master's nephew, a bastard baby who stands to inherit the estate - until their relatives can collect them. The servants divide into warring factions; some are determined to protect the children, while others lean towards mutiny, terrified that the revolutionary army will return and punish them for protecting the bourgeoisie. Le Majordome can't bear to hand the children of his former employers over to filthy peasants who would murder them, but the alternative means death for every castle inhabitant.
As Le Majordome tries to maintain some semblance of order, new and more terrifying complications unfold: the young master becomes savage and sadistic in his grief, particularly after a letter from his relatives which informs him that they suspect at least one of the servants has ties with the army who murdered his family, while downstairs the bastard baby is beginning to display eerie and unsettling powers. Whispers spread among the servants that the baby’s true mother is a local witch who is on the hunt for her lost child. Fearing that they are running out of time to make a decision, one servant calls for open rebellion. Le Majordome, trying to prevent the castle from descending into complete anarchy, suffocates him in his sleep, but the man is found next morning with his throat cut. Tensions rise as suspicions grow among the staff as to who the real murderer is. Too late, Le Majordome realises that he has been focusing on the wrong problem. The witch has finally located her baby and has been gradually isolating the castle from the outside world using powerful magic. The witch makes two attempts to get her baby back using deceit and disguises, since the castle’s own power forbids her from gaining direct access without invitation. Both attempts fail. When she visits a third time, she curses the castle and all its inhabitants, whereupon they begin a slow transformation into objects or beings that perfectly reflect who they are: a broom, a fanged monster, a clock.
I am a queer, working-class writer from Scotland who holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the Open University. My short story “Squeak” was selected as the first entry in the Scottish Book Trust's 2019 Blether anthology, which had a print run of over 100,000 copies and was distributed across Scotland during Book Week Scotland. “Squeak” also ran in The Scotsman newspaper, while an audio version was recorded and broadcast multiple times on Scottish radio. As a result, The Scottish Book Trust asked me to write another short story for their 2020 marketing campaign, which will feature in their 2020 book with a similar print run. I was commissioned by the Dundee Victoria & Albert Museum (named one of Time Magazine's Greatest Places To visit 2019) last year to write a short story for their Hello Robot exhibition, which they marketed widely. I have published prose and poetry online and in print, and have enjoyed performing at spoken word events both across Scotland and in New York, where my partner lives.
Lindz McLeod