Darkhearts
BY JAmes l. sutterwednesday books2023Query Letter
Hello! My name is James Sutter, and I was hoping you might be interested in my queer #OwnVoices YA novel, Darkhearts. The book is 89,000 words long, aimed at fans of Jeff Zentner, Emery Lord, and Mary H.K. Choi.
When David quit his band, he missed his shot at fame. For the past two years, he’s been trapped in an ordinary high school life while his former best friends Chance and Eli—emphasis on former—became the hottest teen pop act in America.
Then Eli dies. Suddenly David and Chance are thrown back into contact, forcing David to rediscover all the little things that once made him and Chance so close, even as he continues to despise the singer’s posturing and attention-hogging. As old wounds break open, a late-night fistfight ends in an unexpected kiss, prompting the boys to trade their frenemy status for a confusing, tentative romance—one Chance is desperate to keep out of the spotlight. Though hurt by Chance’s refusal to publicly acknowledge him, David decides their new relationship presents a perfect opportunity for him to rejoin the band and claim the celebrity he's been denied—but Chance is all too familiar with people trying to use him. As the mixture of business and pleasure becomes a powder keg, David will have to choose: Is this his second chance at glory? Or his second chance at Chance?
I’m a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games, and former Creative Director and Executive Editor for Paizo Publishing. I’ve published two adult fantasy novels with Paizo and Tor, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine—the former was #3 on Barnes & Noble’s Best Fantasy Releases of 2011 and a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel, and the latter won the Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. I’ve also published short stories in such venues as Nightmare, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, plus comics, video games, award-winning tabletop gaming books, and essays in places like Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction and Clarkesworld. As a bisexual man and former teenage musician, Darkhearts’ subject matter is close to my heart.
About
Age Range
Young Adult
Genre
Romance (Contemporary)
Word Count
89,000
Book Link
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250869749
Agent
Josh Adams of Adams Literary
Query Stats
Number of Queries Sent
29
Number of Full Requests Received
6
Number of Offers of Representation
2
Number of Months Spent Querying This Novel
4 months
Years Spent Writing Before Getting an Offer
18
Number of Manuscripts Queried Before This One
0
Publication Status of The Book Queried
Published (Big 5)
Years Spent Writing Before This Book was Published
Mine was a weird situation, as I had already published extensively in other genres (adult science fiction and fantasy, tabletop roleplaying games, comics, etc.) for 18 years—this was my first creator-owned novel and first foray into YA contemporary romance.
Note to Querying Writers:
My stats are a little weird, because I had worked extensively in other genres and media, had published two previous tie-in novels for the game I co-created, and even had an agent for my adult science fiction and fantasy. Initially, I was looking for an agent to represent *just* my YA work so that I could keep my adult SFF agent as well, which led to a lot of rejections—the majority of the agents I talked to said they don't share clients.