iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

The American people have risen up and they are PISSED AS HELL. #HandsOff

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Natalie is ✨ writing a new thing✨ @natalielouise83.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I’m getting VERY close to querying this novel now. If any #litagents are looking for something just like this, you know what to do. 🖤

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Sometimes you sit down to write and instead you think or cut or rewrite or unwrite. That’s okay. That’s a productive day because all of those are part of the process. Keep going.

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Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller @gray-michaels.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

The first season was the absolute best. The second season was good. The jury is still out on the third.

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Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller @gray-michaels.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

My favorite is the one on the left. Love the smile and it just sings out -- AUTHOR!

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Scarlet Mitchell is a 👻g..g..ghost!👻 @scarletvmitchell.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

An ancient knife turns up at the wrong museum and a PI turns to an old frenemy to put his hyperfixation to use on the case. When her client is killed, a web of secrets begins to unravel. Now, they must race to protect the archeological record and stop the body count from rising. #QuestPit #Q #A #MY

Moodboard for The Gerzean Blade, Adult Mystery "A mysterious artifact... a web of secrets and lies..."
A pickaxe and other tools lying in the dirt, a hand tracing over a stone wall marked with glyphs, a piece of broken glass, a map of Illinois, a series of beautiful arrowheads, a silhouette of a woman running in heals, a long road, the St Louis Arch.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Kimberly Turner is ✨querying✨ @knturner-author.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Agent's guide to THE JOURNEY TO THE END OF THINGS. A grieving daughter has the chance to fix the mistakes of her past. But is she willing to risk her soul to do it? ✨Greek reimagining ✨Devil's bargain ✨Demigod-mortal romance #questpit #q #a #f #agentsguide #amquerying

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Beth Michaela...querying writer. @bmfwriter.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

COVET x FAIRYTALE x ACOWAR An Agent's Guide to REIGN OF NIGHTMARES ❤️‍🔥Slow burn 🗡️High stakes 🖤Gothic/horror vibes ♀️Feminine rage 🌈Diverse ensemble cast 💞Found family ♨️Steamy 💫Genre-bending 🫀Twists & betrayals ⌨️118,000 words 📖Standalone with strong series potential #questpit #A #Q #RF #DF #H

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Author Benjamin Ryan @brclothwrites.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

SILENT PATIENT + THE OUTSIDER Karis faces a choice: protect a dark legend & let a murderer walk free, or expose the truth & embrace all consequences. 🫥 Fiancé secrets ❤️ New love interest ⚠️ Blurred morality 🧛‍♂️ Reinvented trope 📖 Plot Twists 🪶 Indigenous M.C. #Questpit #Q #A #DF #RF #PR #T #MY

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Ilana Kelley @ilanakelleyauthor.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

THE BARGAINER x SIX OF CROWS x THE LOST APOTHECARY A Reader’s & #LitAgents Guide for NIGHT BIRD, an adult romantic fantasy ft: 🕰️dual timeline ✴️invisibility & intangibility magic 🔪FMC vigilante for wronged women 💞friend or foe? ☠️poison & female rage 🫂found family #QuestPit #Q #RF #F #A #AgentGuide

A Guide to Night Bird
An adult romantic fantasy novel

The Pitch
Ava can become invisible and walk through walls but can’t escape her warded cage. Destined to follow in her dead mother’s footsteps as a courtesan and spy, she’s trained to get close to—and betray—those in the highest levels of society. But alone at night in her room, she listens to the steam engine’s whistle, plays her cello to the night birds, and dreams of escaping her prison. Until one stormy evening, a boy, Zev, breaks through her window and gives her a taste of life beyond the bars.
Their chance meeting spawns two years of secret friendship until her eighteenth birthday, when her seduction training will begin. Instead, she wakes up to a grisly scene—a bloody trail, dead guardians, and broken wards. Given what she knows of Zev’s powerful abilities, she assumes her freedom came at his hand. She waits for his return, which never comes.
Eight years later, Ava has reinvented herself as Night Bird, a vigilante for wronged women. She’s assisted by a group of former street kids who’ve matured into a misfit gang. A botched mission finds them in the crosshairs of a shadowy man known as a high-powered fixer. That man turns out to be the boy who’d disappeared years earlier. It’s unclear if he’s friend or foe. However, when she takes on her biggest target—the last man to see her mother alive—Zev may be the only person keeping her from going up in flames.

For Fans of:
Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa—dual timeline & lost love
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner—female rage & poison
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo—found family & misfit crew

Chapter One
Only the night birds provided company in my caged existence. They sang for me after the sun dipped, gliding beyond my window’s metal bars as their trilling tunes wove through the moon’s light. They were my link to the outside world, a fragile tether to life beyond my warded room. My self-given name—Ava—was an homage to them, the beautiful creatures that kept me sane.
During the day, when I was granted time away from lessons, the noise and bustle of the street scared them beneath the eaves, into the holes and crannies of buildings. I’d sit, fists clenched, ears straining for their hopeful notes. But I was alone. The lectas didn’t count. They were caretakers, not company.
When streetlamps glowed in the satiny darkness, the night birds’ warbles piercing the quiet, I’d pull out my cello. My bow swept the strings like a feathered wing, and the resonant chords danced with the birdsong. They’d swoop and dive, triumphant in their freedom—something I’d never known and never would.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

ash is drafting🌿 @aemorrow.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

A grief-torn healer, bent on vengeance against the god who claimed all she loved in death and decay, uses her craft to infiltrate the god’s court—entangling with a haunted heir, plagued by fated dreams of her arrival, who will stop at nothing to unearth her purpose. #questpit #w #f #r #a

The House of Hemlock

A WORK IN PROGRESS

ONE DARK WINDOW meets STARLING HOUSE in this gothic dual POV adult romantic fantasy steeped in grief-torn promises, fate-bound strangers, and simmering tensions-where a house watches, gods scheme, and rot runs deep.

The Opening

There was truth in blood—meant to spill, drain life, stain the earth, and leave death grinning in its wake.
The first gods knew it. They shaped the earth with rivers of it, winding red veins through stone and moss, tangling it into the roots of trees that cracked the sky open with their branches.
Blood was the first language, the thread stitching life to decay, shadow to light. It was the beginning and the end, the thread through all things. It sang louder than prayers and bound tighter than oaths.
It was promise and debt, offering and curse.
The gods demanded it-again and again—until the earth grew slick, not with dew, but with what they were owed.
But even gods forget. They never asked what would become of blood left too long untended.
It rots. It rises. It remembers.

The Vibes

•Cursed magic and creeping rot (One Dark Window)
•Haunted by prophetic visions (A Study in Drowning)
•Nature’s eerie obedience (For the Wolf)
•Gothic atmosphere and simmering tension (Down Comes the Night)
•Sentient manor hiding secrets (Starling House)
•Healing that defies the natural order (The Thirteenth Child)
•Connection to death (Belladonna)

A dark, spooky, nature-inspired gothic mood board

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Rowan Brighton Brown @rowanbrightonbrown.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

A Southern inheritance is always dark—whether it's a penchant for pills, a blood-soaked family farm, or an ancient magic. Sierra spurns them all, but when her dad disappears, she must choose which monsters to slay, and which to become. #QuestPit #YA #H #T

This is a moodboard of orange and green images with a spooky, woodsy vibe including a hand with a vine, and deer at night, an eye reflecting fire, a set of pill bottles, top surgery scars with a barbed wire tattoo, and a black woman covered in ivy

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Susie Lindau @susielindau.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Mex Gothic x Lisa Jewell It's easy to romanticize writing a book in a remote location, but when a sentient house attacks & a psychopath threatens, a novelist must unearth the key to this madness, or his park ranger sister will arrive in time to write his eulogy. Alt TL POV #QuestPit #A #T #H #GH

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Jeannette Lane is querying @cjtruwriter.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

NINTH HOUSE x A LESSON IN VENGEANCE Aster would do anything to be the best writer the world has seen— even if it means spilling her blood to commune with the greats that came before her and losing the ones she loves the most. #Q #A #DF #PR #QuestPit

A Victorian house, a dark forest, a woman with a mirror for a face, a fawn, moths with flowers, a university gate, words on a page, and a university library

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

K.L. Brandt @bearattorney.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

DARK ACADEMIA + NIGHT CIRCUS Master art forger Sage Davis jumps at the chance to win a patron for life. But when she discovers the true price of the competition—their magic—she must work with a rival artist to end it before either of them are the next to lose #QuestPit #A #NA #SPEC #F #Q (soon)

Moodboard with a series of photos, including a golden rose, an outstretched hand with golden paint, a man in shadows, golden and purple smoke, a broken cicada sculpture, a woman looking away, and the text, "I'd do anything to protect her, even become the villain"

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Jen DiArenzo - 🧜🏼‍♀️ Fantasy Author @jendiarenzo.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

AN ACT OF FLESH & FINS A scorned marine biologist turned mermaid queen must return to Bermuda as a human siren and seek revenge on men, guarding her heart from a mystifying man on the beach, while doing whatever it takes not to become a monster in the process. #QuestPit #Q #A #F #PR #amquerying

Mood board that includes mermaids, sunsets, rain on water, fire on beach, and a couple kissing underwater.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Catherine Ford @catherinewford.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

UPROOTED X FIDDLER ON ROOF 🌳Mesopotamian, edge-of-desert world 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Multi-gen family 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Multi-POV 🪄Symbiotic family & god & farmland 🌳Farm magic vs land reform ❤️Slow burn subplot 👨‍🦱Seduction & betrayal 👨‍👦Meaning of sacrifice 🏜️Slow unraveling #questpit #F #A #W

Dagger, person holding soil & seedling, bare feet walking on fallen tree, cloaked figure with bow & arrow looking around side of house, peasant with sword, married couple holding sword, peasant woman looking behind her in fog, mysterious underground burrow, tree turning into a hand, burrow under tree.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

elise meder @elisemeder.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Hades&Persephone x THE CITY IN GLASS 🌆 an underground city on the brink of collapse 💊 a drug that stops a cannibalistic epidemic 💉 vaccine scarcity 🔥 a woman who may be the cure ⛪️ is she a Saint or a witch? 🍎 & the man determined to use her #questpit #AG #A #F #H

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Charlotte Francis @cfranciswrites.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

If you could control someone’s mind with a single touch, how could you ever trust they loved you? 🎭 A thief with forbidden magic forced into a high-stakes con 💍 Fake betrothals ⚔️ Slow burn enemies-to-lovers 💔 Forbidden romance 👑 Court intrigue & psychological warfare #questpit #A #RF

A mood board, made up with stock photos, featuring a gold and grey colour scheme (the opulence of court VS the shadows of deception and betrayal). A translucent, golden radial overlays the photos, surrounding the central shot (a pair of reaching hands—which symbolise the central premise of the book: Touch).

The images are as follows:

Top left: A close-up on a woman's gloved arm, veil, and some of her Victorian gown. All dark grey in colour.
Top centre: A close-up on golden lace.
Top right: A man's hand gripping a woman's and pushing it into white sheets, their fingers interlocked.

Middle left: Close up on a golden masquerade mask.
Middle centre: An artistic photo of a woman's bare arms and hands reaching up from shadow into light.
Middle right: Close up on a golden statue of a soldier riding a horse. Looks to be wearing Roman-style armour.

Bottom left: A B&W close up on a woman and man's faces, near-kissing, but they're not quite touching. It's an intimate pose. Their eyes are closed.
Bottom centre: An elaborate palace ball room with gold detailing and massive chandeliers.
Bottom right: A B&W photo of a man in 1700s military uniform firing a musket, shrouded in smoke.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Victoria Jayne (they/them) @victoriajayneoh.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

LEGENDS AND LATTES x THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES Alarra, a disabled witch, hires Robin, a butch grocer, to help her failing apothecary. As Alarra trips and stumbles into love, she angers the ghost haunting her shop! #QuestPit #RF #Q #ownvoices #dis #A

Small witch looking at butch grocer, lovingly

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Sophie Cass (is agented) @scasswriting.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

🌿 The creepy whimsy of PAN'S LABYRINTH 🫧 The tragic romance and sea creatures of OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA ⚔️ Henry Cavill as Geralt in THE WITCHER ✨ HOTD's Alicent Hightower on the rare occasion that she smiles (but also when she's sad) 💔 ROMEO & JULIET #questpit #ag #w #f #a

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Tracey @tajosephwrites.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

A hapless idealist follows her dreams to be a Lily Maid, beautiful ambassadors of enchanted perfumes known to make the most insipid hypnotically irresistible, down a path that could lead to her death when she’s chosen as the newest Lily. #questpit #YA #F #RF #W

Six photos of a a ball, a swan, perfume, a young man lying in bed, a beautiful young lady, and a doorway covered with flowers.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Kelly Esparza Is Agented Again! @kellyesparza.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

GLASS ONION but w/ ❄️ + 👻 My #A #MY #PR has: ✨a sister feud + messy MC ✨MC's ex invited to the party ✨new romance ✨murder ✨cozy/snowy cabin setting ✨ghosts ✨a murderer on the loose who's intent on killing a whole bachelorette party🔪 #W #questpit

Mood board for my adult murder mystery paranormal book I'm writing--what's pictured: snowy road, trees, ghost, snowy cabin, blood, moon/eerie sky, woods, snowy footprints

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Kayla Hill @kaylahillbooks.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

He’s a threat to the crown they both serve. 👑 ⁣ She’s a threat to more than just his heart. 💔 As the web tightens, the Spinners always come first.⁣ 🎻 THE SPINNERS' GUILD, an adult romantic fantasy #QuestPit #A #F #RF #Q

A violin hidden behind a web. Text says: An agent's guide to THE SPINNERS' GUILD

DEAHNNA’s music gifts her the power to Spin listeners under her spell, compelling them to reveal secrets she can use to protect her city. After two years spent abroad as a diplomat, she uncovers news of a brewing revolution that sends her rushing home, where she’s tasked to root out the rebels—only to discover that the one behind it is none other than her once great love: Zephyr, the monarch’s own son.

ZEPHYR’s city is flooding and he will do anything to save his people, even if it means overthrowing his own tyrannical mother. When the monarch closes the borders, shutting off the city’s final hope for aid, he must decide if he can trust Deahnna with his secret, or if she’s a threat to more than just his heart.

Together, they’ll have to work through old heartbreak and incite a rebellion if they want to shatter the sovereign’s grip on the city before it sinks beneath the waves.

The tropes: music-based magic system, second-chance romance, glittering political intrigue, ballroom mayhem

Moodboard with 4 images: two people dancing; a dark hallway; a window in a shattered greenhouse; a violin in water

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Soph @soph-pl.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

🌶️HEARTLESSx✈️KILT TRIPx🖋️C Fortune ’97: ONLY ONE SUMMER IN BERLIN, then she can return to France. But she’s falling for the city—and for her reluctant host. So is he. Together, they sizzle. The devastating catch? His duty is here, and she must go. Heartfelt, retro+destination #A #R #QuestPit #Q

Moodboard. Clockwise from the top left : 1. A man and woman lying on a bed; 2. Wannsee lake; 3. A DJ performing at the Tresor nightclub; 4. Brandenburg gate; 5. A child holding hands with a man; 6. A Post-it note; 7. Grossfürstenplatz in Tiergarten park; 8. A flatlay of 90s items; and 9. German-American fair. Center: 10. A man and woman holding hands
Credits for images used: 1, 4 & 5: courtesy of Canva; 2: Wannsee in Berlin, Asif Masimov, 22/04/18 under license creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en; 3: DJ at the Tresor nightclub in Berlin in 2015, Angie Linder, 20/08/15, under license creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en; 7: Großfürstenplatz in Großer Tiergarten, Beek100, 27/07/08 under license creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en; 8: By Aycan Hussein, littlewhitesocks.com, modified; 9: By Christopher Simmons; 10: By Crew

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Victoria Jayne (they/them) @victoriajayneoh.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

WICKED meets ROMEO AND JULIET Zenora, a garden witch with a brown thumb, teams up with Melody, a music witch from a rival coven, to protect the sacred Allflower. To succeed, Zenora must confront her faulty magic and learn to love herself despite her disapproving family. #YA #WIP #QuestPit #RF

Violets, gardenias, and a big lotus flower on one side. Two girls in bed, fireflies in a jar and music on the other

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Beth Michaela...querying writer. @bmfwriter.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

When headstrong Reign is saved by an alluring warrior, it serves as the catalyst to awaken her dormant powers, exposing her & the sister she fiercely protects to a depraved god hellbent on consuming their magic. Slow burn Found family Diverse cast Horror vibes Female rage #questpit #Q #RF

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

T.A. Bres @tabres.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

The Spirit Princess: A godless priestess and her love interest, a giant warrior princess, work to escape a murderous cult and unravel an ancient mystery that has damned countless generations. Folklore, action, adventure, horror, wlw without unnecessary drama! #QuestPit, #A, #F, #amquerying

A mood board for the novel, The Spirit Princess. Picture on the top-right: A Nigerian staff-head depicting Papa Legba, the divine messenger, master of fate, patron of travelers, fertility, and all-around trickster. Center-left: A regional map of Fahomey, the region of Midaye where the story takes place. Center: Our protagonist, Zaphura, displaying her demonic left eye and her celestial right eye, along with the multicolored birthmarks that have forced her to live as an outcast for much of her life. Center-right: The author's depiction of a Nubian Isis (going by her Meroitic name of Wusa) - her heir lurks in the background of the story. Bottom left: An Aztec carving of Quetzalcoatl - Zaphura's bloodline includes coatl influence. Bottom right: A carving of Ereshkigal, the Mesopotamian goddess of death. Background: The veve of Maman Brigitte, Lwa of death and rebirth, wife of the more well-known Baron Samedi.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Kelsey Lynn Clarey 📚🎲🧶 @islanderscaper.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Cece is a 17-year-old mercenary who has been hopping from planet to planet since her parents disappeared five years ago. When information reaches her that her parents may still be alive, she sets out on her biggest adventure to rescue them. #QuestPit #SFF #SF #YA #W

A moodboard for my book's main character. The background is a picture of space. On the left side of the image is a quote reading "for her; home was amongst the stars", a quote reading "space is gay", and a picture of a rebellion jacket form Star Wars. In the middle is an image of an ear with a lot of piercings in it, a quote reading "maybe I belong among the stars", a picture of a tattoo of a bunch of planets going down someone's back, and a picture of a shooting star tattoo. On the right side is a picture of a young woman with rainbow hair and a quote reading "rebellions are built on hope."

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Kristen Renee @kristenrenee.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Happy Place (but gay) x Emily Wilde In a town wrapped in fairylore, a group of roommates discover stories of fairies stealing people away in the night aren’t what they seem as they begin to suspect their romantic partners might be more legend than human 🧚🏼 #QuestPit #W #A #F #R

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Emily is writing @emilylwrites.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

When Carter starts to fall for another contestant on a popular dating show instead of its female lead he must decide between his original plans and where his heart is pulling him while facing what it means to be famous in a franchise whose audience can turn on a dime. #QuestPit #Q #A #R #LGBT

Moodboard: a man holding a TV camera, a line drawing of holding hands with a rainbow bracelet over a snowy background, clinking glasses of champagne, a figure behind a bisexual flag, the view out an airplane window, Bachelor mansion. Two stickers are a lipstick kiss and boyfriends, one carrying the other. On image text: Tropes, Bi 4 Bi, Forced Proximity, Kidney Donor MC, Slow(ish) Burn. Reality TV shenanigans, Anxiety Rep.

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Tyler Stasi 🍓👒🕰️ @tylerstasi.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

#QuestPit #W #F SEVERANCE x PIRANESI When memory-erasing fruits begin to disappear, a woman in an endless greenhouse will go to harrowing lengths to keep her past from resurfacing. 🍓👒🪴🕰️🪑 -mystical cottagecore setting -themes of desire, solitude

moodboard for original fantasy/magical realism novel with psychological themes, cottage vibes, fruit, maze-like, gardening, solitude, thriller-esque, memory loss, desire, forbidden fruit

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Reposted by Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller

Beth Michaela...querying writer. @bmfwriter.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

COVET x FAIRYTALE When Reign & the sister she protects are violently thrust into a land filled with lascivious temptations, she must accept the help of a dangerous warrior that reveres her to defeat a depraved god & the ravenous army eager to consume their rare powers. #questpit #Q #A #RF

agent guide
monsters
spice/kiss
dungeon
black dog

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Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller @gray-michaels.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Think positive. There will be. And if not, it's their loss.

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Gray Michaels is querying an upmarket thriller @gray-michaels.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Congratulations! That's such a great feeling. Good luck.

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