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sarah

@sarahlynnwriting.bsky.social

new account. writer & english major ♡ sarahlynnwriting@gmail.com

sarah @sarahlynnwriting.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

THE UNDERSTUDY In the glamorous opera world, Serafina and Antonina are bound together by rivalry and a long list of secrets, including their own affair. Serafina’s devotion forces her to confront how far she is willing to go for Antonina and what she is willing to lose. #Questpit #Q #A #LF #LGBT

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Reposted by sarah

PJ (he/him) is querying... @pjwrites.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

THE EVERWINTER KING Querying Soon! Desperate to find his oldest friend, the missing sun god, a former holy king returns to the home he abandoned and the people he betrayed to reunite with his god and prevent an endless winter. #QuestPit #Q #A #F #AgentsGuide

Title page for an agent's guide to THE EVERWINTER KING. The title is placed over a moodboard featuring a Mediterranean inspired setting and royalty imagery. In addition to the title the page reads "Adult Fantasy Standalone. Queer normative world. MM romance subplot. 95,000 words."

THE EVERWINTER KING's pitch.

PITCH
A former holy king does the one thing he swore he’d never do in search of his missing god. He goes home.

Malachi was born with God’s voice in his head. When God vanishes in the midst of a decade-long winter, Mal breaks the oath he made to himself and returns to the home he abandoned—the city where he was raised to be king. There, he’s marked to compete in trials meant to select God’s new emissary. His replacement.

After succeeding in the first trial, Mal demands entry to the royal temple, where he learns the skies are empty. God has stopped speaking to his priests and Mal alike. With no other avenue for answers, Mal must win the competition for God’s favor and assume the throne he never wanted, or risk losing his oldest friend for good and damning the world to a worsening everwinter.

An excerpt from THE EVERWINTER KING.

“My head hurts,” Malachi mumbled into his drink.

“They say King Ridaris’ eye glowed like this.”

Did they? Malachi shuffled through his memories for any mention of that from his mothers, or the history books, and found nothing.

“I think it means God knows who you are.” Sen lowered her voice, eyes shifting toward the surrounding priests. Kinder to pretend she did it out of concern for his headache. “You need to be careful.”

“Aye.”

“It hasn’t stopped glowing. Everyone else’s did.”

He raised a hand to cover his eye, pausing to marvel at the light pouring over his fingers and palm. It spilled into every crack, crevice, and scar his hand had to offer, like liquid pooled against his skin. Malachi closed his fist around the cold light and pressed it to his face. “Hurts.”

“Close your eyes,” Samara offered. “Rest. We’ll handle it from here.”

For once, he did just that.

A page listing comp titles.

Comp titles for THE EVERWINTER KING include: "The Raven Scholar" by Antonia Hodgson, "The Raven Tower" by Ann Leckie, "WITCH KING" by Martha Wells, and "The Red Winter" by Cameron Sullivan.

Similarities include: godly shenanigans, political trials, queer-norm worlds, queer male leads, messy homecomings, and a second chance subplot.

Bonus comp! Dragon Age 2.

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sarah @sarahlynnwriting.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

THE UNDERSTUDY In the glamorous opera world, Serafina and Antonina are bound together by rivalry and a long list of secrets, including their own affair. Serafina’s devotion forces her to confront how far she is willing to go for Antonina and what she is willing to lose. #Questpit #Q #A #LF #HR

Serafina Angelo is a brilliant student at an elite music conservatory, tormented by her relentless pursuit of perfection. When her school is given the rare opportunity to perform at a prestigious opera house, Serafina is certain the lead role is hers and will launch her career. Until Antonina Vitale arrives. When she is cast as the lead and Serafina as her understudy, Serafina is devastated. Yet she feels drawn to her new classmate, developing an all-consuming obsession with Antonina that blurs the lines between envy and affection that may destroy them both.

Toxic lesbian opera singers
Dual POV
Rivals → lovers → rivals AND lovers
Post-WWII Italy
Historical literary fiction
Book one in a completed duology
110k words

For those who enjoy the complex characters of Elena Ferrante’s My Brillliant Friend, the intense sapphic relationships in The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden and Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth, obsessive perfectionist musicians, explorations of fame, misogyny, class and all-consuming lesbian desire.

Can such a thing as obsession, that virulent hunger that nags at the stitching between mind and soul, ever be fully satisfied? Is the idée fixe something that one can outgrow, or does that madness just become more implacable?

Serafina was not sure if it was something that could ever be satiated. Obsession was, she thought, quite violent—a desire so formless and volatile it could be nothing more than a doomed passion.

The stroke of her fountain pen was the only sound in the dim library, and the flickering candles illuminated amber, casting long shadows on the dusty bookshelves. It was one in the morning. She hadn’t slept for two days, but she snuck in to work on her essay about Hector Berlioz, a French composer from the Romantic period.

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