Query Letter Critique

It’s that time again for another query letter critique! I’m really happy to say that this week’s query is another fabulously written letter, which I’m honored to take a look at J 


Reminder: My comments are subjective and someone else may entirely disagree. I’d love for comments, but please let's all be nice!

My comments are in blue.

Original Query Letter

Seventeen-year-old twins Isabell and Amelia Kincaid live in a Victorian-esque world of ray guns, robots and steam-powered carriages. But while Isabell desires a life with her one true love, Amelia craves adventures, sword fighting and wants to travel the world until both their dreams are crushed.

Isabell’s name was chosen from a secret lottery to be the mistress of Prince Finbar. An illness made his future wife barren and she must bear him the heir the princess cannot. As for Amelia, a wealthy foreigner twice her age has bought her in exchange for allowing her mama to keep the family business.

They both manage to escape, but are captured by bounty hunters and taken to the Prince’s castle. Amelia refuses to leave Isabell alone, prolonging the ting-a-ling sounds of wedding bells, and ends up falling for the one person she shouldn’t: Prince Finbar. And Isabell soon learns her name wasn’t chosen by the luck of the draw. When the sisters find out the King’s right-hand man plans to kill the royal family and make Isabell wear the crown, they must find a way to stop the murders and reclaim the one thing everyone is trying to steal from them—their freedom.

VICTORIAN DECIET is YA Steampunk at 80 000 words. The world of VICTORIAN DECIET exists in a Jane Austen-like society set in future Atlanta where the motto is party like it’s 1899.

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Seventeen-year-old twins Isabell and Amelia Kincaid live in a Victorian-esque world of ray guns, robots and steam-powered carriages. Good first line! But while Isabell desires a life with her one true love, Amelia craves adventures, sword fighting and wants to travel the world until both their dreams are crushed. Amelia craves traveling the world until their dreams are crushed? Read that line out loud. I’m not sure this sentence conveys exactly what you’d like it to. I’d suggest giving the dream crushing its own sentence to fix this problem, with the added benefit of giving more power to your hook. Also, I like what you’re trying to say in this para, but there’s something about the wording that doesn’t quite work for me. I think it’s that the first sentence and second sentence don’t seem overly connected to each other, yet are joined by the conjunction ‘But’ at the beginning of the second sentence. This would work if you’d said something along the lines of ‘The twins are alike in every way, but….’ There was probably a way faster way of explaining all this. I’m unaware of it. Also, I’m really picky and others may disagree.

Isabell’s name was chosen from a secret lottery to be the mistress of Prince Finbar. An illness made his future wife barren and she <Who is the ‘she’ here? The future wife is the subject of this sentence, but I think you mean to say Isabell. I’d write her name in place of ‘she’ to clear up the confusion here. must bear him the heir the princess cannot. As for Amelia, a wealthy foreigner twice her age has bought her in exchange for allowing her mama to keep the family business. Sounds like a really fun plot!

They both manage to escape, but are captured by bounty hunters and taken to the Prince’s castle. Amelia refuses to leave Isabell alone, prolonging the ting-a-ling sounds of wedding bells, <Not sure what that means, but that could be just me! and ends up falling for the one person she shouldn’t: Prince Finbar. Inneresting. And Isabell soon learns her name wasn’t chosen by the luck of the draw. When the sisters find out the King’s right-hand man plans to kill the royal family and make Isabell wear the crown, they must find a way to stop the murders and reclaim the one thing everyone is trying to steal from them—their freedom. I really like this last sentence. Good stakes for a query letter. I wonder about the whole Amelia falling for the prince, though. Can you mention that problem in the stakes as well? Otherwise it sort of feels dropped into the para. The other option is leaving that sentence out. 

VICTORIAN DECIET is YA Steampunk complete (very important to include this word! Red flag if it’s missing) at 80 000 words. The world of VICTORIAN DECIET exists in a Jane Austen-like society set in future Atlanta where the motto is party like it’s 1899. <While this is cute, I don’t think you need it and I’m not sure the jokey tone fits in with the rest of the query. Of course, if your book does have a largely jokey tone, I’d encourage you to try to weave more of that into the query letter.

All the elements of a great query letter are here. Your writing is smooth and, save for a few tweaks here and there, this is a great start! Thanks for sharing—you query-suppliers are brave!—and good luck.