Lilith Murphy || Writer

The Alchemist's Last Recipe - A Mala Strana Courtyard Mystery; images: pretty parked bike with flowers in the basket, vials of tinctures, a wrapped book, socked feet hugging a mug of tea

🔎The Alchemist's Last Recipe🔎

An introverted book restorer unravels an alchemy-infused murder in a close-knit Prague courtyard community.

#QuestPit #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #W #A #MY #WF

EVERY SUMMER AFTER X HAPPY PLACE

When her ex shows up at her sister's wedding, a heartbroken woman faces the tragedy that broke them up 10 years ago at the cottage, is pulled into a spiral of distrust that brings out her worst and an HEA may not even be worth it. #questpit #q #a #r

Sager x MEX GOTHIC w/o the mold and gore
When a tormented writer treks to his mountain estate to write his next novel, a sentient house, an intruder, and a psychopath collide. He must unearth the key to this madness, or his sister will arrive in time to write his eulogy.
#QuestPit #Q Psych #T #H #A

Early Magic; images: images of young women, a magical book, a coastline, bottles on a shelf, a dark forest

🧹 EARLY MAGIC 🧹

🏄‍♀️ California vibes
😡 Frenemies to enemies
🎭 Opening night drama
❣️ Romantic debacles

#QuestPit #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #Q #F #YA #Querying #witch

"An agent's guide to THE BOG PRINCE by Julianne M, a 99k word YA fantasy romance."

The pitch... Eighteen-year-old Everin Lockett’s dreams of returning home from ruthless Wyverith College are shattered when she manifests a forbidden necromancy magic that reanimates the bog body of her kingdom’s lost prince. If the college discovers the truth about her abilities, she will be conscripted into their brutal army, doomed never to see her family again. Desperate to guard her secret, Everin strikes a deal with the long-lost Prince Byrnan: if he helps keep her power hidden, she will help him solve his centuries-old murder. But when Byrnan’s quest for justice could be the very thing that endangers her last hope of going home, Everin will need to confront the true cost of falling for a lost prince with nothing left to lose—and a kingdom to reclaim.

Pictures of book and album covers in ornate antique frames. The text reads: For fans of... Yearning and bog bodies (Hozier's debut album) Dark academia and lyrical prose (A Study in Drowning and Curious Tides) Haunting gothic atmosphere (One Dark Window and Florence + the Machine's Lungs album) Slow-burn romance (Divine Rivals)

Snippet... A fork of lightning split the rain-soaked sky in two, and the ground trembled with a deafening clap of thunder. But even after the rumbling faded, the bog still shuddered beneath me, swelling and quaking like a pair of lungs drawing their dying breath. I lurched away, my heart jolting against my throat as I scrambled back through the mud. Another crack of lightning. And in its wake, silhouetted against the flash of violet light— A single grasping hand, clawing its way out of the earth towards me.

In honour of #QuestPit and the upcoming #SmoochPit showcase, here's an updated #agentsguide for THE BOG PRINCE, my upper #YA #RF about a necromancer who reanimates the bog body of her kingdom's long-lost prince. 💀👑

Maybe some secrets are better left buried... 🖤 #agentguide #Q

An Agent Guide to GUMIHO 86,000 word adult folklore fantasy blended with horror and romance By Jennifer Luce

The pitch: Cursed with a vengeful gumiho, Mina has spent centuries feeding it souls to become a god—and now she needs just one more, but when she falls for her final target, she must choose: face her demons and sever the curse before the gumiho consumes her from the inside out, or achieve godhood and lose herself to become something truly monstrous.

For fans of... SUCH SHARP TEETH by Rachel Harrison - physical transformation & emotional vulnerability THE FOX WIFE by Yangsze Choo - East Asian Folklore MY DEMON - Redemption through connection THE GLORY - Morally gray anti-hero

First Lines Bright droplets of red bloomed against the crisp, white snow. A trail, unbeknownst to my victim, that would lead to his demise.

Hi #Questpit! Nearly done w/ SmoochPit revisions, here's GUMIHO, my Korean folklore-inspired adult fantasy blended w/ horror & romance!

✨️ Selected for the 2025 Smoochpit Mentorship Program
✨️ Big 5 Editor Interest
✨️ Won 3rd in the horror category of the 2025 PNWA Writing Contest

#A #F #H #R

𝗛𝗶𝗺⚓The only fight I have left in me is for my son. I've no time for the houseguest the language institute sent me by mistake.
Until we talk. We click. Suddenly, I'm wishing for things again.
But she's not a choice I can make.
Come fall, I'll have to let her go too.
#Questpit #Q #A #R

When marauders menace her village, an empath-scholar leads an odyssey across the climate-ravaged former US to retrieve a rumored key to peace, before her people are obliterated.

Clan of the Cave Bear x A Psalm for the Wild-Built

🔮 #EarthMagic #tarot
🌪️ #CliFi
🌷 #Hopepunk
#S #Q
#Questpit #booksky

An #agentsguide for my contemporary romance Date Expectations with:

🌆 Best friends-to-lovers
🏙️ Cynic/Romantic dynamics
🌃 A podcast and kind-of-fake dating

character art by author

#questpit #W #A #R

A child with her fingers in her mouth, in blue tones

Educated, but on acid. A memoir about growing up on a hippie commune in the backwoods of Oregon in the shadow of the Holocaust. #Questpit #M

Moodboard titled Aaryana (FMC’s name) with a subheading along the bottom: Heir to the Throne Series. Image 1 is of a young woman wearing a blue hooded cloak and holding two swords. Image 2 is a young woman in metal armour, holding a large shield and getting ready to strike with the sword in her other hand. Image 3 is a close-up of a young woman sitting next to a sword leaning against the wall. The final image depicts a young woman wearing an elaborate gold headpiece studded with blue crystals.

Moodboard with seven images and title along the bottom: Heir to the Throne Series. Image 1 is of a young man who appears to have huge angel-wings and a fire burning in the background. Image 2 is a scene of a ship that seems to have crashed against the rocks edging the sea. Image 3 is of a young woman with her arms around a young man. Image 4 depicts a young woman wearing an elaborate gold headpiece studded with blue crystals. Image 5 is of a young woman holding a sword and plummeting in the ocean. Image 6 depicts the outside of a beautiful castle, a huge moon in the sky, and a young woman in a black gown staring at the stars in the sky. The final image is of two ships caught in a storm at sea.

Aaryana is winning the contest that decides who will be the next Queen/King but her enemies—which may include her sisters—are determined to change that

👸ambitious FMC w/ soft❤️
🫅brooding LI who’s protective of his siblings
🧜‍♀️sea folk
💘fake courting
🖤slow🔥hate-2-love
💔forbidden love
#QuestPit #Y #F #P

A tragic journey about a woman living with grief while trying to find love.

🔥Behind Her Eyes meets Yours Truly
🔥Authentic characters with flaws
🔥Raw and real emotions

“That was enough to make me wish I could close my eyes and sleep forever.”

#QuestPit #W #T #R

HAZELTHORN X THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH
Journals of a Familiar
Hawthorne has never left the cathedral. Raised in silence and prepared for a future he doesn't understand, everything changes when he meets Violet, a witch with wild dreams of escape.
#questpit #W #YA #H #LGBT

When Gio’s BFF Sky falls down a sinkhole into another world, Gio follows to save her, but after becoming stuck herself, Gio must rely on her wit and D&D knowledge to survive, rescue Sky, and get them both back home. #QuestPit #YA #Q portal #F #agentsguide

A movie poster titled "From One Mifletzet to Another" featuring a teenage girl in front of a gritty, fiery background above an open basement door. Descriptive text from top to bottom, left to right: "JEWISH HORROR" "WOMEN AUTONOMY" "SEX POSITIVITY" "BREAK THE CURSE." "A 95,000-WORD YA HORROR NOVEL" "PREMIERING NOW"

WHEN DEVILS SING X FEAR STREET

Sixteen-year-old Chava Rose is a Jewish girl stuck in a town of antisemites. Lilith is the mother of demons who supposedly cursed Chava's town with misfortune.

Maybe they have more in common than they thought.

#YA #H #Q #OWN #questpit

DISCOVERY OF WITCHES x X FILES x RESIDENT EVIL

WHERE THE VINES CLING CRIMSON is a contemporary romantic fantasy complete at 90,000 words.

#questpit #Q #F #FR #amquerying

A collage graphic with a gothic knight, burning books, chandeliers in a ballroom, old books, a red headed woman, a gothic castle and the moon, text graphic that says Once Upon a Time. Text overlaid collage says "Beware the Ever After".

THE EVERLASTING x THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

Now querying my speculative romance, BEWARE THE EVER AFTER 📖⚔️🏰

📖 sentient, vengeful books
❤️‍🔥 slow burn YEARNING
📖 readers who live out their favorite tropes
⚔️ ticking clock before they’re permanently turned into the characters…

#Questpit #Q #F #S #RF

A DEVOTION SO RUINOUS is a 90K adult fantasy following Soraya, a young woman tormented by a jinn, a dictator, and her first love, as she fights for freedom

🏳️‍🌈 LGBT characters
🧠 Mental Health Rep
🌍 Middle Eastern Setting
✨ Gods Based Magic System
❤️ Lovers To Enemies
#️⃣ Own Voices

#QuestPit #Q #F #A

A mood board collage: Top row: a wooden doorway flanked by two trees; carnivorous plants; a moss covered tree trunk growing next to some classical architectural columns. Middle row: an axe resting in a tree stump; a narrow London street; a greenhouse with some overgrown cacti. Bottom row: Harry Richardson in Poldark wearing a blacksmith apron; a manor house covered in ivy; a young woman in a library wearing a beret and glasses staring thoughtfully into through a window.

DIVINE RIVALS/STRANGER THINGS
When plants take over the world & an eminent botanist ends up dead, a reporter persuades a rival plant hunter to seek the truth. But as they become entangled, & the victims pile up, they’ll need sharp secateurs to avoid being next.
#QuestPit #W #YA #NA #SFF

THE CAT OF VERSAILLES

12k children’s fantasy chapter book with series potential, about an American girl living in France and her friendship with a special cat.🐈 

Author is a children’s media professional, has worked with Nick Jr, TeamTO, Amazon & IE.

#Q #F #HFic #MG #QuestPit

When a surprise attack forces an emergency launch of the Ares VI Mars rocket, a promising young female engineer must survive the six-month journey to Mars—alone. “The Martian” for middle grade. #questpit #MG #SF #Q #STEM

Mock-up book cover for The Curse of the Fart Witch by Rae Law. Tag line "Something Wicked This Way Smells". An evening street with lit up houses, green gas coiling upwards, there are a number of oversized alien-looking spiders (about the size of dogs - sentient barking spiders) throughout the image. Flags: Reluctant hero, sibling redemption, spooky humour (cinematic, not silly), kids vs supernatural threat, sentient minions, Goonies style ensemble cast.

An excerpt from a sentient Barking Spider's journal - the spider is British gentry and pompously complains about the witch's promise of exquisite stink not being fulfilled and how the locals have spritzed him with a rosemary-mint abomination.

A record-breaking fart awakens an immortal stink-feeding, body-snatching witch. Armed with courage, friendship & limited magic, an 11yo must save his Abuela and his town—before the curse becomes permanent/deadly. #QuestPit #Q #MG #F #CinematicNotSilly #SomethingWickedThisWaySmells

Adventure awaits!

#questpit #Q #MG #F

12yo sceptic Yanju becomes homeless, grieves, so loses the will to paint. She encounters a ghost, witch and Mamiwata(mermaid). To heal from grief, she must let her spirit guide help fight, and win an art competition to have a home, or else remain homeless and be a ghost #Questpit #MG #F #PR #BVM #Q

An Agent's Guide to Careless Whispers a 97K Romantic Suspense

Pitch & Plot With their multiple homes and a business portfolio of luxury hotels, the Constantines' lives might be a world away from 29-year-old Listy Powers’ but Troy and his sister Olympia are like family, an unlikely yet close bond forged years ago at university. So when she learns Olympia, badly injured in a car accident, is back home on the Greek island of Paxos, Listy sets off immediately to see her. Being at their villa, however, means unavoidable proximity with Olympia's very disapproving eldest brother whom Listy has always loved. When they first met 8 years ago, Kris was a married man with a pregnant wife; now he's a widower. But as the attraction they'd fought back then re-kindles, suspicions resurface about Kris' wife's death. Rianna had not been well-liked. And everyone has something to hide. As she unravels what happened, the truth threatens everyone's future happiness and Listy must decide if crossing that line to protect someone she loves is a price worth paying.

Opening Lines - As the song fades, she hears the footsteps behind her. She doesn't rise from the lounger or look round. Just rolls her eyes and takes another gulp of wine, fixing her gaze ahead. Beyond the villa's perimeter wall where the wooded slopes fall away, the sea glimmers under the silver coin of a moon. 'I told you to leave,' she says, her voice slurred. 'It's over. There's nothing more to say.' 'I have plenty to say.' Her head whips round then. She smiles. Snippet - 'When she died,' Olympia says in a hard voice, 'I was relieved. All I could think was, we're free of her now. Now we can begin to be happy.' Listy's face spasms. 'But you're not,' she says. 'None of you are. It scares me, Olympia, all this hate. So much hate. Troy has it too. It's like...like it's eating him up. Rianna's dead but she might as well not be, the hold she still has on you all.' Olympia begins rummaging in the drawer again. 'You didn't know her. You wouldn't understand.' 'I want to. Tell me what happened.'

Tropes & Themes & The Vibes Collage of pictures with tropes and themes: du Maurier's Rebecca vibes; Found family; Loss; Slow burn romance; Yearning; Obsession; Unrequited love; Secrets; Betrayal; Murder Lower half of page has The Comps – Nanny Wanted by Lizzy Barber, End of Story by AJ Finn, The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and the Sky Atlantic series Riviera

#agentguide to CARELESS WHISPERS my 𝒅𝒖 𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝑹𝑬𝑩𝑬𝑪𝑪𝑨 𝒎𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝑵𝒆𝒕𝒇𝒍𝒊𝒙'𝒔 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑭𝑬𝑪𝑻 𝑪𝑶𝑼𝑷𝑳𝑬 romantic suspense set in Greece.

The woman knew secrets; now she's dead. Everyone has a motive...

💥Secrets
💥Loss
💥Slow❤️🔥
💥Obsession
💥Unrequited💘
💥Betrayal
💥Murder
#Questpit #Q #A #RF #MY

All’s fair in love and ruins

Grad school rival

Patagonia, hike , romance

Patagonia

All’s Fair in Love and Ruins

✨Indiana Jones meets the college-rivals-turned-lovers of Beach Read ✨

✅Strong woman in male-dominated field
✅Banter and yearning
✅Adventure

Third Draft and obsessed! #W #A #R #questpit

Image: A man in a black cloak and a wide brim western style black hat, holding a revolver; only his eyes as yellow pinpricks are visible. Text: A Novel By Kelton Davis Blood from Stone 112000 Words Adult Gothic Western Fantasy Querying Now Art: Apocalypse by Oliver Odmark

Title: Pitch Text: In the twenty years since the vampires rose up out of the earth, Corado hasn’t done too bad for himself. He’s still alive, for one, and he’s got a lucrative trade as a nightrunner smuggling people beneath the vampiric horde that blots out the sky each night. It's dangerous work, but enough to get a roof over his head and a bottle in his hand at the end of the day. That’s pretty good for life under the vampires. Then an attack from the horde leaves him stuck in the desert, alone with a newly-orphaned boy, and his luck finally dries up. He resolves to find what remains of the boy’s family and put it all behind him—but instead of taking him off Corado’s hands, his so-called “family” offers a new deal: escort them to the vampiric capital in exchange for a veritable fortune. Corado knows he shouldn’t. It’s a long, dangerous route, and the group has a smack of sedition to them that he knows firsthand to be a quick way to a bloody death. It is a hell of a lot of money, though. Background image: same as first slide.

Title: Comparable Titles Images of the covers of The Devils by Joe Abercrombie, Godkiller by Hannah Kaner, and Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian. Text drawn with an arrow from each image: Found family (from the Devils) Reluctant parent figure (from Godkiller) Western-inspire Gothic setting (from Red Rabbit) Unlikely travel companions (from all). Background image: same as first slide.

SINNERS x THE DEVILS

There's three rules to surviving as a nightrunner: don't get comfortable, don't be a hero, and don't be unlucky.

Corado's about to break all three.

BIG 5 EDITOR REQUEST!

🤠 Vampire Cowboys
🦇 Monstrous Night Hordes
🏜️ Pueblo Pit Cities

Querying now!
#A #F #Q #questpit

an aerial view of a snowy area with buildings and trees in the background Alt: an aerial view of a snowy area with buildings and trees in the background

Before she dies, a former lead psychiatrist at a sanatorium admits to some dark truths about her time there, but not all. A phantom begins haunting her granddaughter, guiding her closer to the truth behind the institution's walls, deep in the Canadian woods.
#QuestPit #Q #PNH #M #R

The Miles Between Us, which features:
✅ a crime story with deep emotional resonance;
✅ an exploration of themes like grief, racism, and identity;
✅ ordinary citizens stepping into investigative roles;
✅ MCs who seem worlds apart, and are yet so similar;
✅ a romantic subplot.
#questpit #W #A #LF #T

Non-AI. Black book cover with a white rectangular border. At the top, small handwritten-style text reads “A (very) dark rom-com.” The title “TWO, PLEASE” is centered, with “TWO,” in white and “PLEASE” in bold red, rough brush lettering. Below the title, a black-and-white illustrated anatomical heart pierced by a dagger radiates stylized lines. In the foreground, a man and a woman are shown from the shoulders up against the black background. Both have wide, anxious expressions and their mouths are covered with duct tape—black tape on the man, silver tape on the woman. The man wears a light gray sweater; the woman wears a coral-orange top. At the bottom, white text reads: “By the author of Dad Bodies: B. van Bodegom.”

SWEENEY TODD × TRUE ROMANCE × NATURAL BORN KILLERS

When two serial killers accidentally prey on each other, Cupid should've aimed for their throats. Killing together is double the fun. But when one of them wants out, the choice is either stay or slay.

#QuestPit #A #H #DR #W