Hi there! I’m looking for general feedback on my 120,000-word standalone military fantasy with horror elements, RUTHLESS COUNTRY, with a view to querying it in the next few months. I’m a freelance editor by trade, so hopefully the writing is decent enough on a sentence level. This is my 12th novel and I’d love to make it an exciting, cinematic, action-packed story about female soldiers, necromancers and spies.
Synopsis: At 18, rural peasant Jelena Markov is conscripted by a warlord to defend a fortress of iceglass, home to the feared necromancers of the White Banner. She finds her courage in the terror of battle, killing magical soldiers who rain down from rivers of light in the night sky, but she also receives a supernatural curse—“You will never know peace”—that drives her to become a career soldier…
Snippet from the first battle sequence:
NB: This book contains significant physical violence and horror. Characters die from war, famine, childbirth, fire, drowning, magical paratroopers, experimental necromancy and soulless undead. One child character faces physical jeopardy, but is not injured. It’s not grimdark, and there’s no sexual violence. I really want this female-dominated story to be fun and appealing for female fantasy readers in particular.
Thanks in advance for your time.
Synopsis: At 18, rural peasant Jelena Markov is conscripted by a warlord to defend a fortress of iceglass, home to the feared necromancers of the White Banner. She finds her courage in the terror of battle, killing magical soldiers who rain down from rivers of light in the night sky, but she also receives a supernatural curse—“You will never know peace”—that drives her to become a career soldier…
Snippet from the first battle sequence:
Markov knew they’d reached Icewall when she heard the first “Oh, shit!” from further up the column.
They had been marching all day. The officers had pushed them so hard they hadn’t stopped to eat, stuffing down cold rations as they trudged toward the mountains rising on the horizon. The cavalry had ranged ahead, sweeping the frozen farmland on both sides of the road, engaging enemy scouts. The bodies looked so small, crumpled in ditches.
Now a smouldering sunset cast the darkness of ancient forests across them from the left, the sea on their right. It threw their shadows across the road as they rounded the last curve and saw—
“Oh, shit!” It was Markov’s turn.
The city. A brooding presence ten times bigger than Markov had ever imagined, dominated by a fortress built into a mountain pass, fortified with massive walls of eerie iceglass… and surrounded by a seething mass of thousands of Sanjenese troops. Fires burned in their camp along a low ridge. It was such a nightmarish vision that Markov instinctively shied away. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. They couldn’t be going into that.
They had been marching all day. The officers had pushed them so hard they hadn’t stopped to eat, stuffing down cold rations as they trudged toward the mountains rising on the horizon. The cavalry had ranged ahead, sweeping the frozen farmland on both sides of the road, engaging enemy scouts. The bodies looked so small, crumpled in ditches.
Now a smouldering sunset cast the darkness of ancient forests across them from the left, the sea on their right. It threw their shadows across the road as they rounded the last curve and saw—
“Oh, shit!” It was Markov’s turn.
The city. A brooding presence ten times bigger than Markov had ever imagined, dominated by a fortress built into a mountain pass, fortified with massive walls of eerie iceglass… and surrounded by a seething mass of thousands of Sanjenese troops. Fires burned in their camp along a low ridge. It was such a nightmarish vision that Markov instinctively shied away. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. They couldn’t be going into that.
NB: This book contains significant physical violence and horror. Characters die from war, famine, childbirth, fire, drowning, magical paratroopers, experimental necromancy and soulless undead. One child character faces physical jeopardy, but is not injured. It’s not grimdark, and there’s no sexual violence. I really want this female-dominated story to be fun and appealing for female fantasy readers in particular.
Thanks in advance for your time.
