ALT WIP guide to The Desert Keeps Her Dead, a weird western fantasy heist. Website: www.saraduranauthor.com.

ALT WIP: The Desert Keeps Her Dead. The pitch: The Desert Keeps Her Dead is a weird western fantasy set in a desert frontier where water wells are created using the bones of extinct beasts. When a death-obsessed paleontologist is pulled into a high-stakes theft by her estranged bounty hunter best friend, she joins a fractured crew, including a runaway teen aristocrat and a desert-drifting inventor, to steal the only intact specimen in the world. As the heist’s pressure mounts, new loyalties surface and old betrayals take hold. What begins as a routine job becomes something far more dangerous: a choice between seizing the fossil’s power or destroying it for good, and with it, the fragile system keeping the desert alive. Comp titles include The Water Outlaws, Red Rabbit, And Side by Side They Wander, and The Geomagician. Website: www.saraduranauthor.com.

ALT WIP: The Desert Keeps Her Dead. The team: Amelie, the expert: death-obsessed paleontologist, twinless twin, anxious girlie, Dehla’s ex-best friend. Dehla, the leader: bounty hunter, gunslinger, Amelie’s ex-best friend. Lu, the wildcard: runaway aristocrat, fifteen years old, baby enby, mission bargaining chip. Silas, the getaway car: desert-drifting inventor, former soldier, groveling MMC, Amelie’s love interest. Shae, the obstacle: rival bounty hunter after the same target, knife-to-throat baddie, Dehla’s ex-girlfriend. Website: www.saraduranauthor.com.

ALT WIP: The Desert Keeps Her Dead. The vibes: heist story inside a fantasy world, weird western vibes, gothic desert setting, paleontology, bone-based magic, evil oil companies, blood-drinking cultists, creepy desert creatures, dual-POV, adult friendships, M/F and F/F romance, morally gray ladies, sapphic and enby rep, anxiety rep, ecological lens, and setting as character. Website: www.saraduranauthor.com.

ALT PITCH On a frozen lunar prison outpost, two exiled men uncover an ancient entity awakening beneath the ice. As their uneasy alliance against it twists into a bond both tender and terrifying, they are confronted with the one thing they never expected to find on a dead moon: a reason to live. But the ice is thinning.

ALT FOR FANS OF ANNIHILATION x BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SEA THE SALT GROWS HEAVY DEEP SKY

ALT SHUTTLE MANIFEST • forced proximity • strangers-to-reluctant-allies-to-lovers • opposites attract • slow burn • yearning • unspoken feelings • almost-confessions • we shouldn’t do this • we should definitely do this • hurt/comfort • staying vs. leaving • duty vs. desire • I’d kill for you • I’d die for you • I’d live for you

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