Success Story Interview - A. L. Doyle

An Interview with A. L. Doyle (aldoyle on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Rebecca Lommers of Katie Reed Literary.

10/05/2026

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

A. L. Doyle:
THE WITCH AND THE THIEF is about a witch and a thief who are bound together by a hex and must work to unravel the mysterious layers of a blight enclosing a nearby town or risk its deadly expansion. The idea for this novel first began as a desire to write a gothic, cozy fantasy. From there, I gathered ideas about the main character, Lenora, who is a witch working on solving a blight while dealing with the grief of having lost her closest friend. As a new mother, I've found the postpartum experience to be incredibly isolating. I wrote this book because I wanted to explore social isolation in different forms, as well as grief manifest in both people and the land. This is a story about outcasts, about grief and learning to carry it as well as the many complexities and different types of grief. I hope people who have ever felt like an outcast or dealt with grief can relate and find comfort in my story.

QT: How long have you been writing?

A. L. Doyle:
I was a teacher for five years and would often write with my students, especially poetry. I wrote my first novel in 2022.

QT: How long have you been working on this book?

A. L. Doyle:
I first started gathering ideas and brainstorming in October of 2023. I started querying this one in October of 2025.

QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

A. L. Doyle:
Yes, imposter syndrome hits hard some days, but I've found relying on community, taking breaks to refill my creative well, and switching up the projects I'm working on are all beneficial in helping me stay the course.

QT: Is this your first book?

A. L. Doyle:
No, I wrote two books before this one.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

A. L. Doyle:
Not directly. While my degree is not in English, I was an English Language Arts teacher for five years. I've also done a lot of self learning over the years on the craft of writing, reading books, listening to podcasts, etc.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

A. L. Doyle:
Yes, as a stay at home mom, I write every day when my child naps. Also, I am lucky to have some incredible in-laws who live nearby and watch my daughter once a week to give me more time to write.

QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

A. L. Doyle:
I don't recall exactly how many drafts I did, but it was somewhere between 6-8.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

A. L. Doyle:
Yes, I had the wonderful privilege of connecting with some amazing beta readers through my social media page.

QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

A. L. Doyle:
I am in between. I typically come up with a very basic outline (7 point plot structure) then I pants it from there and see where the characters take me.

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

A. L. Doyle:
I queried this project for nearly a year. I queried two projects before this one, but not for nearly as long.

QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

A. L. Doyle:
I made sure they represented my genre and target audience.

QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

A. L. Doyle:
Yes, I would tweak the start of my letter based on their manuscript wishlists.

QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

A. L. Doyle:
Keep going, everyone's journey will be different, and getting an agent is a mix of timing, the right fit, and luck. In the meantime, keep writing and, most importantly, keep hoping. I met the agent I signed with through a live pitch event (Writing Away Refuge) but the first agent who offered, I cold queried.

Query Letter:

Dear Rebecca,

It was lovely to meet you at the Writing Away Refuge pitch event. My new adult fantasy novel, The Witch and the Thief, is complete at 93,000 words. With a cozy cottage setting and a gothic twist, a found-family dynamic, and a deep emotional heart, my novel will appeal to fans of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst and Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.

Lenora, a witch, wants nothing more than to be left alone. After her visions lead to the death of her best friend, she is exiled and retreats to a secluded cottage. She escapes her guilt and grief by constructing creatures to tend to the cottage grounds. With the tedium managed, Lenora immerses herself in research, searching for a way to cure the blight that has overtaken the town of Hartwell, and redeem herself in the process.

Julian, the thief of the story, wants nothing more than to regain his noble title that was stripped from him and the wealth and status his father lost. When the perfect opportunity arises, he seizes it, but his carefully laid plan collapses. To avoid capture, he flees his pursuers by riding into the threat of the Hartwell blight.

Both outcasts in their own ways, their lives become entwined when Julian attempts to steal from his savior, Lenora. As a result, he is hexed and magically trapped, forced to remain at her cottage against both their wills. Together, the two work to solve the mysterious layers of the Hartwell blight and prevent Lenora’s prophetic vision of Julian’s death from becoming reality.

I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband, two-year-old daughter, and our two dogs. As a former English teacher, I've seen the power stories can hold, and nothing brought me more joy than helping a student find a book they absolutely loved. My goal is to create worlds full of magic and intrigue that help people feel seen, understood, and develop empathy for the beautiful souls that inhabit our world.

Thanks for taking a look at The Witch and the Thief.

Sincerely,

Amanda Doyle