by Marena Galluccio (@marenagalluccio.bsky.social)
YA Fantasy Mystery
Agents can request additional materials via our Agent Request Form.
Query
THE SHADOWS OF TIME is a romantic YA fantasy/mystery set in an Italy-inspired world, perfect for fans of Belladonna, House of Roots and Ruin, and This Vicious Grace—with a Midnight Strikes twist.
After guests are found murdered within the castle, Verona—the eighteen-year-old healer who is as reclusive as she is curious about her research—must leave the confines of her royal lab and work with others to find the killer.
Every year, the country of Novara celebrates the moment when those who turn eighteen discover their chosen Patroni––gods who endow them with power and bless them with a life path. Verona assumes her god is Tancredo, the god of Healing, and dreams of using her magic in a lab far from society and anyone who could interrupt her healing work. But when one of the queen’s guests unexpectedly dies right as the gods are assigned, Verona’s new relationship with Cadenza, the goddess of Time, seems to be a warning—or a threat—of more to come.
To investigate the guest’s death, the queen forces Verona to team up with the rakish—and handsome—Guardian of Fate, Arsenio, who has been sent by the Fate Guild to look into why Novara’s fate lines have become tangled and why the source of their entanglement is at the heart of the castle. As the pair research the castle’s four courts, one death soon turns into four, and they are haunted by both dark magic and questionable guests—all while trying not to fall for one another.
THE SHADOWS OF TIME is complete at ##,000 words, won the #RevPit (Revise and Resubmit) 2025 contest, and has gone through a full developmental edit. It was inspired by reliving the same cycle of trauma, breaking from it, and the resulting anxiety. I am a graduate of The University of Georgia, current copywriter, and former YA book journalist for EpicReads, SheReads.com, and Frolic.
First Five Pages
The sun had started its descent, casting a golden hue on the banquet Princess Romilda was hosting for the first night of la Festa dei Dodici Patroni, and Verona was late. The view would be a truly spectacular sight for the guests as they looked on from the highest hill top of the castle gardens, down upon the town of Scilla and its surrounding autumn-covered farmland.
Too bad Verona didn’t have time to look. If only she were Blessed now—and not this oncoming midnight—she wouldn’t have needed to take extra care to create the salve the princess had requested of her. Or be noticed by the guests.
She followed a stone pathway that curved around the side of the castle. It was the quickest way from her lab to the gala and she needed every minute she could claim. Stone archways lined the path every few steps, with expertly cut flowers and vines wrapped around each pillar. Verona paused at the last archway, right before the path ended and she could be within sight of the princess’s guests.
She gasped. She always knew Princess Romilda loved a spectacle, but this went beyond anything Verona ever thought was possible. Amidst the large, ancient trees was a long wooden table covered in a shimmering cloth filled with various sized candelabras that flickered against the oncoming twilight sky. Orange and yellow flowers bloomed towards the rising moon, and leaves both real and made from shimmering fabric were scattered everywhere. Lanterns lit within the trees provided extra warmth, glowing various shades of oranges, reds, and yellows, all representing the autumn season. Each seat featured an ornate gold hand mirror upon its charger for when the marks of the Patroni were announced.
For the first night of la Festa—especially one that featured a lunar eclipse that occurred only once every one hundred years—the Princess crafted a scene that would not be forgotten.
Numerous guests dressed in orange and red, cream and yellow––the official colors of the Princess’s court––shined with an opulence that only seemed to grow more dramatic the further down the table Verona looked. Verona rose to the tips of her toes to try to look past the guests, table, and candelabras that were as tall as Verona if she stood on the table, to the small round stage at the end that was designed to look like the moon in honor of the eclipse. Upon it, Princess Romilda sat in her wood-carved throne, looking out over the guests and the revelry.
Verona scanned the space. There had to be a way over to the princess without drawing attention to herself. Verona’s heartbeat sped up just slightly. If only she could have made it here before guests started trickling in.
The princess stood and began addressing the crowd, but Verona paid little attention. There, on the far right side of the table and the guests, was a line of newly planted trees, shrubs, and flowers with orange silk banners that trailed between them to obscure the servants’ working space. Toward the back of the line of trees, there was a slight opening that was just big enough for a person to slip through without anyone noticing. Verona sighed and looked down at her newly pressed skirt. If she wanted to get to the princess undetected, this was her only option.
Her feet lightly crunched upon the dried grass as she made her way towards the line of flora and stepped through. Valets, maids, chefs, and cooks rushed in organized chaos, bringing plates of impeccably prepared dishes and sparkling bottles of wine out to the guests. A valet in frilly livery pulled his pinched fingers on both hands apart and conjured a glowing bone-white line between them. He focused on a coupe on the top of a tower that was tilted slightly off from the others, threatening to fall, and turned the line’s angle vertically, lightly nudging the glass to the proper place above the rest.
It never failed to amaze Verona of each of the Blessed’s gifts, the magic they channeled from their chosen Patrono, even for the smallest of tasks. And soon, within hours, she would have her very own.
But she could not admire it as long as she wanted. She had a task to do. She kept her head down and stayed close to the tree line as she made her way toward the stage, paying attention to where she was going to stay out of anyone’s way, and halting once when a servant rounded the corner at the other end to return a tray of empty glasses.
The sky had darkened slightly and the sun truly began to show off its golden light as she rounded the treeline to the guest side once again. Fortunately, there were very few lanterns here, and she slipped under a tree’s shade to wait until the guests’ applause died down and the Pprincess sat once again.
Just as Verona thought that was all for the Pprincess’s speech, Princess Romilda commanded a bright teal line, pinching her fingers and pulling them apart again, similar to the valet earlier. It shimmered and reflected off the amazed faces of the spectators as the princess directed it into each of the wild shapes of the Patroni’s symbols that would appear upon a person’s forehead at midnight. How ornamental. And yet, even Verona could not make herself stop watching. When the princess turned the line into a small ball and threw it high up in the air for the finale, it exploded into a million sparkles that rained gently upon her guests, who clapped with a ferocity that would be seen as too excitable within a regular court. But it was not just any court. It was the princess’s, and she preferred spectacle above all else.
“Please, sit, and enjoy tonight’s festivities,” Princess Romilda called out across the crowd. “Blessings forever be upon you.”
The princess walked off the dais and Verona followed her into the trees’ shadows. She curtsied. “Sua Altezza, I’ve brought the salve you requested.”
“Verona, lovely to see you this evening,” Princess Romilda said. “Here, walk with me.”
She really wanted to return to the comfort of her lab, but the Princess made no hurry to take the salve and instead led their way around another separate treeline that Verona had not spotted before. It was a fairly large changing room, blocked off from the outside world by hedges that were as tall as the castle’s walls and sectioned off by wooden room dividers with designs of the royal family’s Patrono throughout the ages carved on both sides of them. A gold-leafed easel holding up a painted canvas of Princess Romilda on her eighteenth la Festa dominated the entryway, the symbol of Time sparkling upon her brow. It was nearly as tall as the princess herself. She sat at a vanity under tree-hanging crystal lanterns, one a maid adjusted with her own sparkling line of magic so it reflected upon the princess, as another maid began to pat her face with a damp, orange-scented hand towel. The aroma of the season’s first harvest drifted to Verona’s nose.
Princess Romilda closed her eyes as the maid puffed white powder onto her face and another reshaped her strawberry blonde hair, piling it on top of her head. “You were saying?”
After a moment, Verona realized the princess was addressing her. “Oh, I made the salve you had requested. Earlier today,” she added for extra measure.
Princess Romilda nodded, just barely. The lady’s maid pinned in another bronze piece into her towering hairstyle, which wobbled just slightly in unison with the others each time the princess moved. Verona counted twelve bronze animal hair accessories, each one representing the twelve Patroni and sparkling beautifully against the princess’ bronze skin, but the one she spotted immediately was Tancredo’s symbol of the winged caladrius. Verona peeled her gaze away from the winged caladrius and returned it to the princess’s face. Was it so white due to the mercury in her cosmetics (the very one Verona could not stand and had offered to replace many times over with no success) or because of the growing weight straining upon her head, neck, and shoulders holding up such an elaborate hairstyle?
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Verona. Can’t have my tailors’ deft fingers be red and inflamed during their final competition, can we?” She took the salve from Verona and handed it to the maid who fixed the lantern. “Do see this is delivered to my tailor, Maria.”
The maid bowed and took her leave. Verona’s eyes followed the girl as she took it away and disappeared around the tree-lined corner before turning back to the princess.
“Competition, Sua Altezza?” she asked. Other medicines might be needed from her, and it was best that she was aware of them now.