Request for assistance (#writing related)
Any astronomers around? Professional or amateur? @badastro@mastodon.social perhaps?

I have a story-driven #astronomy question. I finally found a way to start my next Stardock novel, Across The Ocean Of Stars, that I don't hate. I need to identify, ideally, a class M red sub-giant star, not too close to Earth but not too far either. Probably anywhere within a range of a few hundred to about two thousand LY would work. It needs to be close enough for a hyperdrive ship to travel to in a manageable time period, far enough that optical telescopes would not have picked up serious anomalies about the star. (It also needs to not be a closely-studied star, because I need those anomalies to be able to be found). I'd PREFER to use a real star that exists in a star catalogue, not just make a designation up. But so far I have been unable to devise a web search term that is simultaneously specific enough to return only class M sub-giants, and broad enough to actually return any hits at all. I can get lists of sub-giant stars but as soon as I restrict it to 'red' or 'class M', I get zero hits, even though I know that stellar class exists on the stellar evolution diagram.

Can any amateur or professional #astronomer out there lend a hand? I expect what I need to do is search one of the major stellar catalogues, but I'm not certain where to start. I can find sites to search for a star by name, by location, by star catalogue designation, but so far I've turned up nothing for searching by stellar class.

I'll make up something plausible if I have to... but I'd prefer to use a real catalogued star.