Italy is the center of fashion, travel, culture, cuisine, wine and most of all love. When Brie Bell moved to Italy she wasn’t looking for love, she was running from it. As an iconic entertainment lawyer she had all she could’ve wanted; family, money, prestige and a great career. Italian men are typically too nice, intrusive, pushy, aggressive and overbearing, yet wonderfully sweet. She met those seven Italian men on an oddly hot February day and that’s when her life took a turn. Marcos Scapiani wasn’t your typical Italian man; he was shy and quiet, nothing like his friends. This is what drew her to him.
BELLA DONNA is complete at around 136,400 words. It is the first book of the trilogy, AN ITALIAN DREAM. I have lived and traveled throughout Italy and have gained my knowledge by immersing myself in the culture.
This trilogy appeals to women between the ages of 25 and 40, working women, single women, women raising families as well as the career driven woman. It is women’s fiction of impassioned love, magnetic adventure, sharing a vivid and beautiful culture. Ultimately revealing the strength, wisdom and perseverance within us all.
I reside in Phoenix and work for the Phoenix Veterans Hospital, in Mental Health. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Political Science and am working on a Master’s in Psychology.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
This sounds very interesting and you have a strong start, but you lose it halfway through the first paragraph. Here's a few suggestions.
ReplyDeletetaly is the center of fashion, travel, culture, cuisine, wine and most of all love. When Brie Bell moved to Italy she wasn’t looking for love, she was running from it.
As an iconic entertainment lawyer she had all she could have wanted; family, money, prestige and a great career. Italian men are typically too nice, intrusive, pushy, aggressive and overbearing, yet wonderfully sweet.(This is where you lost me. How can they be too nice if they are intrusive, push, and aggressive? Maybe reword this?) When she meets Marcos Scapiani she realizes he isn't your typical Italian man; he was shy and quiet, nothing like his friends. And she finds herself drawn to him despite her adamance to stay single.
BELLA DONNA is a (put your genre here: chick lit? Romance? complete with an approximate word count of 136,000 (BTW, this is kind of long, I've heard that most agents don't want to see anything over 130,000 and that's pushing it.) words.
I have lived and traveled throughout Italy and have gained my knowledge by immersing myself in the culture. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Political Science and am working on a Master’s in Psychology.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Otherwise this sounds very good. :) Good luck!
The query reads well, but I'm not sure if you need to mention your degrees at the end unless it is connected to your story. I could be wrong though. Maybe research that.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with it.
This needs some work. Go back and read the GASP! concept. You've told us that Brie is running from love, but that's all we get. Why? What is her goal? What are the stakes? What is she going to do? And what is the problem or obstacle that's trying to prevent her success?
ReplyDeleteAlso, your word count is a bit high. I don't think you need to include your education or the fact that you've been to Italy. The agent probably won't care about that. I'm sure you've written an interesting story, but from your query I can't tell. Work on it a bit more and come up with something more compelling. Give us a cliffhanger at the end. Make us want to find out what happens to your character.
Hope that helps. Sorry if it's a bit harsh, but it's obvious you can write, and I know can do better.
Hi there, I agree with Michael, it is obvious that you can write and the text of your novel will reflect that. But you need to take a chance with your query, take risks. Is that hard? You bet it is! Michael's given you some great advice there. Something that can help is to think of your query as the blurb on the back of the book. What would make you pick your book instead of another one? I know you'll come up with the answer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I know from experience (sadly) that the word count on this is too long. Go here for a really good round up of what the word counts should be: http://kidlit.com/2009/11/13/manuscript-length/
It's a really daunting thing to think about cutting out that many words, but you can do it! I cut down my (gasp) 150,000 word novel to less than 70,000 words. It was painful and it meant cutting out whole chapters and whole lines of plot; but I did it and so can you. Good luck!
This sounds like a great story but there are a ton of grammatical errors. Watch out for sentence fragments. There's a few. I agree with jasouders; they can't be nice and agressive at the same time. Follow the GASP! and you should be good! Good luck!
ReplyDelete