March 2022 Pass or Pages Entry #4

 

It's time for the Pass or Pages feedback reveal!  We're so thankful for our awesome agents Annalise Errico and Rebecca Podos for taking the time to critique these entries.  And a shout out to the brave authors whose work will be on the blog this week.  You are awesome!

Entry 4: Meet Me in Santorini

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Query

I am seeking representation for my 85,000-word contemporary romance novel, Meet Me in Santorini—a childhood-friends-to-lovers, second-chance romance with dual POV and alternating timelines.

Penelope and Colin, best friends and each other’s first loves, haven’t seen or spoken to each other in six years. Next-door neighbors in Brooklyn, New York, the two have been inseparable since they were seven and nine years old. Colin, a photographer who has always felt like an outsider in his family of doctors and lawyers, finds solace with Penelope, who always sees the good in others and has an overwhelming desire to live life to the fullest.

They spent every moment together—until Penelope’s mother died, and Colin disappeared from the face of the earth without warning or explanation.

Now, a family wedding brings Penelope and Colin back together on a luxury vacation across the Mediterranean coast. The trip seems ill-fated from the start when a disagreement between the two families threatens to ruin the entire vacation.

As they re-acquaint themselves with one another, snorkeling in the south of France, watching sunsets over the Aegean Sea, and cruising the cliffs of Monaco, Penelope and Colin quickly realize they never stopped loving each other. But will they be able to overcome Colin’s betrayal? And where has he been the last six years?

In this People We Meet on Vacation meets The Light We Lost, Penelope and Colin must decide if they will reclaim the all-consuming love they experienced in their youth, or let their dueling families, complicated past, and years apart ruin their second chance at love.

~~

Annalise's comments:

None

 

Rebecca's comments:

None

First 250 Words

It took six years for Penelope Cameron to put the pieces of her heart back together. And still, the glue hadn’t fully dried.

It was early—too early, as she sat on the floor of her childhood bedroom surrounded by cardboard boxes of her old things. Penelope had never been a morning person. It was the thing she liked least about herself, the way her body worked against the part of her that longed to get the most out of every day. But every morning she would wake, and her heart would sink over the precious minutes she had wasted while she slept.

She would be sleeping now, if it weren’t for Juliet. Which was a shame, because Penelope really wanted to like the woman—but Juliet made that very difficult. She had woken Penelope that morning with all the noise she was making bustling around the kitchen, clanging dishes and running the vacuum. These weren’t noises Penelope was used to hearing so early in her family’s home. But the truth was, the house on Cranberry Street had not been her home for quite some time. It was impossible with the two gaping holes staring at her from every place she looked, threatening the fragile cracks in her newly healed heart. Digging through one of the boxes for a sweatshirt, she heard a tap on her door[AE1].

“Yes?” She tried to sound cheery even though she was exhausted and irritated to be awake at that hour.

~~

Annalise's comments:

[AE1] I would pass here, but probably request an R&R based on the next few paragraphs. This would be for two reasons. One, the word count is on that border of a little bit too high for a contemporary romance — but not high enough that it’s an automatic no. Two, the writing seems just a little unpolished, but at a place where another round of line-level edits by the author might be effective. Or, again, it might just be that it doesn’t jive with me personally!To get the first 250 words right is such a difficult task, which is why I request the first three chapters, to get a better sense of the flow of the authors writing. But in this query’s case, the concept and comps to Emily Henry have me interested!

 

Rebecca's comments:

I like a lot of the elements this teases in the query letter—the tropes, the luxury vacation setting, and the comps are great.

But I think there’s something in the description of Penelope that would make me pass, and this is ENTIRELY subjective. Describing her as “seeing the best in everyone and having an overwhelming desire to live life to the fullest” seems so broad as a character trait, and then opening on her being annoyed at another character for cleaning their home too early, I feel like I don’t have a handle on this character enough to invest in following them through the story, and would likely pass after the opening chapters.

Results:  [If you receive a "Pages!", click on the agent's name here or at the top of this post for submission instructions.]

Annalise: Pass 

Rebecca: Pass