Query: December--Your Help Needed!
Posted: August 23rd, 2010, 6:59 pm
Hi all--thanks for taking a look! My main problem is that my novel is multi-storyline, multi-POV, and I want that to come across without overwhelming the poor soul reading my query. My biggest problem is that all the characters mentioned below get equal playing time--there is no one main protagonist, which I'm afraid is muddying things in the query. Here goes:
It’s December 1945, but the first peacetime Christmas after World War II holds few tidings of comfort or joy for Vernon Moore and his two daughters, Emily and Gloria. The telegram that arrived weeks before VJ Day about Walter Moore still hangs over their household. Gloria, a dancer, slips further into the seedy politics of the theater world, chasing elusive promises of a lead role. Meanwhile, Emily loses her job to a returning veteran but gains a friend—and perhaps more—in her brother’s childhood friend and wartime comrade Nate Bennett. But Nate harbors a secret he doesn’t want to share—he knows the real reasons Walter isn’t coming home.
When a French War Bride arrives in Chicago on an ordinary December day, she doesn’t expect to be the missing piece of a family’s war-torn puzzle. She is not precisely welcome—her presence interrupts Nate’s hopes of winning Emily affections, Gloria’s focus on her career, and Vernon’s execution of a simple lie he believes will protect his family from the loss of his son. The wounds opened by her arrival have only one remedy—rediscovering Walter Moore.
December, complete at 75,000 words, tells the post-war story that will appeal to readers who enjoyed Sarah Blake’s pre-war novel The Postmistress.
While earning my BA in history from Redacted University, my writing was honored with both a Campus Writing Program Award and a departmental Thesis Award. Research for December took me dancing at a restored Chicago ballroom, cooking in a WWII battleship galley, and attempting my own Victory Garden.
So there you go--thanks for reading, and I appreciate any suggestions or critiques.
It’s December 1945, but the first peacetime Christmas after World War II holds few tidings of comfort or joy for Vernon Moore and his two daughters, Emily and Gloria. The telegram that arrived weeks before VJ Day about Walter Moore still hangs over their household. Gloria, a dancer, slips further into the seedy politics of the theater world, chasing elusive promises of a lead role. Meanwhile, Emily loses her job to a returning veteran but gains a friend—and perhaps more—in her brother’s childhood friend and wartime comrade Nate Bennett. But Nate harbors a secret he doesn’t want to share—he knows the real reasons Walter isn’t coming home.
When a French War Bride arrives in Chicago on an ordinary December day, she doesn’t expect to be the missing piece of a family’s war-torn puzzle. She is not precisely welcome—her presence interrupts Nate’s hopes of winning Emily affections, Gloria’s focus on her career, and Vernon’s execution of a simple lie he believes will protect his family from the loss of his son. The wounds opened by her arrival have only one remedy—rediscovering Walter Moore.
December, complete at 75,000 words, tells the post-war story that will appeal to readers who enjoyed Sarah Blake’s pre-war novel The Postmistress.
While earning my BA in history from Redacted University, my writing was honored with both a Campus Writing Program Award and a departmental Thesis Award. Research for December took me dancing at a restored Chicago ballroom, cooking in a WWII battleship galley, and attempting my own Victory Garden.
So there you go--thanks for reading, and I appreciate any suggestions or critiques.