Meant To Be---another new version

[maggie]

Yea, I understand that. I think that talking a lot about their unhappy marriages makes people think "affair" because in women's fiction, these kinds of descriptions so often end up with, "...and that's why she slept with the pool boy," or whatever. :)

I do like the structure of this one of your queries, and it seems to me like it gets across all these points without going too far into the spouses:

When NYU professor Daniel Gardner’s career-obsessed wife convinces him to move to the suburbs, he hopes it’s a first step toward starting the family he longs to have. Instead he meets his neighbor, Marienne Valeti, who loves her freelance design job but struggles with a growing sense of isolation created by her husband’s indifference.

A penchant for good books, late night star gazing, and Marienne’s to-die-for homemade brownies, sparks a powerful bond between them. Their camaraderie fills the voids in each of their lives. Passion simmers, but they resist its lure, giving in only in the seclusion of their own minds. Even when events conspire to make them both available, they resist, terrified to risk the friendship they’ve grown to depend on to discover if they're truly MEANT TO BE.

Complete at 109,000 words MEANT TO BE is a work of commercial fiction.

I did see that you mentioned, though, that it seemed like describing all four people generated more requests. Maybe if you want to leave that in, somehow be even more in-your-face about how it's only after they are both single that they consider anything? Like in your logline, maybe do something like:

Daniel and Marienne fill the voids in each other’s lives in ways their spouses never did. Their friendship has survived hardships from his divorce to her widowhood, and now that they're both newly single, they each are secretly wondering if it could survive a first kiss.

Good luck!

[cheekychook]

Thanks for the additional input Maggie.

The two- paragraph older query you posted is the only one I've sent that generated zero requests. Granted, I didn't send it out too many times, but it has a worse track record than the other two so I'm hesitant to go back to it. A lot of feedback I received indicated that was a good query, but the agents I chose to submit it to apparently felt otherwise.

I appreciate your suggestions on the version I'm currently toying with---I'll see what I can do to further emphasize the lack of adultery.