QUERY: Stars in Her Eyes, Adult contemporary romance

Having grown up under the influence of fairy tales, romantic novels, and her parents’ tragic love story I agree with roxie. Cut the word tragic so it sticks out less., executive assistant Marlee Rice is looking for her own happily ever after. She thinks she’s found it in the software company’s COO, GQ-sexy Cooper Fallon. Tired of waiting for Cooper to grasp her not-so-subtle hints, she devises a plan to win him. Marlee, after all, is no damsel in distress waiting for rescue; she knows what she wants and how to get it. She just hopes that Cooper won’t be scared off by her father, a stargazing physics teacher whose dementia is turning him into someone she doesn’t recognize. The second clause of this last sentence threw me. Usually the meeting parents phase happens after you start dating. Considering Coop hasn't yet expressed interest, I feel like Marlee's father's dementia is the least of her concerns. We still don't even know if Coop finds her attractive! If her hints are as obvious as your query implies, Coop is either oblivious (which is sort of hard to believe given his position) or he's not interested.



Her boss’s wedding seems like the perfect opportunity for maid of honor Marlee to woo best man Cooper. But Cooper shocks everyone by inviting his too-perfect-to-be-real I don't know what this means... BFF and starting some wedding rumors of his own This is starting to feel YA. And less like a group of Silicon Valley software execs . To make Cooper jealous again, we still have no indication that Coop feels anything for Marlee, Marlee agrees to go with nerdy programmer Tyler Young, who’s always hanging around her desk. The plan backfires when a staged kiss turns into something more between Marlee and Tyler under the starlight. Who knew the bespectacled dweeb could be such a tiger in bed? Back at work, Marlee tries to discourage Tyler’s interest, but she can’t resist going back for more geek love. I feel like there conflict here is love vs obsession. I'm 70% sure that's not what you're going for. Right?



When her father wanders off one night, it’s Tyler, not Cooper, who comes to her rescue and helps her find him. I'm Team Tyler But Marlee’s machinations have caught Cooper’s attention at last, and she thinks she’s on her way to winning the handsome prince--COO, that is. I need more of a scoop on Coop. I don't like him. I feel like I should. But I don't. If I don't like him, it's really hard to see why the person I'm following for the next 73k words does. Show me Coop's good qualities through her. Let me know if this is a story about Marlee's naivety or if she's truly torn between two good guys. Coop definitely needs more of a description that GQ-sexy COO Tyler confronts Marlee, telling her he deserves more than the crumbs of her affection. But Marlee, holding fast to her envisioned happy ending, lets him walk away. It’s not until her father takes a debilitating fall that Marlee opens her eyes to the truth, both for her dad and for herself, to learn that the fairy tale she thought she wanted might not be what she needs. The stakes need to be made more clear. Then again, I think choosing between two people competing for your love is as high as the stakes get. Whether the relationship succeeds or fails is the result of that gamble. Perhaps you could cut the timeline of the query back a bit. Set the stakes to the events that led Tyler to make his declaration.



STARS IN HER EYES, a contemporary romance complete at 73,000 words, is a modern-day middle-class EMMA set in high-tech San Francisco with a geeky cinnamon-roll hero.