Renee pushed the piles of books, scriptures, games, and Legos to one side so that the government agent could get through (where? Need a little more sense of place) and sit down on the couch. If she’d known he were coming, she would have cleaned up. Or maybe not. Soon after her husband’s funeral, she’d reverted to her original personality of doing things when she darn well felt like them, and not on strict, German hausfrau-type schedules. Anyway, who expected the CIA to show up on their (they who? Renee?) doorstep twenty years after they’d left America? (New paragraph) Sitting down across from Agent Rossmann, Renee took a closer look at him. He resembled Bill Gates more than a CIA agent – not that she knew what a typical agent should look like. For some reason, she was tempted to offer eight cows to his mother and hope he’d morph from a geek into a movie star right before her eyes. (funny) Or did the change only come after marriage? Realizing that she had started to search his fingers for a ring, Renee lifted her eyes back to his face and waited for him to tell her why he was there.
Critique: Fill us in a little more on the surroundings.
Would I ask for more? This is hard to say because rarely do I only get to read one paragraph and usually there's a synopsis. This one gets a qualified Maybe. If the query was good and the second and third paragraph were good or better, I might ask for a partial--especially if this is going to be a romantic suspense and the humor carries through.
6 comments:
I'll vote for this one.
Witty and intriguing. The line about eight cows is hilarious.
The reference to the husband's funeral is a little jarring--kind of an "oh how sad" moment that doesn't fit the humorous tone of the rest of the passage. Mention of a funeral makes the death feel recent to me. Maybe say "Ever since Bill died" or something like that. Just a thought.
I like Renee already. I can tell she's going to be a fun, feisty heroine. And I like that she's got Legos all over her couch--here's a woman I can relate to!
I vote for this one.
I vote for this one.
I vote for this one! It feels the most like a real person, with a real personality, rather than a two dimensional character an author is making up.
I vote for this one.
This has an interesting stream-of-consciousness feel. I confess that I don't know what a hausfrau type of schedule is, though.
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