[QCrit] Adult Contemporary Romance, 90k words, 1st attempt.

Hi fellow writing/reading lovers,

My manuscript is in the submission phase and I figured I might as well get all of the eyes I can on the query. I didn’t add my bio in, but the novel is based on lived experience with a similar career path as the MFC.

This is my first time on here, more than open to all feedback, but please be kind!😂

Thank you!!!

Dear [Agent],

[personalization]

I’m excited to share my contemporary romance with upmarket potential, HIGHER UP (90,000 words). It follows a deeply burnt-out millennial executive who walks into an interview to find last weekend’s much-younger one-night stand sitting across from her. HIGHER UP will attract readers who enjoy Emily Henry's sharp, self-aware wit in Book Lovers and the complex themes of self-identity explored in Abby Jimenez’s Part of Your World.

Winnie has spent years building an Austin startup into the explosive fashion brand it is today. She should be on top of her game, basking in her hard-wrought success. But with the complicated death of her father last year, the chokehold of corporate politics, and the toxic presence of Grant—her colleague and sort-of-ex—Winnie’s beginning to crack.

So, when a rare night out ends in a steamy one-night stand with a twenty-four-year-old stranger, the last thing she needs is to find herself face-to-face with him in her office just days later.

Enter Townes Carter, the brilliant new engineer tasked to support the biggest project of Winnie’s career—a bold new lingerie line that now feels like a can of dynamite. And the worst part? He’s as likable as he is gorgeous. Winnie tries to put the night behind her, but as the work quickly shifts into late nights of banter over takeout, it’s impossible to deny the spark she feels for the first time in years. Despite his age, Townes is nothing like the men she’s used to: he’s sincere, thoughtful, and after growing up with an ultra-famous mother, no stranger to female ambition. Winnie begins to let herself fall, shoving her doubts and exhaustion to the side yet again. But she can only pretend for so long.

When a painful discovery about her father is capped by a nightmare work retreat, with Grant determined to implode their project and Townes’s job, Winnie finally breaks. Depleted and faced with a risky new opportunity across the country, she’s forced to take stock of who she’s become and face the girl she used to be—even if it costs her the man she loves.