Cw: Trauma, grief, and explicit sexual content.

Hello there! I’m looking for Beta Readers for the first 30 pages of my romance novel.

Though if you get hooked and want to read the entire thing (80k words), that would be amazing!!

I am open to a critique swap for other Romance or Contemporary Fiction.

I’ve spent two years obsessing over this story through four drafts.

Synopsis: (I decided to write in first person)

I moved to New York to start over, escaping the suffocating memory of a mother who drowned in her own grief and a father who left us both behind. I am Camille, a designer who believes that if I can just stitch the perfect garment, I can fix the holes in my own life. I’m not looking for redemption—I’m just looking to be solid.

Then I meet Daniele. Our connection is instant; he’s the first person who truly sees the chaos in my silence. But Daniele is living a double life. To me, he is the man who understands my ghosts; to the world, he is the 'viral boy' and the lead singer of the Cold Season Saints.

What I don't know is that our meeting wasn't just a coincidence—it was a calculated move by his agent to 'humanize' his image for an app deal. When the truth breaks, I feel like a character in a script I never signed up for.

While Daniele is already suffocating under a persona he’s desperate to leave behind, our relationship becomes the catalyst for him to finally walk away from his 'brand'. But as he fights for his truth, the resulting public pressure causes my own mental health to fracture. I realize that even the most intense love can't outrun a traumatic past. In the end, we learn that love doesn't fix you—it just gives you someone to hold onto while you fix yourself.

What feedback I am looking for: pacing, character development. Does the story move too fast or too slow? Do the characters feel like real, flawed people? Does the dual POV works? like do you feel like reading two different people? is the poetry too heavy? is it hard to read? hard to understand?

Since I am a non-native English speaker, I’d love to know if the lyrical "voice" works or if it’s too heavy/hard to understand.

I am very keen to Zoom or FaceTime about the feedback—I'd love to make this our own little book club!.

If interested, I will send either a google doc or a pdf based on preference.

Note

I am not sure what kind of book you could compare it to; it has many things from different books I've read, like the different points of view from Daisy Jones, and the use of music and lyrics as an essential part of the plot, some of the emotional "realness" and the deep connection of Normal People**.**

The high-stakes celebrity/non-celebrity dynamic of The Idea of You

But it also has many things of books I've read and thought damm I wish I could read something different, like for example a love letter to whiskey even tho i didnt hate the book, i wanted to write a love story where both of the characters love fully deeply and even if flawed the love stays strong, the decisions feel human and relatable in a way

I believe its atmospheric, character-driven, and "spicy" with a focus on mental health, recovery, and the isolation of fame.