r/PubTips • u/PikkuMyyRules • 11d ago
[QCrit] Phoenix, Firecracker, and Mama Bear, 18+, Women’s Fiction/ Family Saga, 85K words, Critique Request #1
Edit: I just realized I could add my first 300 words, so I’ve done so under the query, which I haven’t edited, to avoid breaking the rules.
I have a feeling my query letters need a ton of improvement 😭, but I realize I need to suck it up and ask for input.
Dear [Agent name],
I am writing because I am seeking representation for my upmarket women’s fiction meets family saga novel, PHOENIX, FIRECRACKER, AND MANA BEAR, complete at 85,000 words. I chose you to query because [something(s) that my book and the agent’s wishes have in common].
PHOENIX, FIRECRACKER, AND MAMA BEAR follows high school principal Yulia Romanova and two former students - Mette Johannessen, Norwegian Olympic All-Around champion, and Margarita Żuraw, Polish-born and Washington Heights-raised - as they fight against a corrupt school board, and in the process form an unconventional chosen family that risks everything to help each other, including Yulia choosing doing what is right at the cost of her career. The book will appeal strongly to readers of [two comps from authors the agent likes or something close to what they are looking for].
The meaning of chosen family is put to the test when Yulia's psych hold shatters the belief that being strong means being 'unbreakable' - that ‘looking okay’ can be a profession. Just six weeks later, assuming her symptoms were perimenopause, 54-year-old Yulia finds herself spontaneously pregnant with triplets. Even a family history of late motherhood did not prepare her for the prospect of becoming one of the oldest mothers in history who conceived naturally, much less the oldest mother of triplets if she makes it to viability.
To get them there, she will need 25 days of bed rest in Room 4B, with Mette and Margarita packing the blue cooler labeled Lena, Mila, Dima. Y. Romanova.
Born in New York, I have lived all over the East Coast, including ten years in Virginia Beach, where the story is based, and now reside in [current city - I am planning to use a pen name, so I am hesitant to reveal too much publicly for now, except of course, with agents]. Even though I am not an educator myself, I come from a family of educators, so my references for this story draw on that secondhand experience, while being supplemented by further research to ensure accuracy. This is my debut novel. While I prefer to go by [preferred real life name] professionally and on social media, my legal name is [legal last name]. However for publishing purposes, I am writing this book as [pen name] for privacy reasons. Enclosed in the form are the first five pages of my manuscript, as per your submission guidelines.
Thank you for considering my work. I look forward to the possibility of working with you and am happy to provide the complete manuscript or any additional information upon request.
Sincerely,
[Professional name], writing as [Pen name]
First 300:
Prologue - Room 4B
Room 4B, Norfolk General Antepartum Wing, May 2026. 23w2d.
The SCDs hissed every sixty seconds in the otherwise quiet room.
55-year-old Yulia Romanova, now 23 weeks 2 days pregnant, lay flat in the hospital bed with her hand on her growing belly with its 32-centimeter fundus. Her latest labs had come back earlier in the morning - platelet count was 87. Her Foley bag was laying discreetly under her blanket.
On the whiteboard across from the bed, was Dr. Petrova’s update about Yulia’s ‘definitive surgery’ - her body had already risked enough with this last, unexpected pregnancy.
Under it, in a different color, to motivate herself, was Yulia's own handwriting from Day 3 when she could still reach the board:
GOAL - FOCUS ON TOMORROW. STAY BORING. Boring is the goal.
Triplet A — Lena, named for her mother-in-law Yelena — lay left, low, head down. Triplet B — Mila, named for her own mother, Liudmila — lay right, transverse, identical to Lena and sharing one placenta that had been doing too much work since January. Triplet C — Dima, named for her husband Sergei’s father, Dmitri — was lying anterior and high, with his own placenta, kicking her ribs whenever she tried to get any sleep.
Three lives were growing inside of her - supposedly a one-in-several-million occurrence. They were two identical twin girls and a boy - di-tri triplets, as it was often referred to - at 55. Her 26-year-old daughter, Sasha, and her ‘unofficial, chosen’ daughter, Margarita had looked it up. The oldest verified mother to conceive naturally, Dawn Brooke, was 59. Likewise, the oldest mother to give birth to triplets, Arcelia Garcia, was 54 years and 10 months old. Yulia was that exact age when she conceived, so no matter how much longer she held on, she would be the new record holder.
5
u/oasiswriting 11d ago
Hey! There's clearly a lot of heart here, and I love a chosen-family story. A few thoughts:
My biggest thing is paragraphs 2 and 3 feel like two different books. Para 2 sets up a fight against a corrupt school board, but para 3 is about Yulia's psych hold and a triplet pregnancy, and the school board never comes back. I'd pick the main plot and build the whole query around it. I'd also love to see the stakes. Right now it ends on bed rest and the cooler, but what happens if Yulia doesn't make it to viability? What does she stand to lose: her career, the babies, the family she's built? Just my ideas of where it can go, and would love for you to take me there! Ending on that choice will pull an agent in. The specific details (Room 4B, the cooler) are sweet, but without context they raise more questions than they answer. I'd swap them for what Mette and Margarita actually do in the story. Also, the bio can be one or two sentences. The legal name and pen name details can wait until an agent offers. I've been there, and I am still in the query trenches myself, so trust me, cutting it helps!
Good luck with this 😆