Jacoby thinks his husband Jimmy needs a kick in the seat of his pants. If Jimmy would keep on his psych meds, their marriage wouldn't be crumbling down around them and Jimmy wouldn't have lost his job.
But life with an addict isn't easy and being the primary caregiver to someone who suffers from mental illness makes it twice as hard. Jacoby said for better or for worse but he never dreamed that the definition of 'worse' would see Jimmy having a serious mental breakdown, losing his job, and damn near tearing their relationship to shreds in the process.
Jimmy refuses to take care of himself, self-medicating with weed, cocaine, anything he can hide from Jacoby. And when Jacoby confronts him about everything, it comes down to a violent show-down in the neighbor's yard. Because not only is Jimmy hiding a slow relapse into drug abuse, he went behind Jacoby's back and took a job in California. Jacoby knows what's waiting for Jimmy in California and it's more than a job: it's Brian, Jimmy's ex. Refusing to leave Iowa, Jacoby flies out to California with an ultimatum: stop lying and decide if Jimmy's serious about their marriage. Jimmy's done some awful things to Jacoby over the years, but Jacoby's never left him. This time, it might be the only option Jacoby has left.
RESCUE ME is contemporary LGBT romance complete at 85,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Hi Kel,
ReplyDeleteI remember this query from the blog hop. Reading this and what I've seen before, I keep asking - Why does Jacoby give a shit about Jimmy? It seems clear that he must have something bonding him besides his duty but Jimmy seems like a total asshole and Jacoby seems like a really nice guy. So why should we care about Jimmy? Why does Jacoby?
Some nitpicky things in this - wits end => wit's end.
Second paragraph - The tone of "needs a kick in the pants" doesn't fit at all with the serious nature of the problem presented in the next sentence.
Third paragraph - I think this is the strongest here as it explains the crux of Jacoby's problem.
Fourth paragraph - This is more synopsis than the rest. If you are going to give a run down of the book's plot, hit the hightlights and watch out for the details that might confuse or take away from the query reader's understanding of the overall themes and conflict.
Hope that helps. Good luck and feel free to send me a revision if you decide to revise. I'll repost it with "Revised" in the subject.
I have struggled to get across why Jacoby cares...Jimmy's really only awful when he's off his meds...and through this book, that's a big theme. Time to brainstorm how to show why people should care =)...
DeleteYeah - I think that's majorly important. Who wants to read a whole story about a jerk? (I have this same issue though because my MFC is kind of a jerk.)
DeleteI think I've seen an earlier version of this query elsewhere, and this is a big improvement!
ReplyDeleteI agree that the last big piece missing here is more of a sense of what's good in the relationship, so we can feel what's at stake. Without that, this query makes me want to stage an intervention to get Jacoby to divorce Jimmy. ;)
You could throw in a sentence about what their marriage was like before he went off his meds, maybe, or about what he means to Jacoby. You could give us a better sense of what Jimmy brings to the relationship -- what he does for Jacoby, and what Jacoby would miss about him. You could also give us a better sense of Jimmy's motivations in going off his meds, and WHY he's doing all this -- understanding him better will make him more sympathetic. Any of those (or all!) might help us understand the emotional crux of the novel and everything that Jacoby has to lose.
Oh, and am I right that this is dual POV (based on your tweeted excerpts)? If so, you should probably mention that somewhere... maybe towards the end.
Finally, two little things:
I'd cut the "about everything" after "Jacoby confronts him" -- unnecessary & weakening.
"Refusing to leave Iowa, Jacoby flies out to California" sounds like a contradiction -- it took me a few seconds to work out what you meant!
Oh, also, I think you might want to work back in the detail that Jacoby works in an ambulance and saved Jimmy's life -- that's a neat one, and also gives a bit of insight into their relationship.
Overall, this is nice, tight, and clear! I think you're almost there!
Good luck!