Hi everyone, if anyone's willing to give their thoughts on the first chapter of my novel, Checks and Balances, I'd be very grateful. It's in the Shared Works area.
I've also written the text below. It could function either as a blurb if I self-publish, or as part of my cover letter if I try the conventional route. Thoughts on this also very welcome.
Thanks, G
Some call the First Lord, who took power through violence and keeps it with terror, a monster. I call him my beloved husband.
The rebels say our government is a dictatorship driving Britain into dystopia. I say we've changed the country for the better.
***
Fifteen years ago, like so many idealistic students before them, Julien and Marianne fell in love and fantasised about what they’d do if they ruled the world.
Ten years ago, long after their friends had moved on, they put their plans into action and couped the British Government at its moment of greatest crisis, ruling the new Regime as the First Lord and Lady.
Five years ago, by now the most powerful woman in the country, Marianne made the hardest decision of her life, and fled to join the Treaty, the rebels who will risk anything to see her husband dead and the regime overthrown.
Out on patrol with the Treaty, an unrecognisable Marianne is captured by the First Lord's elite troops, beaten and mined for information until the man she once swore to love and later swore to destroy saves her life and welcomes her back into the fold. But can she learn to be the First Lady again, and where do her loyalties truly lie?
Checks and Balances explores how good intentions can turn to bad realities, whether democracy is always the lesser of two evils, and whether love is ever enough.
With alternating timelines that cut between the romance and ideology of the past and the brutality and enduring love of the present, Checks and Balances juggles hard politics and big questions with a scorching hot tale of lust, obsession and betrayal.
I've looked at your chapter, Georgina. I like it very much.
'couped the British Government at its moment of greatest crisis,' - really don't like this line;
'coup' is a noun, not a verb. You cannot coup - you can only take part in or organise one, or overthrow a government in or with one.
'beaten and mined for information' - don't like this either: it's a cliché, and it's awkward.
This would make a good blurb (with corrections) or covering letter, though I'd make the time clearer - fifteen years ago from when?
In a letter, you could use italics for the title, which you can't here.
Lorraine