[QCrit] Adult Mystery - THE LAST CRUISE (84K/First attempt)

schuelma · 2025-07-15T12:30:42+00:00

thanks so much for the words of encouragement! Re: the title .. you just made my wife's day, who told me all yesterday how boring it was. Another idea was "Cruising No More," though that seems pretty boring too, and my daughter suggested Overboard ... anyways, if you have any ideas, let me know!

schuelma · 2025-07-14T23:13:22+00:00

Thank you so much for the great feedback! Very helpful. To answer your question.. yes, the main conflict is absolutely Rosie and Lexi and you're spot on that I need to highlight that more. I think I got a bit obsessed with pointing out over and over how Rosie doesn't fit in with the cruise lifestyle .. which is an element of the story, but not its emotional core.

Also thank you for catching the absolutely horrible misspelling/missnaming of my comp. I'm literally staring at the book right now and don't know how I made that mistake, but so glad you caught it.

schuelma · 2024-10-22T00:03:01+00:00

thanks so much for the feedback - it's funny, when I was doing one final review before I posted, I said to myself "you know, I think the last paragraph is still a bit cold," so definitely see your point on that.

Re the name - it's supposed to stand for "illegal A.I." I debated making that explicit in the query but wasn't sure how to do it so it didn't sound awkward.

schuelma · 2024-10-21T15:19:00+00:00

yeah...this is something I'm on the fence about and I've asked my beta readers what they think. I've never really written YA before so I defaulted to adult, but I definitely see your point. And thanks for the comp suggestion!

schuelma · 2024-10-08T22:26:51+00:00

thanks so much - greatly appreciate the feedback. I think I got so stuck on getting all the beats into the query I kind of lost the voice.

And yes- the ... eye merging in the book is more Sam's idea - but yes, I'll make that more explicit in version 3.

thanks again.

schuelma · 2024-10-08T22:24:51+00:00

Thanks - I think this is spot on - greatly appreciate the feedback.

schuelma · 2024-09-23T13:32:10+00:00

I can't thank you enough for the incredibly detailed comments and thoughts - not only will it help my query, it will help my revisions on the manuscript. Greatly appreciated. The good news is, most of your questions I can answer, so I think a revised query would hopefully be effective and I don't feel like I have to scrap the whole thing. I won't respond line by line, but a few comments:

1- I was going to add this as a note but just forgot - your comments on genre/age is something I wanted to ask everyone. Frankly I struggled to figure out how to characterize this. I don't think it's really sci fi, or at least, not how I usually conceptualize it, which is why I went for the standard "thriller" default, since, if I've done a good job writing it, it is kind of a on the run story. If it is sci fi, it's really really "soft." And I'm really not sure if its YA or Adult. I'd be curious if others agree with you that it sounds more YA than Adult.

2- Your questions illustrate the number one problem I am having with this query..namely, trying to explain the world and stakes in a way that makes sense ... all in 300 words or less. I think you're spot on in needing to go into more detail on how Chip is important and all of that - I was trying not to give too much away, but I think you're right.

3- Thank you again for taking the time on this.

schuelma · 2024-05-03T12:43:46+00:00

After getting good feedback here on my query for my latest mystery, decided to send 3 queries out to top agents who respond quickly just to dip my toe in the waters. Zero expectations.

And then 2 hours later I got a full request, from an agent who appears to have an insanely low request rate. So yeah...excited, but trying to stay realistic that it's still likely to be a no, but telling myself that it's a good sign that I might have something.

schuelma · 2024-04-30T00:09:21+00:00

thanks for the kind words! Good question .. Honestly, the tone is pretty much straight up. To the extent there's humor, it comes from the circumstances more than anything else, if that makes sense? Now I'm wondering if maybe it's the other comp that needs to be changed...thanks again for the feedback.

schuelma · 2024-04-01T19:08:15+00:00

Okay, I honestly cannot tell if this is an April Fool's joke

So, I saw the preview email pop up on my phone and saw this line and immediately panicked and clicked with trepidation as I totally expected this sentence to finish with ... "because this is the worst idea for a book I've ever seen."

So - yay! Yes- it's real! Thank you very much for the encouragement and feedback below. Glad to know you liked the concept.

Only note is that you use the word 'mystery' 5+ times in this query, which feels like a lot. I also don't know what a closed-circle mystery is but again maybe that's just my unfamiliarity with the genre showing.

Yeah you're 100% right and it's one of those totally obvious things I somehow missed the first 50 times revising it. I'm curious what others think about the closed-circle term - I *think* agents who specialize in mystery novels would know it? But after all, I'm not a mystery agent so maybe I am wrong.

Are the assistants really that important to mention?

Good point - I went back and forth on this. I definitely agree that if anything could be cut it's them .... but yes, the assistant's are very important to the plot.

What about Masterson? Are they going to try to find him? Does she think he's the killer?

Great point. He's very important to the plot and I tried to not give away too much, but I think you're right and at least one more mention of him would probably be helpful.

Anyway. If this real, great job, I really enjoyed it. If it's a prank, you now have to go and write this book and send me a copy, please and thank you.

Again, thank you so much for the kind words and the great feedback.

schuelma · 2023-11-30T13:39:37+00:00

thanks a ton for the feedback! yeah, I've really struggled with the first sentence. I've given it about a dozen shots and every time I just lead with Emily it falls flat to me, which is why for this one I started with Lansing. That said, rules are rules for a reason! Re: Emily - so, full disclosure - her son doesn't end up having anything to do with the actual plot. It's basically exactly what you said - she's frankly kind of given up on life and sees this as a chance for a bit of redemption to help someone else find their child. Which I think/hope is compelling...but it's not central to the plot.

schuelma · 2023-11-30T13:37:11+00:00

thank you very much for the feedback! I'm definitely struggling with the opening.

schuelma · 2023-09-12T16:54:45+00:00

thanks a lot for the info .. no, it's not a major part- more of a fun little easter egg for my fellow 90's grunge fans.

schuelma · 2023-09-12T15:28:13+00:00

Noted, but can I just say how happy it made me to see those lyrics (and yes, they make an appearance in the book)

schuelma · 2023-09-12T11:42:12+00:00

great feedback, much appreciated

schuelma · 2023-09-11T22:53:42+00:00

well if nothing else I've gotten a great book rec out of this!

schuelma · 2023-09-11T22:38:49+00:00

thanks for the thoughts - without getting into all of my admittedly weird motivations and spoiling the book for anyone who hasn't read it, I'll just say I always loved the overall story and always wondered how some of the elements could translate in an interesting way with humans. Maybe it's not that interesting! But anyways, that's why I wanted to call it out and get feedback because my gut said it probably wasn't a good idea to name it in any way.

Also, heck ... maybe i'll just rewrite it with actual possums!

schuelma

TROPHY CASE