PW #107: Adult Romantic Comedy: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Léonie Kelsall

Mentee Name: Robin Winzenread Fritz

Title: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

Category: Adult

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Word Count: 78,000

Pitch:

Erma Bombeck meets Sophie Kinsella. When divorcee Sparrow Andrews moves her pack of semi-feral children to a run-down farmhouse, renovating—not romance—tops her to-do list. Until she meets new boss, hunky widower Sam. Falling in love with a man who is allergic to chaos and crumbs may be her biggest mistake yet.

Excerpt:

As my youngest son’s cry echoes, I’m reminded once again why some animals eat their young.

It’s because they want to.

“Mom, Nick farted and he didn’t say excuse me!”

Normally, when my six-year-old, Aaron, announces something so crudely, we’re at home and his booming voice is muted by the basket of laundry I’ve shoved my head into, hiding like an ostrich from a tiny predator.

But this time Aaron proclaims it in the middle of a crowded diner in a small Illinois town we’re about to call home. My widowed sister-in-law and I have just kicked off our newest adventure, which sounded better months ago, when we hashed it out over too much wine. But we can’t back out now, because we’ve already closed on the loan and have nowhere else to go. So, we’re relocating to a run-down farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with grandiose plans of fixing it up and living an ‘authentic’ life because, according to Instagram and lifestyle blogs everywhere, suburbs with working utilities don’t count.

The diner has a real comfortable feel, kind of like the sweatpants I no longer wear because I burned them—along with a voodoo doll of my ex-husband, after I forced it to have sex with my son’s GI Joe action figure. Trust me, there was action. Lots and lots of non-consensual, invasive, voodoo-doll action.

“Mom!” Aaron bellows again.

Despite the ambiance, right now I’d kill for a pile of sweaty socks to dive into.