Originally Posted by Hitch
Some minor tweaks:
Things change. Fast.
Seventeen-year-old Annie Rebarchek is stoked when she lands a nanny position working for billionaire Houston Monroe--until she actually starts work for him.
Something’s wrong.
Monroe’s baby seems terribly ill and crying constantly. Inexplicably, Monroe won’t even let her hold it. Annie is convinced something bad is happening, something terrible. She fights to uncover the sinister secrets Monroe is keeping. She’s over-matched by Monroe’s wealth and power, but she’ll stop at nothing to heed the baby’s cry.
That's a wee bit less passive, and a little tighter. Not perfect, by any means, but hopefully, it helps.
I see that you're kinda vested in the "heed the baby's cry" language. I personally find it off-putting, but a lot of parents probably wouldn't.
I feel--and that's all it is, feel--that you're trying too hard to tell the whole story, again, in this. The whole "is terribly ill and crying constantly," "sinister secrets," "heed the baby's cry" feels a bit melodramatic to me. Along the lines of telling, rather than showing. Yes, it's a description, but it's...frontloaded. That's what I mean. Annie's right, Monroe is evil, the baby's really sick, he's set against her--I feel as though you're sucking any SUSPENSE out of it. Maybe that's how the book is written--Annie is the heroine, Monroe is evil, the baby IS sick, and you tell/show all that right away, and then the book is the REST of the story, but, if it isn't this way--if Annie takes time to decide that the baby really IS sick, if she takes chapters to determine that Monroe is REALLY evil, etc., you're kinda giving away the store.
(Also: how does a nanny NOT hold a baby? What, she picks it up with pliers, when she changes diapers? How does it eat, through a tube? Just sayin'.....)
JMHO.
Hitch
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