Night & Day Synopsis - A Plea for Feedback

Some of you know that I initially got involved in Gather when they sponsored the Romance - First Chapters Competition. My entry was called Night and Day. A year later, I am still trying to get my book published. I have rewritten the first chapter, and done a lot of revisions on the entire book. 

At the Spring Fling Writing Conference I recently attended in Chicago, I had the opportunity to pitch my book to an agent and an editor. Each of them requested the first three chapters. (The agent, Night and Day, the editor, another of my books, Love Notes.)

I am now ready to mail the chapters and a synopsis, which I have also rewritten. If anyone has a few minutes to read it and give me some feedback, I would appreciate it so very much. I have looked at it so many hundreds of times that it is impossible to be objective any longer.

Please be honest -- I love to get pats on the back, but what I really need at this moment is some brutally honest suggestions!

====> I updated this 5/26 with the latest version (I've been busy revising!) in case anyone else wants to take a look. Beware - this one contains spoilers... Sorry that the formatting and font got screwed up on this one... not sure why but I can't change it.

Thanks in advance!

Sherrie  

Night and Day Synopsis

When Jensen Marie Christiansen rescues a bundle of half-charred letters written in Danish from her brother's bonfire, she has no idea what an impact the history they contain will have on her modern-day world.

Jensen's vintage house, a career designing and sewing handmade quilts, and her heartfelt desire to preserve her family's heritage all speak to her love of days gone by. It's no wonder Jensen's prone to romanticizing the past given the ever-changing, uncertain future she faces. Her parents have moved to Arizona, her brother is cleaning out the attic of their century-old family home, and her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend has had a vasectomy without consulting her. And that's not to mention the fact that the only fabric store in fifty miles is going out of business, and people who used to be her customers are flocking to the chain stores to buy cheap quilts from China.

It's midnight in Minnesota when Jensen logs onto the internet as "The Little Mermaid" hoping to find someone who's awake; someone who understands and cares how she feels; someone who will touch not only her body, but her soul.

It is daylight in Denmark, when Anders Knutson dons his Ugly Duckling moniker and logs into a chat room to talk to his only son, who has recently moved to Seattle.  Anders, an air-traffic controller whose parent company at Copenhagen International Airport has just been bought out by an American conglomerate, views his son's new job as one more reason to dislike Americans.  When several of his co-workers are replaced by young American upstarts, his resentment towards the United States is fueled even more.

The world many have changed in many ways over the course of a hundred years, but Jensen and Anders are about to learn that fairy-tales can still come true thanks to the modern-day magic of the internet. When The_Little_Mermaid meets Ugly_Duckling, it's love at first… write. By the time Jensen and Anders discover she's on one side of the world and he's on the other, their hearts are tangled in a love affair as complex as the computers that brought them together. But even in a world full of technological miracles, it seems unlikely they can bridge the ocean of barriers that lie between them - until they start to read a sooty stack of letters written over a hundred years ago. 

Frederik and Maren Jensen may have been different as night and day, but their marriage was a happy one... Frederik tending his family's land near Copenhagen, Denmark, and Maren busy mothering her babies, quilting, and making Danish Wedding Cakes... until one autumn day when the unthinkable happened...

The only thing later generations of their family knew is that whatever happened affected Frederik so profoundly that he uprooted his family from the land he loved and brought them to America... Only Frederick knew he didn't have a choice. There was no other way to keep his wife away from Leif Christian Unterschlag, a man who loved Maren just as much as he did.

Anders loves translating Maren's letters and thinks the story very nice, but knows in his heart that there is no way on earth he would ever move to America.  Jensen might not see it... yet... but Anders knows that even a boatload of common ground can't bridge a sea of differences. As perfect a match as he and Jensen seem to be, there is no future for them. All Anders really wants is for his son to move back home, marry a nice Danish girl, and give him a grandchild so he could pass on his love of Denmark to a new generation. In the meantime, he has his garden and hopefully, his job to keep him busy. While Anders eventually has to admit that all Americans aren't "ugly", the stark reality is that loving Jensen won't bring Bjorn back or put an end to the unsettling effects of globalization on his beloved homeland.

Jensen wants to believe that it's possible to love a man you've never met, seen, or touched, but she quickly realizes that the fantasy world she has discovered online with Anders has limits. All the pretty words in the world can't fix a broken window, chase a bat out of her bedroom, or keep her brother from tearing down Maren's house. The love Anders has for her might appear to transcend time and space when they're online together, but it can't hold keep her warm when an ice storm leaves her without power or hold her in the night after her house is ransacked by thieves.

When Anders and Jensen find middle ground on Canada's Prince Edward Island, their rendezvous is a fantasy come to life. But much as she loves Anders, the thought of leaving her home, abandoning her family, giving up everything she holds dear and moving to Denmark is just as unimaginable to Jensen as moving to America was to Maren a hundred years earlier.

Jensen finally begins to understand that she is clinging to something that exists only in her memories when her sister-in-law tosses out the family's time-honored tradition of turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and fixes vegetarian lasagna and tiramisu for Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, Anders takes to heart the poignant revelations unraveled in Maren's letters, and finally understands that he must let go of his bitterness towards America and grasp the gift he has been given in Jensen. When Anders translates Maren's final letter, he knows he must act before borders and time conspire to keep a second set of lovers apart.

Jensen always knew she was blessed to have known her Great-Grandmother Maren, to have inherited her name, her love of art and color, and her creative flair. When the last of the letters has been read, Jensen receives another gift... a lesson about love that will change her life forever... that lives aren't built with memories, but with hope, imagination and love

Maren thought she had taken the knowledge that Jensen's father was Leif's son to her grave. When her great-grandmother's secret is finally revealed, Jensen learns that she is the grand finale of a love story that crossed borders and time, oceans and obstacles to join two star-crossed souls. In her, Maren and Leif became one.