The cover stood out with the old photo of what I am assuming is the church against the current church. And I am curious as to how Elizabet's story will come out, if she will have her own chapters with her own POV and will they be set in/around 1935. Or if her story will come out through the archives.
But based on the excerpt, I'm not sure this story will work for me. The dialogue was a bit cliched at the beginning, and the characters seem a little flat. The stereotypical angry-and-in-denial/woe-is-me female character was a bit off-putting. Clearly there is some trauma beyond just her parents dying, but I hate woe-is-me whiney characters (i.e., "no happily ever after for me"). Maybe her character gets fleshed out better as the story develops, but right now, she was a definitely turn-off.
Also as a side note, no lawyer would work on "a church archival project" (from the synposis) and a lawyer would never be "tasked [] with archiving their collection" (excerpt, page 17). Historians archive. Librarians archive. Lawyers *do not* archive. The term is document review. She is reviewing documents in preparation to either file a lawsuit or in response to a lawsuit. And as a law student, you read plenty of "historical" cases and documents. So while a more minor detail, it's an error, and it bugged me. Maybe do a bit of research when writing a character with a profession you know nothing about.
But based on the excerpt, I'm not sure this story will work for me. The dialogue was a bit cliched at the beginning, and the characters seem a little flat. The stereotypical angry-and-in-denial/woe-is-me female character was a bit off-putting. Clearly there is some trauma beyond just her parents dying, but I hate woe-is-me whiney characters (i.e., "no happily ever after for me"). Maybe her character gets fleshed out better as the story develops, but right now, she was a definitely turn-off.
Also as a side note, no lawyer would work on "a church archival project" (from the synposis) and a lawyer would never be "tasked [] with archiving their collection" (excerpt, page 17). Historians archive. Librarians archive. Lawyers *do not* archive. The term is document review. She is reviewing documents in preparation to either file a lawsuit or in response to a lawsuit. And as a law student, you read plenty of "historical" cases and documents. So while a more minor detail, it's an error, and it bugged me. Maybe do a bit of research when writing a character with a profession you know nothing about.