NoQS Monster 5 - Romy Ever After, YA Contemp Romance

Name: Gillian Libby
Twitter Handle: @gillianlibby
Title: ROMY EVER AFTER
Genre:YA Contemporary Romance
Word Count: 65K



My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obsession is: 

Romy fears that no one will care about her now that she’s not a Princess. And forget about trying to date anyone. Without her title Romy is worried she’ll actually have to rely on her personality to win people over and that’s a brand new territory for the former royal.

Query:

Life for Seventeen-year-old Romy DeLavene was all about private planes, cutting ribbons and planning balls alongside her mother the Queen of Sonora. Because, hello, Princess. Until a DNA test on the remains of a beloved King prove Romy and her family had about as much royal blood as one of their polo ponies.        

Tossed out of the palace and humiliated by the press, the former royals decide to give living that common life a chance in remote (boring) Connecticut. When Romy connects with the gorgeous Andy, who has faced his own family upheaval with his transgender parent, she starts to see that by losing the palace she’s gained some serious freedom. No one will care if she gains three pounds, has an extra beer at a party, or doesn’t get in to an Ivy League college. Not yet, anyway.

Then former boyfriend, and newly crowned Prince Talinger shows up and temps Romy with helicopter rides to New York City, shopping sprees and reminders of the advantages of her old life. The new Prince wants to find a way to bring Romy back to the palace, but only if she’s willing to compromise on just about everything. If Romy reaches back for her old life she’ll have to let go of everything she’s gained in the new one, including the boy who made her feel important even without her royal title.

First 250:

When the long lost and most beloved King Oliver’s remains were found the people Sonora rejoiced. Church bells rang; revelers drank their faces off late into the night toasting the man who had once saved our tiny island nation. My mom, the queen, and I even organized a parade. I still want to throw up whenever I think about that ridiculous parade. We looked like such chumps.

But I’d rather ride in that parade again that do what my brother is proposing to me right now.
 
“It’s good news,” Felix calls to me from the other room. That would’ve never worked in the palace. If I wanted to call my brother from my old bedroom I had to use an intercom. Sometimes we would ride kick scooters down the halls to get to each other faster. I would scoot across the gleaming hardwood floors leaving tire marks that would polished into oblivion before I could even finish knocking on my brother’s door.
         
“Not from where I’m standing,” I call back and go back to begging my closet to put an outfit together for me out of the miniscule amount of clothes that it holds.

Felix claims he’s found us a ride to school.

My brother comes into my room looking perfectly polished yet casual in dark jeans and charcoal sweater. Fetching Felix the press used to call him, because he’s so handsome. I used to tease him that it was because he was like my pet dog.