Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.
I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.
If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.
If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.
Scottsdale 2008—The Great Recession roars across the country like an avenging angel on crack. As long as this statement fits with the tone / voice of the book, it's fine. But this is coming off as humorous and I don't know if that's where you want to go or not. The housing market crashes, businesses fail, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go belly-up. And Interior Designer Soleil O'Connor faces foreclosure. Technically not a complete sentence. I'd smash it together with the one before. After surviving a hardscrabble childhood and soul-crushing marriage, she’ll do anything to save her house.<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style="color:blue> I'd cut the previous line. When she’s offered a job in Mexico, she jumps at the chance—even though the client, Viktor, is an arrogant bully. (She can handle him—this isn’t her first rodeo.); even though she has to fly to Mexico in two days. (Travel is fun.); even though the first designer died on the job. (People die every day.) After some serious arm-twisting, her BFF, Molly agrees to join her. I'm seeing that the voice probably does fit with the first line. I do think you can do some condensing though, get her into Mexico - and to his line about the first designer dying - in there sooner. That's the crux of the plot, and it's at the bottom of you explaining that the recession caused a problem for an interior designer, which is kind of an assumed.
Once in Mexico, Soleil learns Viktor founded the town’s orphanage twenty years ago and is revered as the Patron Saint of San Miguel. Surprised and impressed, she decides to cut him some slack. Until she discovers a cache of AK-47s stashed in the orphanage’s garage. The designers rush back to their casita to pack. But who can they trust to drive them ninety miles to the airport? Viktor owns the town and everyone in it. They guess wrong and land in the Inquisition Jail. You definitely need to give us something else here. Is the goal simply to get back home? Or are they trying to save the day? Or maybe the orphans? What's the gist of the plot other than save their own asses?
Five Days in San Miguel, a suspense novel of 71,000 words, will appeal to fans of Mary Higgins Clark, Romancing the Stone, and HGTV. Again, Romancing the Stone has a very strong thru-line of humor, as does this query. Make sure that fits the voice of the book, if that's what you're leading with.
I was an Interior Designer for thirty years and wrote design articles for The Chicago-Sun Times (Diana Manley Catlin). My publications include short stories: “The Favorite”, runner-up in the WOW (Women On Writing) Contest, published online; and “Checkmate”, included in the Desert Sleuths Sisters in Crime Anthology, How Not to Survive a Vacation. The Chicago Tribune printed two of my letters in their Letters to the Editor section. Great bio!
Overall I think you need to rearrange your elements here so that the first designer dying is your lead. Secondly, you spend so much time getting the MC to Mexico, that I'm not sure what her goal is once she's there, other than just to survive. You'll need more than that. Lastly, what's the point of Molly? In this query, she's serving almost no purpose, which will make agents wonder if the same is true of the book.