Dispatch from the Query Trenches | Reading, Writing, and Randomness for July 2025

I am already a week late with this newsletter, so I’m just going to jump right into it.

Reading

In the month of June, I hit my target of reading 50 books this year! 🙌 Thanks to some long car trips, there were a lot of audiobook hours this mont

✨ = Five Stars | 🎧️ = audiobook | 📖 = Book Club | 🏎️ = F1 Book (Fiction and Non-fiction)

(Note: Since I’m writing a Formula 1 Romance, I’m not planning on rating other F1 Romances at all, but obviously, you should read them ALL so publishers know people REALLY want to read more F1 Romances!)

• 🏎️ Cross the Line by Simone Soltani 🎧️

• Wicked Wish by Sawyer Bennett

• ✨ When I Think of You by Myah Ariel 🎧️

• Caught Up by Navessa Allen 🎧️

• Tell Me How You Really Feel by Betty Cayouette 🎧️

• Bad Publicity by Bianca Gillam 🎧️

• 🏎️ Out of Control by K. Bromberg 🎧️

• The Best Advice by Amy Dressler

• 🏎️ Double Apex by Josie Juniper

Writing

Last month, I was deep in revisions. What a difference a month makes! In June, I wrapped up those revisions and took a swan dive into the Querying Trenches!

For my non-writer readers, querying is the process of reaching out to literary agents (or publishers directly sometimes) to pitch your book to them. Most request a short sample (anywhere from 5 to 50 pages) and if they want to read more, they ask for either more pages (a partial request) or the whole manuscript (a “full request”).

I queried my previous book, but in a much more limited way and very targeted since I knew it was kind of a niche romance. THE RACING LINE has a lot more commercial potential, so I’m casting a much wider net this time. At the time of writing (a little bit into July), I’ve sent over 60 queries, and had 2 partial requests and 4 full requests with 13 rejections total (including 1 from a full request).

Crystal, why are you going through agents? Can’t you just send it straight to publishers? Some publishers do accept unsolicited manuscripts, but if you want to get into any of the really big publishers, you do need an agent. The “Big 5” in publishing are the names you may recognize: Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster. Even for the smaller publishers, working with an agent can be helpful as they may have a better idea of what publishers are looking for based on prior experience with them. I also really like the idea of having an agent as another resource to help shape my work, shape the pitch and marketing strategies, and more. Not all agents do that, so that’s definitely on my list of questions if I make it to the next step with any.

What’s next? Now is a lot of waiting. I have some top choice agents who aren’t open to queries right now, so I have alerts set up in case they open. But otherwise, it’s waiting to hear back from the 50 or so who haven’t rejected yet and the 5 agents who have some or all of my manuscript for their review. Best case scenario is one or more would like to work with me. Middle case scenario is they like the concept and my writing, but think the work needs some tweaking and ask me to revise and resubmit. Worst case is they all reject and I’m back to square one and determining if I should self-publish or throw the book into a fire.

In the meantime, I’m working on the follow up to THE RACING LINE, tentatively titled …READY FOR IT? which follows two of the supporting characters from TRL. I’m having a lot of fun with it already and I might even love [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] more than I love Maeve and Jill.

… and Randomness

• Apple TV’s highly anticipated Formula 1 movie, shockingly titled… F1 came out in June. It was… a movie. Okay… it was beautiful, but the story was pretty generic and predictable. I obviously can’t begrudge an F1 story having romance, but did it have to be the female Technical Director (the only woman on the leadership team)? Did the female pit crew member have to be the one who fucked up? Did the car really have to flip 30 feet in the air and then basically turn into a fireball, giving a pretty bad misrepresentation to how much emphasis has been put on safety in the last decade? Is it really more daring and dramatic to have a 50+ year old driver come out of retirement than focus on, I don’t know, a woman breaking into the sport?

• All that being said… actual Formula 1 has been WILD the past couple of weeks. The British Grand Prix was absolute chaos and led to the first ever podium for Nico Hulkenberg after 15 years in the sport and 200+ races. And one morning, out of the blue, Red Bull announced that their CEO and Team Principal was stepping down “with immediate effect” after years of sexual harrassment allegations and, more recently and probably more likely the cause, under performance of the team. Oh, and he’s the second TP replaced mid-season this year. The memes were immaculate and next season of Drive to Survive is going to be LIT.

See you in August where I will probably spend ample room gushing about Superman and Beyoncé.