Pontas has become the literary agency of Jacqueline Remmers and we are happy to be submitting her debut novel A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, written originally in English language. We are convinced that it has a strong commercial potential and we really believe this could have a space in many international catalogues and become a film!
About the novel: A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME is about a woman in her early thirties, Anne Miller, who lives in London with her stuck-up and controlling boyfriend Ian. She works for a magazine named Shout!and she harbours dreams of advancing herself as a journalist. This despite constant discouragement from Ian, who works for the government, is a terrible social climber, and who would prefer to have an ornamental partner rather than an independent one. Anne is sent to do a press junket with Rory Maquary, a former singer-turned-actor, and unexpectedly it turns out that she and Rory’s troubled four-year-old son Rowland have an instant click. Later that evening, Anne’s big chance comes when she receives a telephone call asking her if she would be willing to drop everything and join the reunion tour of Road Rage, Rory’s old band. She would be there in the capacity of Rowland’s nanny (his official nanny has quit abruptly due to Rowland’s frequent and uncontrollable anxiety attacks), but in return she will have exclusive rights to write an in-depth article for Shout! that documents music history as the world famous band gets together again. This is her chance, and she takes it. Suddenly Anne finds herself in a world that she does not know and that at first frightens her, but as the weeks progress she gets to know the members of the band and she has to admit that she has been terribly prejudiced. They are without exception very different from what their public profile suggests, and Rory most of all. To her surprise and confusion she finds the embarrassing attraction she at first felt for him growing into something more profound. Her feelings are reciprocated, and before long, it is impossible to ignore or deny them. After three weeks though the adventure ends for Anne, when she is supposed to go home again. But when she tries to go back to her old life she discovers the experience has profoundly changed her and she does not fit in any more. She has to concede that appearances are deceiving to the extent that even she herself is in fact quite different from what she had always thought. She belongs with Rory and Row, if they will still have her...
About Jacqueline Remmers (by herself):
“I was born in 1968 in Amsterdam, went to school there and studied Dutch and English linguistics at the University of Amsterdam. I joined my first band when I was 15 or thereabouts. At the moment I am a proud member of Half on Signature, the international publishers band.
I have worked in publishing all my working life. My first employer was a business publisher who produced reference works about passports and bank notes. I started there as an editor on the passport books, then eventually became head of the entire editorial department, developed a trade journal for the international identity security field, and was part of an international working group for identity security for IATA, under UN auspices. Later on, I was R&D manager and developed software solutions for clients in the commercial field who had to deal with passport security.
Then, I moved into general publishing as the acquiring editor for Luitingh, one of the largest commercial fiction/thriller lists in The Netherlands. I have been there for 5 years now.
As time has progressed, my interest for new media has propelled me into developing an online readers community for The Netherlands and Flanders, which has within its year of launch has become the largest book community online, and in terms of membership the most successful online enterprise within our group. It is still growing.
Also, I am managing a comprehensive database of book metadata, which is the engine behind all web shops in our group as well as a large amount of public sites.
I still publish thrillers as well”.
Submissions: anna@pontas-agency.com