I hope everyone had a great holiday. My hubby and I are slowly recovering from my sister-in-law’s annual bash. Still, I’ve gotten some work done today, something I doubted I’d be able to do when I got up this morning.
I’ve added an excerpt of my work in progress to the site. It’s a labor of love. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to sell it. The hero is a pirate and the heroine a courtesan. It’s a mainstream title, not one of my romanticas and I think the tainted pasts of my characters will make it a hard sell to publishers. I bought Lisa Kleypas’ Someone to Watch Over Me because the story of a Bow Street Runner and a demimondaine intrigued me. Amazon.com’s editorial reviewer Lois Faye Dyer said, “Kleypas’s characters are not your run-of-the-mill Regency fare–Grant lacks a noble lineage while Vivien’s “membership” in the demimonde is unusual to say the least–which makes them even more fascinating and thoroughly absorbing.” But in the end you discover that Vivien is not the courtesan she appears to be. In my story there is no surprise innocence to Jayne Spencer. But her and Christopher’s story is begging to be told and so I will continue to write it since I can do nothing else.
Take a peek at Seduce Me to Love.
Oh, Ireland, I know what you mean. After a writer establishes a name for herself she can get away with so much more! My heroine, Jayne, is also an actress so she’ll be a hard sell. (By the way I’ve changed the excerpt to an earlier scene at the theatre)
There are a few stories I’ve read with tainted heroines (The Prince of Pleasure by Nicole Jordan comes to mind) but Nicole was already established when she wrote it.
But I can’t get this story out of my mind so I have to write it. This is one of my stories from the heart.
on July 5th, 2004 at 8:09 pm
Now you have me enticed with your novel! But I find that the books where the hero and heroine aren’t typical and unsullied/aristocratic are by authors who have reached best selling lists or books that were published a while ago. It seems that either publishers don’t want new authors to push buttons or that new authors are afraid to take risks. I do know that when I submitted a query to a publisher, the editor didn’t want to look at it–and had made up her mind not to accept it–based on the fact that the heroine was an actress!
I was dumbfounded when she stated her reasons because there have been actress heroines in traditional regencies. But I do believe that if the writing is strong enough, the editor’s preconcieved notions will disappear after the initial query/synopsis/first page.
on July 5th, 2004 at 7:48 pm