My first published book, and it took two and a half years to get it into
print.
Oh, there were some interested agents and editors. But they insisted that
the villain could not get the girl. That wasn't what I wanted.
In truth, when I planned this book he wasn't the one I expected to win the
fair Regina either. He was the villain, plain and simple. But it turned out
there was nothing plain or simple about Jason Thomas, Duke of Torquay. As I
wrote I began to see he was far worthier than the standard hero. I also soon
realized that Sinjun St. Charles, Marquis of Bessacarr, wasn't standard in
any way either.
I liked who they were and what they became too much to stuff them into
stereotypical molds.
So, I kept sending out the manuscript and getting it back - with comments
about why I shouldn't be so difficult.
"Women," one agent wrote to me, "don't like unusual romances. They like
books that are like Noh plays - with never-changing formats. Your characters
are too three-dimensional."
He actually wrote that to me.
Grrr.
Two years ticked by. I amassed a really fine collection of rejection slips.
I finally found an editor, Hilary Ross at Signet, who understood what I was trying to do and
asked only that I add a chapter
showing why I loved my black hearted duke so much. I did. And thus: The Duke's Wager.
Finally.