Kathryn Cheshire, Editorial Assistant
Kathryn Cheshire (@CheshireKat3), Editorial Assistant on the Harlequin Historical team tells us about the latest acquisition for the Harlequin Historical Undone! line…
Harper St. George’s manuscript came to my desk in May, as an unsolicited submission for the Harlequin Historical Undone! line. It immediately caught my eye as the opening is incredibly unique, descriptive and exciting – our heroine is holding up a bank in the Wild Wild West! As the story continued, things just got better and better, and Harper had a really great understanding of what we look for in the line – drama, pace, intensity and some seriously steamy sex scenes!
We did have some revision suggestions for Harper, but she took everything in her stride, and the revised manuscript that came in was even better than the first draft. I made ‘The Call’ on 31st July, just 3 or 4 months after Harper initially submitted to us. We are so thrilled to have been able to snap up Harper for the line, and her first book will be out in Spring 2014. Look out for this one, she’s a star in the making!
And Kathryn brought in another brand new author for the Harlequin Medical line!
Lucy Ryder first came to our attention through the Voices of Africa competition in 2010. Her entry was a short story that instantly stood out from the crowd. The hero was unbelievably sexy, the sexual chemistry between him and the heroine leapt off the page and Lucy’s tone was fun, flirty and everything we love to see in our Medical stories! The immensely talented Flo Nicoll (Editor on the Harlequin KISS team) worked with Lucy not only to bring the story up to 50,000 words, but also to really get to grips with the characters and their motivations and to make sure the story was the best it could possibly be!
After many months of hard work from Lucy and Flo, the story was ready, and we were so excited to be able to offer Lucy a 2 book contract. Her first book, Resisting Her Rebel Hero will be out in April 2014, and Lucy and I are now starting work on her second book for us. I am incredibly happy to be working more with this talented author, and can’t wait to see what delights she has in store for us next!
Thank you, Kathryn, for your enthusiasm–and your authors are surely delighted by it as well! Check out the Writing Guidelines for Harlequin Historical Undone! and Harlequin Medicals to see what’s needed.
You can also find out more in the Harlequin Community Forums or Twitter with #HarlequinMedical and #HarlequinHistorical.
Happy writing!
