Losing it

Okay, so I'll try to be professional here. Earlier this week, I received a rejection letter from Harlequin. My first thought was "well, that's pants, screw them" and all of those other lovely things that run through one's head when rejected. Then I thought back... to how Harlequin was my first real love affair with books; to how Temptations taught me most of what I knew about sexuality as a teen; to Jennifer Crusie's Temptations, the Nora Roberts cross line stories, and finally the last bright spots in my supermarket book shopping: NEXT and Bombshells. Then I smiled and thought "eh, maybe someday I'll submit to them again -- but I'm definitely shopping for HAUNTED ECHOES tonight".

Now, earlier today, the axe drops. Bombshells are gone. Kaput -- the GrailKeepers, Evelyn Vauhgn, Cindy Dees, Ellen Henderson -- the vamps, the fighters, the CIA heroines -- all the chicklit on steroids heroines out there. The idea that HEA isn't always the goal. All gone. If they go after the NEXT line -- well, that won't be the only thing gone.