My editor at Carina just told me that they'd like to acquire my latest work--and my first successful attempt at a novella! Every other manuscript I've ever completed came in somewhere between 85,000 and 100,000 words, and it took me multiple attempts to figure out what kind of story worked at a quarter that length and how to convey a complete emotional arc in a compressed word count.
The title remains TBD, as does the release date, though it'll almost certainly be in the second half of 2013. For now, I'll just say that it's an interracial romance set in the aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria in 1813. The hero, Elijah Cameron, is the son of slaves who escaped a Virginia plantation during the American Revolution to take the British Army's offer of freedom to runaway slaves who helped the war effort. The heroine, Rose Merrifield, is an ordinary English village girl with an extraordinary gift for cooking. Watch this space for more information...
1. Congratulations!
ReplyDelete2. Oh, that sounds like FUN!
Thanks! I'd become curious about black soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog posts on black soldiers in the Civil War. I knew they existed--I'd seen references to them here and there, on both the French and British sides, including in Canada in the War of 1812--but nothing beyond a few glancing references. So I took what I could piece together and ran with it.
DeleteCongratulations!
ReplyDeleteYour novella sounds very interesting and original. I'm looking forward to reading it!
Thanks. It's an idea I'd been wanting to tackle for awhile, for reasons both trivial and serious.
DeleteThanks!
ReplyDelete