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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Undoing the Undone giveaway -- Michelle Styles

This month I have my first Harlequin Historical Undone out in the US and the UK -- The Perfect Concubine.
Undones are different to the full length historicals that I normally write. First of all they are much shorter about 10,000 -15,000 words and secondly because of their length, they are far more intense and much more tightly focused.  They are also far more on the sexual fantasy side of historical, rather than it could possibly happen. These are stories which are meant to be downloaded and read in an afternoon or over a lunch period. The Undones are e-book exclusives but the more popular ones are put into a print anthology of five. The anthologies have proven to be a successful part of the regular Harlequin Historical series line up.

The Harlequin Historical editorial team is also using the Undones to explore different time periods, situations and other cutting edge themes.  They also are also debuting new authors in Undone. For example, new Regency author Elaine Golden has her first Undone out with me -- An Imprudent Lady. And having read it, I know that Elaine is  someone to watch. A real star in the making. Her second Undone comes out next month and is linked to this one.

The editors are also very open to submissions from all time periods and are eagerly searching for the next star. The guidelines are on the eharlequin website. You would be submitting a full manuscript.

For me The Perfect Concubine was a chance to revisit a minor character from Sold & Seduced and give him the Happy Ending I thought he deserved. It absolutely stand alone but I had great fun revisiting that world. It was also my first chance to write short novella rather than a full length novel and so proved a steep learning curve. Apparently I approached it far too much like a novel rather than a short story to begin with but I did make the adjustments.

GIVEAWAY
UPDATE: I  have drawn the winner -- kissinoak and have sent her an email. Many thanks to everyone who entered.
Michelle Styles writes in a wide variety of time periods. Her next full length book --Breaking The Governess's Rules will be published in the UK in March. Visit michellestyles.co.uk to learn more about Michelle's books.

6 comments:

Estella said...

Always ready to try new lines of books!

Nas said...

Hi Michelle,

It was interesting to know about Undones!

Congrats on the release of your Undone THE PERFECT CONCUBINE.

Michele L. said...

Thanks for a great post! Your book sounds fabulous! Many congrats! Happy Valentine's Day!

Michelle Styles said...

Glad you all enjoyed the post.

Is it just me or does Tote Bags take a long time to load?

Michele L. said...

Not just you Michelle, even with my high speed connection, Tote Bags N Blogs does take a long time to load! I think it is all the pictures.

Elaine Golden said...

Thank you so much for the very kind words, Michelle. It's an honor just to be on the same imprint with you! I LOVE the Undones --reading them as much as writing them!

~Elaine