Also, post-Valentine’s day, love is still most definitely in the air.  I want to wish a happy book birthday to Debra Mullins and to Kira Sinclair for their new releases:

DONOVAN’S BED by Debra Mullins (Samhain Retro Romance)

“This is a western romance I can strongly recommend, and that’s about as rare as a legendary silver bullet.”  -Lesley Dunlop of The Romance Reader

Sarah Calhoun is bound and determined to restore honor to the family name the only way she knows how-make her late father’s newspaper, the Burr Chronicle, the most successful in the Wyoming Territory.

Haunted by past scandal, she knows one misstep, one misunderstanding, could bring disgrace back down on her head. Yet that doesn’t stop her from running an article about the insulting Jack Donovan. The blasted man is shopping for a wife as he would a horse!

Jack finally has the house in the kind of town he’s always dreamed about. Now all that’s missing is a wife. At first, he thinks Sarah’s scathing article about his quest is a good thing-until he finds himself hounded by hordes of young girls, spinsters and widows. Still, he can’t stop thinking about the sassy newspaper editor who started it all.

Sarah is as determined to ignore her impossible attraction to Donovan as she is to uncover his mysterious past. But the harder she digs for his secrets, the deeper he hides them. Until there’s only one rock left unturned. His heart.

TAKE IT DOWN by Kira Sinclair

…to Ramez Naam for the sale of his debut science fiction novels NEXUS and CRUX to Angry Robot Books.

So excited for you both!

Vicky Dreiling’s next three Regencies with her trademark pop culture twist to Michele Bidelspach of Grand Central.

and

Croatian language rights to N.K. Jemisin’s award-winning novel THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS to Skolska via Whitney Lee of The Fielding Agency on our behalf

I know, I don’t usually post my deals here.  I leave that for Publishers Marketplace, Locus, etc., but since PM truncated things this week, I wanted to give my authors their full shout out.  Congratulations!

Also, since I’m in a whirlwind of meetings all next week in New York, I wanted to wish happy early book birthdays to:

Roberta Gellis, whose classic medieval romance MASQUES OF GOLD is being reprinted by Sourcebooks Casablanca. (Along with TAPESTRY OF DREAMS and THE FIRES OF WINTER and THE ROPE DANCER.)

Rachel Caine for UNBROKEN, the climactic book in her Outcast Season series, and a Barnes & Noble Bookseller’s Pick for February!  (Other series titles: UNDONE, UNKNOWN, UNSEEN.)

Jasmine Haynes says for her erotic romance THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE.  “Secret rendezvous, sexual heat, and things dreams are made of if you are seeking a sexual adventure!” says Affaire de Coe ur.

I represent forty authors.  Even if each only wrote one book a year, I’d have forty books to read and critique over the course of 52 weeks.  Many of my authors write more than one book a year, sometimes in multiple series and for more than one publisher.  So let’s say I read sixty books a year for my clients.  I also read and offer notes on their proposals and partials, sometimes several times, to get them into shape for submission.  My clients come first.  And no, I can’t always read everything in order, because if books are turned in late but are already in schedule, the editor and I may have to drop everything we’re doing in order to read instantaneously so that the author can receive notes in time to revise for their production deadlines.  So submissions will generally get pushed back to make room for these rush reads.

We fit submissions in when we can, but I have to admit that there’s a certain order here as well.  If an agent (or editor, because their process is much the same, although they generally don’t take unsolicited submissions and are reading manuscripts sent by agents instead) has a file folder of submissions, but something seems particularly hot or from a favorite author over whom other agents are likely to compete, it moves to the top of the list.

All of the above also explains why we don’t offer critiques of everything we read that we don’t represent.  To do that we’d have to take time away from authors to whom we’re committed, and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.  Already, agents and editors don’t actually have weekends off…or evenings…or holidays.  My Saturdays and Sundays are distinguishable from my work week only by the amount of time I spend reading versus doing office work like looking over contracts, chasing checks, liaising with my subagents over film and translation rights, actually typing up all the notes I’ve racked up on the client manuscripts read in my off hours.

So, if your work isn’t read as quickly as you’d like it to be, it’s not because we’re living it up in our ivory towers, although that would be lovely, it’s because despite the numerous absolutely brilliant people I know, none has yet managed to find a way to create more hours in the day.  If anyone manages it, please have your people call my people!  We’ll do lunch…at which I will worship at your feet.

“Kira Sinclair’s BRING IT ON delivers the ultimate escape — a sizzling love affair on a tropical island.  Whew!  I need a cold shower!” – NYT Bestseller Vicki Lewis Thompson

Blurb:

When I was a kid, we tended to think of bullies as kids who were bullied themselves and passed it along to others.  What I actually see behind most of the bullies are parents who make excuses for their kids, don’t rein them in or even pay much attention to what they’re doing, don’t draw boundaries or create consequences. From here I see two divergent things: those parents who immediately deal with their kids when they realize what’s going on, in which case the behavior is often nipped in the bud, and those who don’t, in which case it isn’t.  Many of the former and even some the latter are good people, some so nice you hate to bring things up and hurt feelings; you wonder how their kids’ behavior ever became an issue.  But silence doesn’t solve the problem.

The kids who are an ongoing threat are often those whose parents when confronted with their child’s behavior tell the person talking that they must be mistaken.  In some cases, they go a step farther.  Since their child would never do such a thing; yours must be a liar…or an instigator.  Yes, let’s blame the victims.  If by some miracle, they’re convinced there’s some fault, their reaction is not determination to get to the root of things or teach tolerance and empathy or offer up concrete consequences, but to give the kid a slap on the wrist and maybe take away video games for a night.  Really?  Children are getting emotionally scarred, some to the point where they’d rather not face another day, and you’re taking away video games?  I’m not saying one serious punishment will change the behavior.  Not at all.  But awareness, interaction, teaching tolerance and conversing with your kids might make a difference.  I’m talking about not spouting vitriol that the kids might adopt or creating an environment in which anything goes.  About not being blind to your child’s faults or creating such a buffer to protect them from the consequences of their actions that they never feel there are any.

Last week I heard that there were kids up at our lodge throwing stones, damaging cars and a five year old girl.  I wish I could say this surprised me.  A few weeks before Christmas (or maybe a bit more), two boys in our neighborhood were out shooting bb guns…at my son.  When a mother came to collect them and Ty told her what had happened, she said she’d deal with it.  However, based on the fact that her boys are constant problems in the neighborhood, I don’t have any faith in the response.  Ty likes to handle things on his own.  If he’d called me when it happened, I’d have called the police.  I told the kids exactly that the next time I saw them, but I doubt it will stop them from attacking the next kid.  In fact, I don’t think they’re going to stop or their mother will have her blinders knocked askew until the police actually come knocking at her door.  Even then….

I found out about No Name-Calling Week when Rob Neufeld did a piece on it and the DEAR BULLY anthology to which I contributed in this weekend’s Asheville Citizen-Times.  The No Name-Calling Week website has planning kits and some great resources for parents, teachers and students.  I encourage people to check it out.

I do wish, though, that we had all the answers.  I wish we could reach the parents who really need to be reached and that we could truly stop bullying before it happens and not just deal with the aftermath.  Please, please, if anyone has further ideas, resources, links, I’d love to hear them and to help spread the word.