Dear Reader,

It happened. It finally happened. I recently sold my first romance novella to Avon Impulse. It’s called Midnight In Your Arms, and will be coming out in time to chill your bones for Halloween 2012!

When I say that it’s my first romance novella, it really is true—I’ve never written a romance novella before. I’ve written two and a half romance novels, however. But that’s another story. Before Avon Impulse started putting out stand-alone novellas, and Harlequin did the same with their Briefs and Bites series, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a romance novella  had I written one. For some reason, even though there are now places for them to go, I still didn’t write one until just under three weeks ago. Let me tell you, I’m sure glad I did! It’s been like an instant gratification party around here ever since. I wrote the story over the space of about 30 hours on May 29^th-30^th. I sent it in on May 30^th about an hour before midnight, using the electronic submission process Avon has now—and a week later, I woke up to an email from Chelsey Emmelhainz at Harper Collins asking me to please call her because she loves my novella and wants to make an offer on it! Her exact words? “I loved it and would like to make an offer on it!” A dozen little words that were music to my ears! Or rather, beautiful paintings for my eyes, since I was reading them :^}

As soon as I swallowed my heart several dozen times, I did just that—and we had a lovely conversation, in which we discussed releasing the novella as a stand-alone book, when I had thought it would be part of a collection, because I had written it in response to a call for submissions for a themed anthology. But Avon liked it enough to release it on its own! So it was even more exciting than I thought—because now I get my own cover, with my own name on it, and all of that lovely, self-important stuff that writers dream about.

I called my husband right away, and told him, and he was so excited! It’s wonderful to have support at home, and I’m really lucky. When he got home from work that night, he brought take-out from our favourite restaurant that is now very far away ever since we moved out of the city, so it was a special treat indeed. I love having someone to share all the special moments with—and isn’t that what writing romance is all about? Bringing two people together who weren’t quite complete living apart. Giving them each someone to love them and support them, cherishing their dreams as if they are their own. That’s what I want to do with each pair of lovers in every book I write. That’s what I want to do with Midnight In Your Arms, which, no matter what happens in my career, will always be my First—and as we all know, your First matters!

And now I will go, because I am elbows deep in edits, trying to make a stable time loop make sense.

You’ll understand when you read it.

Love, Morgan.