Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
The valet writes the name on the parking ticket and hands the stub to Britney, who winks and gives the kid a five. “Thanks,” she says, sashaying around the car and heading with me inside as he and the other two set about unloading the boxes.
I grind my teeth thinking about it as we enter the hotel. Because what’s in those boxes is not what I thought would be in these boxes.
It mostly is. About eighty percent of what I thought I’d be bringing with me is there, but it’s not the exact thing I intended to have with me. I still haven’t gotten fully over the shock of Brit walking out of my little pool house, filling me up with hope and happiness, and then saying…
“You can’t publish it.”
There’s a slow, gut-punched beat during which I can feel the smile sinking from my lips and the light in my eyes going dim.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Or you can, but you can’t try to sell it to the readers you’ve already built up.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not a romance novel.”
I blink. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then three more times quickly, counting as I do. “It’s absolutely a romance novel. There’s romance all over that novel. It’s practically oozing off the pages. I don’t—”
“It doesn’t have an HEA.”
An HEA. A happily ever after. A promise to the reader that no matter what the lovers in the book have had to endure to get to where they are at the end, they are rewarded with a bright, hopeful future, free from distress and trauma, and filled with the possibility of an ever-better tomorrow. It is the hallmark of romance. Certainly of contemporary romance.
I know this.
And Britney’s telling me it’s not there.
“What are you saying, it doesn’t have an HEA? Elpida quite literally goes walking off into the sunset.”
“Alone.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Because Apollo is dead!”
“Yeah! He died for her! What’s more romantic than that?”
“He gets crushed to death by a rockslide and she watches it happen!”
“Exactly! And even after all that, she finds the inner strength to make her way to the ocean and back to civilization so that she can begin her life over again! It’s about renewal and self-reliance. About discovering that you are enough and you don’t need anyone else to hold you up. About filling in all the empty places inside of ourselves and making ourselves whole. That’s why it’s called Filling the Gap!”
“Cord, that’s nice and all, but if I pick up something called Filling the Gap, my expectation isn’t gonna be that the title is a metaphor for some chick seeking to ‘make herself whole.’ It’s gonna be to read about somebody getting poked in a lot of holes.”
“But I—”
“I’m sorry, Cord. If you put this out there, you’re going to get crucified.”
“Listen to your friend, dear,” I hear Sheila mutter. “You gotta give the people what they want. Until you’ve given ’em what they want for long enough that you either retire or outlive everybody else, then you can do whatever you like.”
“Also…” Britney starts hesitantly. “It takes a long time to get them together.”
“What?”
“It just takes a long time for them to meet and, y’know, actually get to the sexy stuff.”
“It’s called character-building. We need to grow to care about them as individuals before we put them together.”
“I understand that, but—”
“Unless we understand them, how can they understand each other?”
“Okay. Great. Fine. I get it.” She takes a long pause and I can tell there’s more she’s not saying.
“What?” I prompt, against my better judgment.
“Nothing, no, it’s not… Just…”
“What?”
“I think you should maybe take a look at her name.”
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER NAME?” Now that the floodgates are open, a whole lot of unexpected shit is likely to come pouring out.
“Elpida? It’s not terribly sexy.”
“It’s Greek! It means ‘hope!’”
“You know what other name means ‘hope’ and is sexy? Hope! Why don’t you go with that?”
My head is spinning. I feel like I’m going to fall into the pool. And I don’t want to fall into the pool. I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The only thing I dislike more than getting recreationally wet is getting inadvertently wet while fully clothed.
“I—you—are you—?” I semi-successfully stammer out before Brit puts her hands on my shoulders in what I know is a loving attempt to keep me calm, but at the moment feels more like an assault.
“Cord, there’s so, so much good stuff in there. It really is great. But…” She pauses, I assume to calculate how likely it is that whatever she has left to say might send me into a full-blown breakdown. She chooses her words carefully. “It’s like… okay, it’s like you made a steak, right? A beautiful, tender, juicy, perfectly cooked steak that is so mouthwateringly delicious that it rivals the best steak ever made by the finest chef at the best restaurant in Paris.”