The End of a (very short) Era

The blogosphere is buzzing with news of the demise of the Bombshell line. I’m waiting to see where all the pieces fall, but so far, everyone seems to agree on the problem. Bad placement, misdirected marketing, etc. It’s just not right for a non-romance line to be shelved as category romance. It pisses off the people who expect to find romance and never reaches the people who are looking for the type of book that it is.

You’ve probably heard the details — any book slated for publication past January of 2007 will not be published — at least, not as Bombshells. Time will tell if any of them find homes as special releases or within another publishing program. This is especially egregious news for those authors who are awaiting their first release from this line, or who have already turned in books that are part of the Harlequin-owned Athena Force series. They can’t get those rights reverted, as they were written as part of a house property. Here’s hoping they find those books a home.

This announcement makes me sad, though not in the same manner as the line’s writers and fans. I’m sad because I know that in the case of this line, I was part of the problem.

Now, regular blog readers know of my history with this line. When it was first announced,
I was so excited. Words just poured out of me. I thought up an idea, and wrote the first twenty pages in a hot rush. The book flowed. It started finalling in contests, and one contest judge recommended me to her editor, then one of Bombshell’s two founders. By the time the final judge (also a Silhouette editor) requested it, I already had a revision request from the other.

Well, the editor didn’t agree with the readers, and I received a rejection. (To be fair, I also got a rejection from the woman who would eventually become my agent.) Well, actually, what the editor wanted was a rewrite. A rewrite that completely reimagined the hero, heroine, premise, setting, plotline, villain, and theme. I got the same treatment with every other proposal (three) I sent this editor. “I love it, but you know how it’s about a research scientist on a submarine in the South Pacific? Can you make it about an ex-Airforce firejumper in Kansas?” (I’m dead serious, by the way. This is not an exaggeration.)

Other writers told me that they were jumping through the same hoops with the editor in question, and soon after, she left the company. The requirements for the line changed several times, and by the time the line launched, I’d lost interest. I didn’t lose interst in writing about kick-ass heroines. I still write them. But I lost interst in writing for that line. I was also part of a group of other women all targetting that line. Now we’ve each been published, none of us with Bombshell. I’ve probably strayed the furthest from the Bombshell paradigm, but the rest of them are published with novels of vampire slayers, cops, and mystery-solving psychics.

I’d subscribed to the line early on, but only read three or four of the books before I realized that the result in the printed books was not at all what I’d been hoping for. There were a few I enjoyed, but too many books released in the first few months that I couldn’t get through at all. The plot lines were ridiculous, the editing was non-existent, and the writing was all over the place.

I stopped reading them. I regret that now, as many folks tell me they kept getting better and better. “Go read Evelyn Vaughn or Sandra K. Moore.” Stephanie Feagan’s Pink series came out, and it also looked good. But I’d been burned too many times, picking up Bombshells and then not being able to make it through. I’d hear about an awesome new one on the shelves and
go into the bookstore, but for some reason I always hesitated. There was always something else on the shelves that looked just as interesting, yet was not colored by my own readerly and writerly disappointments. What did I want the Bombshells to be, aside from more like the book I’d written? Was my hesitation caused by simple sour grapes (i.e., “they aren’t publishing me, so I’m not reading them!”)? I doubt it, after all, I’d been rejected by Brava and Temptation, and was still buying those at every opportunity.

But I do think that my expectations were colored by what I’d wanted the line to be. I was hoping for gritty and I was getting James Bond. I was hoping for Buffy and I was getting Underworld. I was hoping for any number of things, but my expectation was not being fulfilled. Perhaps if I’d managed to get my hands on some of the RITA-award nominees, I would have changed my mind, but I apparently had bad luck. I should have read the Orchid Hunter or one of the Grailkeeper novels. Or maybe I would have read it and been disappointed anyway. (I recently read another novel that was described as Bombshell-esque and it left me feeling as cold. And yet, I devour “Bombshell” heroines in movies and on TV. Buffy, Veronica Mars, Aeon Flux, Sarah Connor, love love love.)

And yet, and yet, I don’t think I dislike that kind of book. Tally from Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series is nothing if not a kickass heroine. Ditto the monster-slaying Jessica Day from Midnighters. Val in Holly Black’s Valiant. Marisela Morales in Julie Leto’s Dirty Little Secrets (and the upcoming Dirty Little Lies). Eden Black and Mia Snow in Gena Showalter’s Alien Huntress books, Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study-er, and Julie Kenner’s demon-hunting soccer mom. Clearly, it’s not the format that was my problem. But I bought these books rather than buying Bombshells. Any of these books could have been Bombshells (some were even originally targetted at that line).

Some people are theorizing that placement was not this line’s only problem. That focus was also a big issue. hat with such a variety of DEA agents and vampires, they should have not made this line a “you know what you’re getting” category line. I know that I, having been disappointed by some of the earlier Bombshells, skipped out on the line in favor of single titles with the same idea. The branding in this case, hurt the chances of the new authors who may have been writing things I enjoyed a lot more. I was buying Downtown Press’s series of female-focused action adventure rather than Harlequin’s.

Maybe others had the same experience. I hope that the Bombshell authors find soft landings in other lines or at other houses, and that I’m given the chance to discover their books in a less constricted format. I missed them the first time. I hope I don’t do so again.