The romance market is in a constant flux, like a river pulled by the tides of public buying power and readership. Harlequin is an amazing company that has one very big ear intently listening to buyers of books through the Ka-ching of money going into the cash register. They try new things and sometimes the new things don’t quite work…or they work, but the Ka-ching isn’t enough to make back the investment or, more importantly from my point-of-view, make enough money to keep the authors of said books alive.

The NEXT line, which I personally love and have read quite a few of, is a wonderful, eclectic assortment of stories written by some pretty amazing authors (like my friend Susan Crosby), but the line never completely caught on in the marketplace. And now, as of February 2008, will no longer be published in series format. There’s talk of finding another a vehicle for these type of books, maybe trade paperback, but that’s still talk, as I understand it.

My heart goes out to the authors in this line.

As for Love Everlasting…that line is also in transition. From what I’ve heard, they will discontinue it as an independent line and will start producing one “Superromance Everlasting Love” per month, early next year. Yep, Superromance. That means one of our six books will have to be shuffled to another month. Small price to pay to keep the wonderful Everlasting books around, but I expect there might be more lag time between the books in my new series. Don’t know for sure and will keep you posted.

So, there you go. Inside information.

REMINDER: the 5 Texas Hold’em authors are going to have a week-long forum on eHarlequin.com NEXT WEEK. This is going to be a rip-roaring event because we’re actually going to be answering the questions *as* our heroes. That’s right, Cole is going to come out of wherever past heroes go — the past hero retirement home? Naw, not Cole. He’s building houses somewhere in Novelland. — to talk about poker, life, and…well, guy things.

I’ll post the link several times to “encourage” you to drop by. We’re hoping to break records for attendance. It’s a guy thing.

Deb