Harlequin Historical

From Guidevines

A publisher of original historical romances that works well with self-selling authors. To quote their writing guidelines:

Length: 80,000 – 95,000 words

Senior Editor: Linda Fildew

Editorial Office: UK

Historical Romances promise the reader richly textured, emotionally intense stories set in widely diverse historical time periods, from ancient civilizations up to and including the First and Second World Wars. Regency tales remain ever-popular and cover the range from drawing-room antics that scandalise the ton, to the salacious underworld inhabited by pickpockets and prostitutes, to the hazardous battlefields of the Peninsular War.

Other popular periods range from Viking invasions through to the turbulence of the Middle Ages, from Elizabethan England to 20th-century families at war. Western American and Australasian settings are also welcome, with highly dramatic and emotional stories unfolding in the wilderness at society's edge.

The central relationship is the key driving force, set against an accurate backdrop. Readers should feel as if they are there. These novels are for born storytellers with a love of history, who have the ability to bring a period vividly to life, and to create characters that involve and absorb the reader from page one.

Please submit the first three chapters along with a 1-2 page synopsis of your novel.

Novels are generally in print only for a brief period: about 30 days. Harlequin relies on a subscription service to get wide sales. Readers sign up to get the four novels of the month mailed to them at a discount price. As a result, your novel can wind up in the hands of someone who might not have picked it off a shelf, but will give it at least a browse since she has paid for it anyway.

Requiring 48 historical romances a month, this can be a good place to break in and to get your name recognition.

The address for this editor/line is:

Linda Fildew

Harlequin Mills & Boon Ltd.

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road

Richmond, Surrey, United Kingdom

TW9 1SR

[edit] Links

Harlequin Historicals guidelines