Last week, Harlequin‘s Silhouette Nocturne imprint announced a new supernatural romance line of ebooks called Nocturne Bites, a companion line to the erotic-themed Spice Briefs. The stories, which will range from 10,000 to 15,000 words, “should deliver a dark, highly sensual read that will entertain readers and take them from everyday life to an atmospheric, complex world filled with characters struggling with life and death issues,” according to the call for submissions:
“A strong alpha hero is of the utmost importance: He should be powerful, mysterious and totally attractive to the heroine. While action-packed and mission-oriented, the scope of these stories should be more contained, with more focus turned to character development. All stories should be capable of standing alone; all loose ends need to be tied up, and the relationship between hero and heroine should resolve itself in a satisfying manner.”
On the one hand, this sounds like it could have great potential—writing a really good fantasy/supernatural novella is no small accomplishment, especially since the market for them isn’t what it once was in the golden age of pulp magazines. On the other hand, as romance novelist Shannon Stacey observes, the name has somewhat unfortunate secondary connotations…
(discovered via Venessa Giunta)