Welcome uber author Kylie Brant!!

Cindy here. I am SO excited to welcome my buddy and amazing talent Kylie Brant to the Top Down. She's here to tell us about her first sale story and her upcoming release for Silhouette Romantic Suspense, TERMS OF SURRENDER. Some lucky blogger will win a copy of Kylie's new book so make sure you let her know you're happy to see her. And I have other news ... drum roll please .... The Top Down crew is THRILLED to announce that Kylie will be officially joining us as a rider as of today. We are so excited to welcome her to the convertible and include her on all of our future road trips.
So now, without further adieu heeeeerrrrr'sssss Kylie!!

I started writing in 1990, which was pre-email, pre-internet, pre-me knowing anything at all about the writing industry. All I knew was that I loved to read. And my favorite authors just weren't writing fast enough to keep me in reading material!

I teach full time and have five kids, so the summer my youngest, a set of twins were four, I figured I was going to have all sorts of time on my hands so I decided to write a book. Yep. Not only blissfully ignorant but blindly optimistic as well.

When I deemed it 'ready' I did what every well-educated industry savvy author wannabe does when she's ready to submit: I opened my favorite author's book and found the address of the company she wrote for. Confidently, I found the telephone number to go with Silhouette's address and called them up to find out how to go about submitting.

Boy, are New York secretaries snotty about questions like that. Let's just say that was my first introduction to things like tip sheets and query letters and 'unsoliticited manuscripts'. (I didn't know what that was, but could tell it was a bad thing.)

Once I was invited to submit, I figured a week to get there in the mail, a week to get back, a month to read it. . .I'd be generous ☺ and give them six weeks. But I started to watch the mailbox after three.

Four long excruciating months later, I got a two-page rejection letter from the senior editor of Special Edition. She suggested several revisions and invited me to resubmit, which I did. But this time when the book was mailed off, I'd wised up and started another book in the duration. Which was lucky, because it took six months to receive yet another two page rejection letter. My second book had just gone in, this time to Intimate Moments, so I took the time to revise the first manuscript once again and sent that in, too.

The only reason I was even home the afternoon I got the call from Silhouette is because I was sick in bed with laryngitis. Leslie Wainger's assistant editor was on the phone, all excited because she'd tracked me down. Apparently I'd neglected to include my phone number in the cover letter. Go figure. She said she was excited because she'd found me in the slush pile. I thought she said flush pile, which didn't sound promising. She told me Leslie was reading the manuscript as we spoke and would call me later.

After we hung up it all started feeling so surreal. Had that really just happened? Or was it the product of a Vicks Vaporub induced dream? All I could do was lay there for hours wondering, unable to call anyone for fear it had been a dream and if it hadn't, I didn't want to tie up the line. By the end of the day Leslie Wainger did call back and offer to buy the book. It wasn't much of a conversation since I could barely talk, but when she offered to call back the next day when I was feeling better I said NO! I was afraid to let her off the line!

A couple months later she bought my first manuscript too. But boy, that baby went through some major surgery prior to publishing!

My newest series for Silhouette, ALPHA SQUAD, kicks off this month with TERMS OF SURRENDER:


First-she'd left without a word.
Second-he hadn't chased her down.

Now they had to face their past under heated circumstances. And SWAT team hostage negotiators Jolie Conrad and Dace Recker couldn't let their simmering feelings explode. Because they'd suddenly become partners-and targets for a thwarted felon with revenge on the brain.

Staying alive would push them to the limit-but staying away from each other might just push them over the edge..

Hard to believe I've written over two dozen books for Silhouette now after that--oh, let's just call it an ignoble beginning!

How about you? Have you ever had good fortune strike despite everything that should have countered it? Or hey, we could talk about the best thing that ever happened to you when you were sick ☺ Because to date, making that first sale is the most excitement I've ever had in bed. (Whoops. Sorry, Farmer Guy!)