It’s taken some time and quite a lot of emails winging to and fro across the Atlantic, but I’m delighted to say I am now the proud owner of the rights to the nine books published by Mills and Boon/Harlequin under my pen-name of Rachel Elliot. I decided ages ago I wanted the rights back, because I want the books to be available to a new audience through the miracles of downloading and POD.
Certain conditions are attached, as you’d expect – for example I’m not allowed to use the M&B or Harlequin trademarks and I can’t use the original book covers. That’s not a bad thing – I reckon it’ll be fun to collaborate with my illustrator Wendy to come up with new ideas.
The plan isn’t to republish the stories as they are, because I want to rewrite and update them all to some extent – and I’m really looking forward to that, though it’ll be a pretty mammoth task. So for example – Song of Love centres on the story of singer Claire Silver and Scottish castle owner Roddy Mackenzie, and the conflict arises from the fact that he thinks she’s using him to further her career, because his brother just happens to be an Agent for top entertainers. I’m toying with the notion of introducing a kind of X-Factor element to the new version of the story – what do you reckon?
I haven’t actually read the originals for ages, so revisiting them will be fascinating – I hope readers think so too!
gillyfraser 