Chapter Twenty-One #2
Ross McCloud,’ to use your full title?”
“Bit of a mouthful, for every day,” he deadpanned. “Just Ross will do fine, thanks for asking.”
“Hmph,” said Flo, narrowing her eyes. “And I gather you and Petra . . . ?”
“Yeah,” said Ross, smiling at the thought. “She’s great, isn’t she?”
“She certainly is.”
“God knows what she’s doing with a basket case like me. I don’t deserve her.”
“I don’t suppose you do,” Flo agreed. “So make sure you look after her . . .”
“Yeah, stopping her from finding new and inventive ways to accidentally kill herself is part of my job, for sure,” he said.
“After that whole nighttime hiking fiasco,” he went on, looking grim as he remembered.
“Not one of her best decisions,” agreed Flo. “Although she’s a talented woman, of course,” she continued. “Quite the high-flyer.
What will you do when she wants to go back to agenting? Presumably you would want her to represent you?” she said, looking
sharply at him.
“Ah,” said Ross, taken aback. “So, that’s er . . . um . . . it’s complicated.”
Flo continued to look at him expectantly, telling him she had absolutely heard from Petra on the subject too.
“So I asked her to be my agent, but she refused,” he admitted.
“I see.”
“Ah, but you don’t,” insisted Ross. “I was disappointed she said no, but I was also really relieved because that meant we
could be together, which was good.”
“And now . . . ?”
“I’m starting to understand how much it would do for her professionally if she represented me with this next book to sell. It’s making me wish I could break my cardinal rule.”
“Combining work and pleasure?”
Ross nodded, his brow knitted.
“And—just to clarify,” Flo pressed on, “Petra turned you down when you asked her in any case because . . . ?”
“I think because she’s lost confidence in herself,” Ross hazarded. “Although, just recently, she’s been pushing me to keep
writing, and I can tell she’s intrigued to think how to sell this book. I feel like she’s getting her mojo back, and I’m wondering
if I can’t change her mind about the agenting, for her own sake. I flatter myself, I know, but it would be a bit of a comeback
for her.”
“So you want her not to represent you, because you personally don’t want to muddy the water in your relationship, but then you want her to represent you for the sake of her own career?”
“Yes.”
“And—just to clarify—she doesn’t want to represent you because she thinks she isn’t good enough, but maybe now she’s thinking she is prepared to represent you, for the sake of your career. Yes?”
“Yes,” said Ross, delighted that Flo seemed to be following. “Make sense?”
“No,” said Flo bluntly. “I think you’re both totally cracked.”
Petra was seeing a lot of Alison, the—as yet—unpublished romance writer, but that was hardly surprising: Alison was in Write
Club and the Beach Reads Book Club, plus, she was in the shop at least twice a week, buying what Petra felt was an admirably broad selection of books.
“I’m dying to read this myself,” she told Alison as she brought a hardback copy of Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros over to the register.
“Have you read the others?” Alison asked. “I adored Fourth Wing. It was my first romantasy, actually.”
“I haven’t yet,” admitted Petra. “I hate getting to the end of a book in a series and having to wait for the next one, so
I save them up. That reminds me—I have to pick the group’s brains about romantasy when we next meet. I’ve got a few, but I’d
like to stock other writers in the genre, and it’s not my specialist subject.”
“I can tell you everything about romantasy,” declared Alison happily. “We can have a heated debate. Any and all things romance,
that’s me. And thank goodness Capelthorne’s actually stocks romance.”
“Of course!” said Petra, thinking of her pleasing sales data from the Beach Reads Book Club books, which were mostly romance.
“Exactly,” chimed in Alison, shaking her head. “Whenever I travel, I always visit the local independent bookshop to check
what they do and don’t have. I mean, they seem to grudgingly have the really big hits, but only after they’ve gone huge on
TikTok and become unignorable. The romance writers I love don’t get a look-in. And I challenge them about that too, you know?”
“You do?” said Petra, smiling. Alison was the sweetest, quietest, most gentle woman she ever met. She couldn’t imagine her
picking a fight with anyone.
“I do!” Alison declared fearlessly.
“And what do they say?”
“It goes like this: First I ask them why they don’t stock a good range of romance. Then they give me some rubbish that there isn’t much call for it. I even had a man tell me they only stock ‘proper books.’”
Petra made an outraged noise.
“I know! What he—they—actually mean is they think romance is below them.”
“Their loss,” opined Petra.
“Exactly. I mean, it doesn’t go unnoticed that the majority of romance is read by women, so what does that mean? And don’t
even get me started on how underrepresented queer romance is,” Alison added, frowning furiously.
“And how do you reply when they say romance doesn’t count?” Petra smiled.
“I ask them if they stock Jane Austen and the Brontes,” Alison said stoutly. “Of course, they always say yes to that. And
then I watch it slowly dawn on their silly little faces.”
“Brilliant!” applauded Petra. “Not much call for it,” she scoffed. “How can they ignore that romance book sales are beaten
only by crime. They’re huge. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that market?”
“Romance readers, out and proud!” agreed Alison. “But maybe those snooty bookshop owners are right, though,” she added doubtfully.
“Is it an online thing maybe? Perhaps romances don’t sell in physical bookshops.”
“Self-fulfilling prophesy, if they refuse to stock them,” snorted Petra. “It’s the classic circular argument. That’s why you
all at Beach Reads Book Club are so helpful to me.”
“I did feel like Diana’s book club was sometimes a bit too much about wading through hefty books to demonstrate your intellect or how cultured you are,” admitted Alison.
“Hmm, book clubs can be a bit . . .” Petra wrinkled her nose, “. . . performative. People don’t talk about their commercial
fiction reading habits.”
“Which is crazy. Why shouldn’t they?” said Alison firmly. “It’s just the same as having a Snickers bar rather than something
fancy from Maison Chocolat. Some days you want one, some days the other . . . Both are fantastic.”