Jenna Petersen’s ebook exclusive Almost a Spinster is a collection of three novellas that were part of her “You Tell Me A Story” online interactive choose-your-own-adventure-esque event.
Here are the plots:
In “Her Every Desire” Lady Jane asks her old friend Wesley to do a favor for her, seduce the fiance of the man she believes she loves. Instead he proposes that they pretend to be engaged to make the other man jealous and please Wesley’s “dying” grandmother. But what starts as a pretended engagement leads to true feelings. And a choice that must be made that could change both their lives forever.
In “A Scandal to Keep”, Felicity Ellis made a terrible decision that ruined her when she gave her innocence to a scoundrel. But after his death, his younger brother Gabriel inherits the title… and the sins of his brother and father. Felicity cannot believe the two brothers could be so different, but after they kiss, she finds herself entertaining more than just Gabriel’s offer to make amends with a marriage of convenience.
Finally, in “A Woman Scorned”, Madeline was humiliated and ruined after her engagement was broken. Now she is in the country helping her aunt with a difficult pregnancy when she is nearly run down by Nathan and his horse. He believes she is a servant and Maddie lets him continue that misconception. But they are from very different worlds, and by the time he realizes her deception, it may be too late.
Amazon critiques and praises are pretty much spot on with my own, I love the first and third stories but the second seems kind of ridiculous given the time span it covers. On the whole, they are quick, enjoyable reads that readers can enjoy in bite size snips without ending up burning the midnight oil.
I love novellas, especially in ebook format, particularly for this reason–sometimes a full length can not have enough conflict or action to really warrant a longer piece.
In light of Petersen’s current foray into self-publishing, I am thinking that romance readers will begin to see more, similar offerings from a wide variety of hist-ro authors.
No, I don’t think it will completely “transform” the industry tanamount to single track versus album downloads ala the music industry, but yes I do think that these easier to publish formats will create a generous supply for readers.
And you can’t really beat .99 (both B&N and Amazon).
