Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz

Author:Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz [Stohl, Margaret & de la Cruz, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

WHEN MR. NILES announced he didn’t like this direction for the book, either, Jo nearly threw it at him. She was starting to suspect that he didn’t know what he wanted. That he should write it himself if he didn’t like any of her efforts.

“I’m sorry, Miss March. It’s just not right still. It’s too . . . much.”

“Too much?”

“Much too much. Roderigo maimed? Giving Amy up forever? Readers would have my head, and yours, too.”

“I can take that part out. The maiming.”

“It’s not just the maiming, Miss March. That is just one example out of a dozen. You’ll have to start over, I’m afraid, the better to serve both your characters and your readers.”

A great weariness came over her, as if she’d been drugged. “I can’t start over, Mr. Niles,” she said, feeling tears starting at the corners of her eyes. “I can’t bear to look at it another minute.”

“You must,” he said. “Your way lies somewhere between feminist determination and melodramatic whimsy.”

Jo wanted to clutch the sheaf of papers to her chest and run, not walk, to a different publishing house. Any publishing house. Any that would let her write what she wanted without constantly telling her she was wrong. “You were the one who asked for more melodramatic whimsy, if I recall. You said you could sell sweetness or the Josephine March special.”

He nodded. “I remember. But this is not what I meant. It’s . . . well, lacking in good taste. Though I’m sorry to say it.”

“Shakespeare was constantly writing shipwrecks and kidnappings and dramatic changes in fortune. No one ever says his work is lacking in good taste.”

“Shakespeare was not a young lady from Concord.”

Jo had never in her life uttered a scream—she disdained girls who did—but she very much felt like uttering one now. Everything she did was wrong. First it was too little. Too quiet, too staid, too idealized. Now, it seemed, she’d gone too far in the other direction: Shipwrecks and kidnappings were all too much.

Because she was a young lady.

From Concord.

Did Lady Harriet have to deal with such nonsense?

Jo suspected not.

But if Jo were ever to have a prayer of getting paid, of buying new boots for Amy or new gloves for Father or paying off her family’s war debts, she’d have to start again.

Start fresh, Niles said. Give them excitement and romance, but make it realistic. In good taste. Cleverly wrought. Well-paced. With truthful yet heartwarming encounters between several flawed if likable characters.

“Sounds easy enough to me.” Niles looked at her from across the desk. “Don’t you agree?”

She didn’t agree at all. Absolutely did not.

But all she said was, “You’ll have your sequel by the end of the month, Mr. Niles. At the very least before Thanksgiving, I assure you.” It was early September now, and she could dash the thing off in two months, she was sure.

“But will it be . . .”

“The right sequel? I suppose you’ll have to tell me that for yourself, won’t you? You and your partners.

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