This HaBO request comes to us from Sarah H, who isn’t sure if this is a real book or not:
Quick backstory: I’m an unpublished scribbler who was invited to take part in a writing marathon at a local college. About half of the writers were already published (mysteries in one form or another) and would take frequent breaks to chat and talk about the industry. I would take breaks with them for the sole purpose of eavesdropping.
During a break, one writer claimed that her friend, a romance writer, had an editor who suggested she change a major side character. It seems that she had the alpha hero have a soft side by way of being a Big Brother to a 12-year old boy. The editor had never heard of the Big Brother project and concluded that an alpha hanging out with a kid would be considered suspect (?!), so the editor changed the kid into a raccoon, with appropriate changes.
Yes–a raccoon.
According to the writer telling the tale, the book was published and did well but the romance novelist was mortified and couldn’t write for a long time after this.
I’m suspicious of this whole account. But still—there’s a not so tiny part of me who would really love to see a romance novel featuring a raccoon-loving alpha.
So: Tough guy, perhaps military woos a lady while spending a lot of time with a raccoon. It would have been written in the last ten years, I think.
Thank you in advance for any leads that may be found. If this turns out to be a hoax, I would like to let any fledgling writers out there know that I am willing to lay down good money in the near future for a romance novel with said alpha and raccoon.
Does anyone know of a romance hero with a raccoon bestie?
There is a Guardians of the Galaxy joke just baked into this HABO…
This is one of the times when I really wish I knew how to find and post this “Take all my money” pics.
Star-Lord! Because who doesn’t love Chris Pratt & Rocket, amirite?
Hah! I can think o quite a few books that would be improved by replacing the plot moppet with a raccoon. or a honey badger (yup, still thinking about badgers.)
All I could think of was Disney’s Pocahontas. Doesn’t John Smith hang out with Meeko? Or is it just Pocahontas?
Also a movie, not a book, but in the 2004 animated feature “El Cid: La leyenda” the hero has a pet badger. (It’s medieval Europe, so no raccoons available.) As I recall the reviews, no one was quite sure what the badger was doing there.
As a side note, can we agree that it’s sad that the Big Brother/Big Sister project isn’t better known? I’d think a guy involved with it would be automatically romance-worthy, because they require a commitment of many years so as not to have kids let down, and screen pretty carefully for that. So anyone in that program isn’t going to be a “I don’t want to get tied down” kind of guy.
Lucky’s Lady by Tami Hoag features a hero who cares for a litter (collective noun?) of baby raccoons.
There is a webcomic/manga about a male romance manga author which features an editor that insists on adding tanukis (japanese raccoon dogs) to any and all story lines. The HaBO request made me crack up, I didn’t think that this would happen in real life.
(I know this is not the book you are looking for but I highly recommend the manga to anyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monthly_Girls'_Nozaki-kun )
I’ve heard this from a trusted source, except it was a badger, not a raccoon. It’s a cautionary tale to writers to read and understand their contracts: the author allowed the clause about the publisher being able to make changes (which is standard, otherwise editing wouldnt’ be possible) go through without ensuring it included “subject to author approval.”
It was my understanding (and possibly my mistake) that it was because of an editorial feud of some sort (such as the last “screw you” to the company by an editor who’d been fired), but I might have read that into the story rather than knowing for sure.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the book, but I can ask the person who told me the story.
I’m a writer and I have a book that’s being edited right now. I interviewed an editor before going with the one I have now. Both of the editors were unsure of an unofficial name to the community I used in my story and both of them researched it to be sure I was giving it the right name. I feel like any professional editor is going to do due diligence before saying that program doesn’t exist.
Not a raccoon, but an opossum. Hold On Tight, a 30yo Loveswept by Deborah Smith, features a hero who attends a town (small & Southern) meeting with an opossum on his head. Not an opossum shaped hat, or a hat made from an opossum. An actual opossum. Pretty brave considering how vicious opossums are.
Now I want to reread this. I wonder if it’s in the under-the-bed archive….
Apparently the story refers to Just This Once, by Trish Graves.
I found the info here: http://angiesdesk.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-has-final-say.html
What an interesting article, Lostshadows. It appears too that the author has released the book under her name Trish Jensen: http://www.amazon.com/Just-This-Once-Trish-Jensen/dp/1611942942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464731316&sr=1-1&keywords=Trish+jensen+Just+This+Once In this version, the hero works with at risk youth.
As someone who has raised 100+ raccoons for a wildlife rehabilitator (we release all of them once they are nice and big and old enough, thank god), I both really want to read this and am also terrified that it would have improper raccoon care in it…kinda like how my doctor father can’t read medical fiction.
I had the HaBO request. These comments are so interesting! Particularly the one with the Trish Jensen blog link. Thank you! On a side note, I was watching this seasons Bachelorette, and found it very amusing that one of the more disliked contestants started talking about his little toy poodle that he left at home. Even and alpha jackhole seems to know the value of a cute animal.
The heroine of one Ilona Andrews’ Edge novels has a pet raccoon. And for some reason, I’m thinking there’s a Jenny Crusie book with a racoon in it.
This looks like it could be the raccoon version:
http://www.amazon.com/Just-This-Once-Precious-Gems/dp/0821761927
Is that a rat tail on the raccoon version’s cover dude? Because that is one rodent-inspired thing that I cannot stand.
I think my response to this is stunned jaw drop. I do now feel an obligation to read the Trish Jenson self published version. And the article at Angie’s desk was fascinating. I am not a writer and have never felt any urge to write fiction – but as a voracious reader (but not an untrained raccoon reader who claws through the trash to get books), I am eternally grateful to writers and the good editors who help them. I am always cautious with a self-published book because they show so clearly what horrors result with lack of good editing. But more and more I am seeing the value of self-publishing for writers and readers.
That editorial tranmogrification sounded familiar, and looking it up was more fun than doing work right now.
The author is Trish Graves, “now I’m known as the racooon author: the book JUST THIS ONCE — per Laura Resnick. The post has many more, uhm, memorable stories as does her book.
http://www.lauraresnick.com/non-fiction/rejection-romance-and-royalties/excerpt-rejection-romance-and-royalties/
Finally, I have saved the best for last. Remember Kensington’s previously-mentioned romance imprint, Precious Gems, where a writer woke up one day to find ten thousand words missing from her published novel? Another Precious Gems writer has an even better (or, rather, worse) tale to tell. Trish Jensen, writing under the pseudonym Trish Graves, sold them a novel called Just This Once in which the hero, among other things, mentors a teenage boy, steering him away from street gangs and towards organized sports. So you may imagine the author’s shock when, upon reading her galleys, she discovered that the editor had changed the boy into a raccoon.
(I think I speak for everyone here when I say, “What?“)
When Jensen asked the editor why on earth she had rewritten a teenager as a small nocturnal carnivore, the editor replied that the hero’s mentoring the boy could be misconstrued as having undertones of pedophilia. (All together now: “Huh?“) So the obvious solution was to rewrite the kid as an animal.
I am not making this up.
Jensen says, “I screamed to high heaven, my agent screamed to high heaven. We wanted the book pulled. Kensington said it was too late. They couldn’t pull it, and it was too late to turn it back into what it had been.” Understandably, she adds, “I was heartsick for a long time. To this day I can’t look at that book.”
The lesson here is that when you allow an editor absolute control over your work, as that Precious Gems contract stipulated, the results can be worse than your wildest nightmares. Jensen made sure her next contract with Kensington didn’t have that clause, and she warned other Precious Gems writers about it, too. She’s wryly philosophical about the experience these days, saying, “Now I’m known as ‘the raccoon author.’”