Page 1 of Not in My Book

CHAPTER ONE

My mom used to say if I didn’t have anything nice to say, then it was best to say nothing at all. It was typical mom advice, but it became my gospel. It was basically one of the commandments of the South. You know, southern hospitality and all that.

I was almost certain Aiden Huntington’s mom had told him the opposite. If you don’t have anything nice to say, shout it from the rooftops! Repeat it until you instill in their mind just howworthlessthey are!

It would explain why Aiden felt the need to berate me. Every. Single. Class.

“Sensory details need a lot of work.” It was the first thing out of his mouth when it became his turn to offer up thoughts on my chapter. Most people started their comments with one or two nice things and ended with some gentle constructive criticism. But Aiden cut right to the chase and through the heart. He flipped through the pages, his mouth turned down in a frown, like my chapter personally offended him.

“And the dialogue. I mean, come on. If Rosalinda—”

“Rosie,” I interrupted. He lifted his eyes to mine, peering at me through his lashes, his brow raised slightly. “We’ve been over this. My name is Rosie.”

Our professor, Ida, cleared her throat from the front of the room, giving me a dark look. The first rule of workshop? Donottalk during workshop.

The writer was required to read their work out loud for the class, who came with prepared notes. And as the class discussed, the writer was to remain silent and take it all in.

I shrank back and begrudgingly nodded at Aiden to continue.

The semester had only started a few weeks ago, but this had quickly become our routine. When we read Aiden’s submissions, we all gave praise andcritiques. Not insults—meresuggestions. We were always very kind and gently told him what was working and what wasn’t. The worst part was that most of the time, his pieces worked.

In return, he gave comments that were harsh, yes, but, sadly, helpful. Aiden had an annoying editorial eye that ended up making everyone around him a better writer. Except when it came to me. This was our second semester doing this dance—he’d done this last semester in our master fiction workshop, too. He hadn’t cared enough to dig into my work because he didn’t think the romance genre was worth his time and didn’t care to help me improve.

He continued for a few more minutes, saying what he always said about the pieces I submitted:

I get this is a romance, but does the love story really have to be the center of the plot?

Don’t these characters have something better to do than fall in love?

What does it evenmeanto darken your gaze?

I stole a glance at Jess, the only other romance writer in the class, from across the workshop table. She rolled her eyes in solidarity with me. As a full-time student, Jess was taking two more classes than I was, and I couldn’t evenimaginehow exhausted she must be. I was only part time, extending my MFA degree for years to be able to even afford NYU.

We’d initially bonded over our love for romance last year, and that bond only strengthened this year with Aiden’s blatant distaste for our genre. I’d spent all last semester complaining about him, but now that she’d witnessed his brutality toward me, which funnily enoughshenever experienced, she was extra sympathetic. Now, whenever I complained about Aiden, she would say, “It’s all the pent-up sexual frustration. He probably critiques the length of his partner’s moans in bed.”

“Above all else”—Aiden dropped the stack of papers onto the wooden desk between us, grimacing as if he couldn’t bear to look at them for a minute longer—“it falls flat. There’s almost no emotion in it.You’d think a romance would make you feelsomething,at the very least joy. It’s actually impressive that you haven’t been able to convey this.”

I sent a death glare to Aiden, but stuck to our golden rule and kept my mouth shut.

“Rosie, you’re free to respond to any of the comments if you’d like,” Ida said once Aiden had finished.

I went through the notes my classmates had given me. It was the third first chapter I’d submitted, hoping that something,anythingwould stick. We were in a selective two-semester novel intensive, which meant we had to submit the first half our novel at the end of this semester for our midterm and the full thing at the end of the course. This class was an elective, but it counted toward our course requirements, and it was designed to help those of us who were choosing to submit a novel as their final thesis.

We had until the end of the add/drop period to test out chapters if we weren’t certain about our plots, and I was struggling.

I had grown up determined to be a novelist. I’d decided Ihadto publish romance novels and make hopeless romantics around the world swoon—there was nothing else for me out there. Romance had shaped my world view, molding how I lived with optimism and hope. I wanted to give that to someone else. And this was my chance to finally push past the agonizing writer’s block and finish a manuscript.

“I’m trying to set up the tension between them. I want their romance to really explode by the end—”

A scoff cut me off. Aiden leaned back in his chair, rolling his eyes.Agesago, I’d thought Aiden was cute. Before I knew him, I would’ve been excited by the idea of sitting across from him. But after our workshop together last semester, the very sight of Aiden left a bad taste in my mouth. There were nine of us in the class, but the seats we’d sat in on our first day of workshop had seemed to become our permanent seats—otherwise I would’ve sat at the opposite end of the table far, far away from him.

“I’m sorry, Aiden. Was there something you’d like to say?” I narrowed my eyes at him, challenging him to speak.

His green eyes flashed at me the way they always did before we got into a fight. The sadist loved it when we argued almost as much as he loved torturing his characters with depressing backstories and tragic endings. He was the antithetical romance hero and every time he opened his mouth, he proved it.

Surprisingly, he said, “I’ve said what I wanted to.”

“No, go ahead. Iinsist.” I leaned forward across the table toward him. My hair fell in front of my shoulder, a smile creeping up my face. I was no masochist, but I couldn’t ever resist confrontation with Aiden. I wasn’t scared of him like everyone else was.

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