But Andrea Bergstrom & Associates didn’t pay Cynthia to do that. No, her job was going through the slush pile.

Every day, hundreds of letters from would-be authors arrived at AB&A, looking for one of the agents to represent what the writers were no doubt convinced would be The Next Great American Novel. Junior assistant editors got to wade through the muck, looking over query after query and routing the ones that seemed decent upstairs for a second look.

“What would you do,” Cynthia read, “if you learned you were a vampire princess…” She stopped there and chucked the letter into a wastebasket she’d set up, one labeled ‘Vampire Shit.’ Oh, it’s true they were hot now, but with the press time and the concurrent glut on the market–plus the fact that most were unspeakably dire–Ms. Bergstrom had decreed from on high that they were no longer to be considered.

Cynthia opened a fresh one. “Izzy Connington had everything in life: a hot boyfriend, a fast car, and the prom queen’s tiara. But that’s before she became a vampire…”

Paper was roughly balled and flung into the VS basket.

“Kyra Heartache and Nostra Rameses. Friends and lovers torn apart by the ancient feud between vampyr and mummies.”

VS. VS, VS, VS.