Miracle put the phone down with a long sigh, then let her expression of bright eagerness lapse into exhausted exhilaration. ‘I only hope I don’t end up half-ghosting the book, like the last one, but at least the family connections mean mega publicity, and anyway, who cares if she’s another one-hit wonder, so long as the hit is big enough!’

‘Another blonde-babe-bombshell first-time novelist?’ I asked gloomily.

She nodded. ‘Yes, that makes five in a row. I thought when I had the first three, one after the other – boom! boom! boom! – things couldn’t get much better than that, but now I feel like all my cards are turning up aces, my slot machines all bells – ding, dang, dong—’

‘I get the idea,’ I said, interrupting her hastily. She was capable of going on like this for hours and I was not exactly in the mood to hear other authors’ praises sung. But of course, while I may have resented the huge advances, at least I was not too insane with jealousy to realize that she was doing so well out of them that she could afford to have a few more writers who didn’t make her quite so much – like me. Or anyway, that was my theory.

Miracle was looking serious again and not quite meeting my eyes over the coffee cups, which considering how long we’d known each other was a pretty bad omen. ‘How is the next book coming along?’

‘Oh, fine – nearly finished. I’m just polishing now. But, Miracle, have you thought about how to deal with Tim? It’s been worrying me no end, because—’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ she broke in. ‘I have spoken to Tim – in fact, he’s the editor who has just taken on Lydia, the girl I was talking to – and that’s the way he envisages Salubrious Press going.’

I stared at her, puzzled. ‘What do you mean, Miracle? That they are only taking on the Lydias from now on?’

‘More than that, I’m afraid – they don’t want any midlist authors at all, just established bestselling ones and new first-timers, and all the publicity budget will go there.’

‘But – but I’m under contract! I mean, the next one, and the option—’

‘Oh, the next one will be published, but they won’t take you up on your option on the one after that unless Dark, Passionate Earth does amazingly well, and since they aren’t going to spend anything on promoting it, that’s rather unlikely, isn’t it?’

There was a small silence while I gazed at her, stunned, and she gazed back at me with an air of sweet, sad reason on her broad-cheeked Persian cat face. ‘Of course, you may just find another publisher, but the market is difficult and although you sell well, you don’t sell huge amounts. But the fact is that even before this happened I’d decided to make some changes.’