THE BREAKUP ARTIST - Film rights news!!

Here's a sneak peek at my newest hot deal, THE BREAKUP ARTIST, to my darling editor Cindy Hwang at Berkley, as posted at Publishers Marketplace:

Author of Nice Girls Finish First Alesia Holliday's THE BREAKUP ARTIST -- About a young woman who bills herself as the Anti-Date Antidote and a reverse Cyrano de Bergerac --If you're dying to be dumped, call The Breakup Artist. Print with Cindy Hwang at Berkley; film rights are with Joel Gotler at IPG. joel@ipglm.com.

Oh, this one is SO MUCH FUN to write. :)

Here's a sneak peek:

Her business cards say simply: The Breakup Artist and give an e-mail address. SHANE MADISON hates confrontation. Ever since the first guy she broke up with -- way back in eleventh grade -- threw a baseball bat at her car, she's been a master at getting unwanted boyfriends to make the first move.

The first move to say goodbye, that is.

And she's good at it. Getting guys to break up with her. And getting guys to break up with her friends. Or friends of her friends. Or, in fact, any girl who wants to avoid confrontation by nudging him to break up with her. So it becomes a kind of high-level hobby for Shane.

Spring forward eight years, and Shane has moved from her tiny hometown in Florida to New York with her best friend, Annie. The job Shane has at Sensuality Boutique pays her share of the rent in their tiny closet of an apartment. But she has big dreams. She wants to open a boutique of her own. It's a dream that seems more like a stupid fantasy, when she has seven dollars in her savings account.

Until her boss, the seventy-year old whirlwind of human nature known as Mrs. Plumley, asks for Shane's help. Mrs. P's niece, Lizzie, claims she's having a terrible time getting out of a bad relationship, and Mrs. P knows all about Shane's sideline. Shane, who had recently been rethinking her manipulative hobby, hesitates until Mrs. P makes her an offer she doesn't want to refuse: money.

Real money.

But Mrs. P being the canny businesswoman that she is, makes it conditional: Shane has to get Lizzie's boyfriend, Ben, to dump her in thirty days or less, or Shane has to refund the money -- A kick-him-to-the-curb guarantee.

Suddenly The Breakup Artist is juggling desperate clients, desperate friends, and a desperately sinking love life - Shane never dreamed breaking up could be so hard to do!