What I Did for Love

WHAT I DID FOR LOVE: A WRITER'S REVENGE is the story of Milt Ian, but is actually a novel of novels. Milt is 43 and faces life by burying himself in his latest project. He has earned a meager living by writing Westerns, but his career has alienated him from three ex-wives and damaged his relationship with his son, the only human for whom he cares deeply. Milt has always believed in the Western as a kind of spiritual force for good, and his hero, the six-gun toting Bronco Slater, functions as Milt's alter ego. But faced with the shrinking market for this genre, his practical and persistent agent, Lilah Bergson, insists he assume the pen name of Diana Devlin and write Romance novels. Under duress, he tries, and the result is THE HAWK AND THE DOVE, the story of Rebecca Ravenscroft, her evil uncle, and the rugged lord of Hawksley Hall, Bronson Slade. Milt never forgets his old friend, Bronco, though, and returns to him whenever too many misty moors and heaving bosoms disturb his sense of creative veracity. Success and money come to him at last when Bronson and Rebecca achieve a fan base that surpasses anything Bronco Slater ever garnered. But it is not Milt Ian that readers embrace; it is Diana Devlin. After a career of relative anonymity, Milt must accept that his only real fame will come from a persona he can't acknowledge. As Milt juggles these novels through the pages of his own story, he begins to understand that the characters are changing his life, at first imperceptibly, but then by giving him a more active voice in his own destiny.