Rene Alegria at Harper's Rayo imprint for Latin-interest titles was paging through the Denver Post recently when he noticed a profile of a local cop, a Latina, who was moonlighting by writing romances. The story also said she had more serious fiction in mind, and Alegria promptly called the reporter, who put him onto the author, who put him onto her agent—and in no more than a week and a half, he had preempted Unsettling by Lynda Sandoval, the often comic story of a Latina from a much-divorced family who gets cold feet just before her wedding, and the friends who help her out of her funk. Alegria bought world rights from Jenny Bent at Harvey Klinger—her second big deal in this column—and will publish in 2004.