Word Count Quandry

Well, this is a bit of a sticky wicket. In my researches , I found that Harlequin (North America) requires North American locations and about 55,000 words. When I do a word count on my double spaced 166 page epic ---former working title Masterly Inactivity (deemed a bit too elitist) changed to The Alaerton Reunion ( mayhap too boring so added

'Alumni' ) and now content in the process of coming up with something more pithy like The Alaerton Alumni Mysteries: Reunion © --- it rounds out at about 59,000 so I thought hurray, no filler or additives required. However , I now wonder if the program I am using counts a line spacing as the average 10 words . I couldn't find this on the net, so I will single space and see if 'word count' turns out the same word count as the original. This could be a pain if it turns out the counting is automatically 10 words on average per line, as then I will have to stretch out plot and character descriptions etc.---hard when the story is albeit done at this point .

Second question . Originally I was going to base this series in Canada, but now , due to marketing considerations, may have to root my heroine in New England , keeping the Canadian connections with cross-border characters, i.e. relatives or romantic interests etc. I will have to investigate with Harlequin or other publishers how I can keep this story which takes place in England and still fit their criteria. Other stories in the series can take place in North America but I'd also like some European destinations eventually as well. Nothing 's ever simple...

BTW Stock prices recently tumbled with the revelation of Facebook's failure to regulate Cambridge Anal-ytica and the stealing of 50,000,000 members' I.D. information. I just signed up for a Library course on facebook---reluctantly--before this all happened. Was going to chuck the effort , but now , out of interest as to what they might say on these new developments , I'll try to go to it in April. My two most recent stories , Sineater (see button web menu RED TIDE TALES) and Unfriended were timely indeed , addressing as they did the dark side of the Net . However , as both have been entered into contests in the last 6 weeks , I wonder if the truth now out there may dwarf the fiction at this point. Interesting ---guess we'll soon see...