Authors You Used to Love, But No Longer Read

[Katy M]

30 minutes ago, Anduin said:

The original article has vanished from the net, but I found a mirror. It's the bit at the end that enrages me. I can normally cope with shameless self-publicity, but you don't need to tear down other people to do it.

I'll confess to never having read Lord of the Rings.  But, assuming there's any merit to the critique, I don't really have a problem with the criticism itself.  However, it's a bit much to say "why any adult would want to read... is beyond me."  And then he went on to imply that his book is better.  If it were me, I would have basically stated what he liked and didn't like about it (again, it's his opinion and that's fine.  Writers ought to be able to critique other writers), but left off the criticism about the readers, and not mentioned my work at all.

[Pachengala]

16 hours ago, Katy M said:

I'll confess to never having read Lord of the Rings.  But, assuming there's any merit to the critique, I don't really have a problem with the criticism itself.  However, it's a bit much to say "why any adult would want to read... is beyond me."  And then he went on to imply that his book is better.  If it were me, I would have basically stated what he liked and didn't like about it (again, it's his opinion and that's fine.  Writers ought to be able to critique other writers), but left off the criticism about the readers, and not mentioned my work at all.

This is exactly right, in my view. I don’t care for Tolkien’s writing or his storytelling—why use one word when fifty will do?—but some of my friends think he’s the greatest author of all time. If imagining why they’d want to read Tolkien is indeed ‘beyond him,’ well, how good a storyteller can he actually be? Try harder, my dude. 

[catlover79]

I used to devour Danielle Steel's books - back when I was way too young to be reading them. I felt I was so grown up reading things about sex that I didn't even understand. When I did become an adult, I had no interest in those books anymore.

[dubbel zout]

Danielle Steele writes the same book over and over, merely changing locations, eras, and the color of the heroine's hair and eyes.

[catlover79]

18 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Danielle Steele writes the same book over and over, merely changing locations, eras, and the color of the heroine's hair and eyes.

True, but she sure built an empire by doing so!!! $$$$$

[Katy M]

27 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Danielle Steele writes the same book over and over, merely changing locations, eras, and the color of the heroine's hair and eyes.

A lot of her books are the same, but then she'll go and switch it up a bit.  Pegasus definitely doesn't fit the mold.  I thought Saving Grace was quite a bit different than her other books.

Mary Higgins Clark is a very formulaic writer.  The main character is almost always a woman in her late 20s or early 30s.  She always has two guys interested in her and one of them is always the killer. And, it's generally pretty obvious which one.

[starri]

2 hours ago, catlover79 said:

True, but she sure built an empire by doing so!!! $$$$$

As well as this desk.

[dubbel zout]

That desk is awesome.

[andromeda331]

23 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Danielle Steele writes the same book over and over, merely changing locations, eras, and the color of the heroine's hair and eyes.

I don't really mind when authors do that as long as the book is still good. I used to like reading Nora Roberts who basically used the same five or six characters and swapped out the locations, jobs, hair and eyes. But it usually doesn't last long. I read a couple Danielle Steeles. I didn't like the when the main heroine does it its okay, but another woman does it she's evil. Like cheating. It was totally okay for the heroine to cheat it was love or whatever but another woman? She's the worse. The heroine is beautiful but that's okay. A villain is beautiful, but that's bad. Say what? 

[proserpina65]

On ‎06‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 4:15 PM, Katy M said:

Mary Higgins Clark is a very formulaic writer.  The main character is almost always a woman in her late 20s or early 30s.  She always has two guys interested in her and one of them is always the killer. And, it's generally pretty obvious which one.

Her earliest books didn't fit that formula.  Where Are The Children is quite different, in a lot of respects.  But her later stuff?  Totally cookie cutter.

[peacheslatour]

On 6/7/2019 at 1:15 PM, Katy M said:

A lot of her books are the same, but then she'll go and switch it up a bit.  Pegasus definitely doesn't fit the mold.  I thought Saving Grace was quite a bit different than her other books.

Mary Higgins Clark is a very formulaic writer.  The main character is almost always a woman in her late 20s or early 30s.  She always has two guys interested in her and one of them is always the killer. And, it's generally pretty obvious which one.

A lot of Barbara Michael's books are like that.

[proserpina65]

On ‎06‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 7:12 PM, peacheslatour said:

A lot of Barbara Michael's books are like that.

True, again, especially the later ones.  The early novels don't all follow that format.

[peacheslatour]

20 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

True, again, especially the later ones.  The early novels don't all follow that format.

That's what surprised me when I started reading the later ones. I wonder if she just got lazy or if she decided to sexify her heroines to sell more books. She's not exactly a hack but I wish she didn't do the whole Twilight style weirdness of making ordinary women into man magnets.

[partofme]

On 6/12/2019 at 5:24 PM, proserpina65 said:

Her earliest books didn't fit that formula.  Where Are The Children is quite different, in a lot of respects.  But her later stuff?  Totally cookie cutter.

I've been reading Mary Higgins Clark since I was in high school, my mom and grandma read them and got me into them.  I used to love her books but for the last 10 years or more they've been really bad.  I'm not sure if her books have gotten worse or if I've just gotten pickier.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, partofme said:

I've been reading Mary Higgins Clark since I was in high school, my mom and grandma read them and got me into them.  I used to love her books but for the last 10 years or more they've been really bad.  I'm not sure if her books have gotten worse or if I've just gotten pickier.

I've had people loan me those but they're too tame for my taste.

[dubbel zout]

I think the more familiar you are with an author's oeuvre, the more sensitive you get to the tics and crutches that are used, especially in genre, where in some respects the author is just rewriting the same story. (Gross generalization, but you get what I mean, I hope.)

And editors and writers can get lazy one they hit upon a successful formula. 

[peacheslatour]

35 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I think the more familiar you are with an author's oeuvre, the more sensitive you get to the tics and crutches that are used, especially in genre, where in some respects the author is just rewriting the same story. (Gross generalization, but you get what I mean, I hope.)

And editors and writers can get lazy one they hit upon a successful formula. 

So true. The Barbara Michaels book I'm reading now has more typos and redundancies than I have ever seen in any book.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

So true. The Barbara Michaels book I'm reading now has more typos and redundancies than I have ever seen in any book.

That's just sad. I can forgive redundant storytelling since most authors stick to a genre and after you've written several dozen books of your genre, it's hard to come up with an original way to tell what is basically the same story. People also tend to turn to "favorite" authors because of the familiarity, like sitting down with an old friend and listening to them tell a story. But bad writing and even worse editing is unforgivable in a book the author expects people to pay for. 

[dubbel zout]

2 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

But bad writing and even worse editing is unforgivable in a book the author expects people to pay for. 

As a professional copy editor, this alternately enrages and depresses me. 

[proserpina65]

23 hours ago, partofme said:

I've been reading Mary Higgins Clark since I was in high school, my mom and grandma read them and got me into them.  I used to love her books but for the last 10 years or more they've been really bad.  I'm not sure if her books have gotten worse or if I've just gotten pickier.

Didn't her daughter start co-writing some of them?

[peacheslatour]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Didn't her daughter start co-writing some of them?

Yep. Just as insipid, IMO.

[babyhouseman]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Didn't her daughter start co-writing some of them?

Her daughter wrote her own mystery series. MHC has been co-writing with Alafair Burke. I agree her books can be formulaic. I get them from the library for light reading.

[Starleigh]

I was under the impression that MHC has been using ghostwriters for years. But maybe I'm mixing her up with another super prolific writer.

Anyway, my author that I've stopped reading is Janet Evanovich. When I first started reading the Stephanie Plum books, they were different and funny. By the time she got to the midteens, though, the quality dropped. And I got tired of the never ending love triangle. 

[BookWoman56]

I’ll admit to having a soft spot for Mary Higgins Clark, as I met her when she was one of the authors for a large book fair for which I was the author liaison. We were able to talk for a bit, and she told me about her life. She started writing mysteries primarily because her husband died, leaving her with children to raise and not much money. She had done some writing previously but mostly freelance articles. One thing she mentioned has stuck with me. She started attending murder trials as research for her murder mysteries, and recounted how the husband of one victim knew something horrible had happened. He came home and found his wife’s feminine hygiene products in plain sight in the bedroom or bathroom. In all their years of marriage, she had never left those where he could see them. Very different era, obviously, but MHC said for her it was a vivid example of how violence interrupts people’s established routines. She didn’t really hit it big financially until her kids were essentially grown, and commented how they would sometimes kid her about how nice it would have been to have those financial perks when they were growing up. From everything she said, she came from an environment where people didn’t discuss sex and violence explicitly, and she wouldn’t be comfortable writing gory details. All that said, though, her later books are very formulaic. I can’t remember the last one that I read, but at least her books aren’t filled with grammar mistakes and typos; however, they’re definitely tame and predictable. In person, she was extremely nice and easy to talk to, very down to earth. 

[Calvada]

Patricia Cornwell - I really enjoyed her first few books, but quickly lost interest.  I think it was how she wrote the Marino character. 

Elizabeth George - her books would really benefit from a more ruthless editor.  I've always thought 100 to 150 pages could easily be cut from her books. 

Linda Fairstein - I was losing interest in her books even before the most recent controversy. 

Janet Evanovich - lather rinse repeat.  Same plot over and over, same love triangle over and over. 

Finally, Faye Kellerman - became boring, especially with the change of scene in recent books.  

[Hanahope]

I still read some authors I've become less enthralled with.  But instead of buying their books, I'm now borrowing them as ebooks with my library app.  so at least it isn't costing me money.

[bybrandy]

MHC, I will still every few years pick up one of hers if I'm in a slump and need something fast and comforting but the last time I was made so angry by the process...   

But Where are the children was legitimately good and A Cry In The Night as well. 

I will always love Loves Music, Loves to Dance because the title and because of when in my life that I read it.  More formulaic but before the formula got completely set in stone for me.  

[fishcakes]

John Irving owns this category for me. I read The World According to Garp when I was 16 or 17 and became an instant fan, and for a few years, I had to buy all his books the day they were released. I started to become a little bored with him after A Widow For One Year and by The Fourth Hand, I was pretty much over it. I still read his stuff eventually, but it's all just so self-indulgent now.

I loved Judy Blume as a kid, but then as an adult I re-read all her YA stuff and it didn't hold up for me. In particular Forever is unrealistic and a fount of misinformation about sex. Her adult fiction has always been pretty terrible, so I've skipped it. I did think Blubber was pretty good on re-reading though, so I might read her young reader stuff again.

One of my favorite writers is Larry McMurtry, but he's just so damned prolific, like Joyce Carol Oates prolific but with horses and cows. I feel like he would be better if he wrote fewer books, but even in his novels that I didn't particularly enjoy, there are at least a few lines that are so heartbreakingly true that it almost makes it worth it. Even so, I try to pick and choose what of his I'm going to read and don't just indiscriminately devour all of it now.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

John Irving owns this category for me. I read The World According to Garp when I was 16 or 17 and became an instant fan, and for a few years, I had to buy all his books the day they were released. I started to become a little bored with him after A Widow For One Year and by The Fourth Hand, I was pretty much over it. I still read his stuff eventually, but it's all just so self-indulgent now.

So much THIS. I used to love him too, I read Garp as a teen and the Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, A Prayer For Owen Meany (which destroyed me) and Last Night in Twisted River. I thought he was one of the most original writers I'd ever encountered. But you're right, he became so self indulgent it verged on masturbatory. I don't know as much about his life as I probably should but did something happen to him?

[fishcakes]

56 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I don't know as much about his life as I probably should but did something happen to him?

From what I understand, he didn't know who his real father was until about 20 years ago, which is when I sensed his writing was beginning to go off the beam. He was also molested as a child by an older teenage girl, and the characters of Hester the Molester in Owen Meany and Emma in Until I Find You seem to be based on her, but both in a fairly generous way. Hester is not actually a molester and Emma is, although she's not portrayed as a monster, even though technically ... yeah. So I think that he's been working out a lot of his psychological issues through his writing, and I have no idea how that's been working out for him, but for his readers, it's not great.

[OtterMommy]

19 hours ago, fishcakes said:

I loved Judy Blume as a kid, but then as an adult I re-read all her YA stuff and it didn't hold up for me. In particular Forever is unrealistic and a fount of misinformation about sex. Her adult fiction has always been pretty terrible, so I've skipped it. I did think Blubber was pretty good on re-reading though, so I might read her young reader stuff again.

I reread Forever a few years ago during Banned Book Week and was kind of amazed at how underwhelming it was.  I remember when I first read it, when I was about 13, being completely scandalized by it.  When I re-read it, I just kept thinking, "This is...just incorrect."  I get why it was controversial when it was first released, but YA fiction has come a long way since then and, thankfully, treats its readers with more respect.

[Katy M]

19 hours ago, fishcakes said:

One of my favorite writers is Larry McMurtry,

Lonesome Dove is my all-time favorite book. But, I haven't read anything else by him I've really liked.  I outright hated Streets of Laredo and only like one or two parts in each of the prequels.   I've only read four other of his books, and one was Terms of Endearment, so not one of his Westerns.  I'm doing a reading challenge this year where I have to read a Western, so I'm going to give him another go with Buffalo Gals.

[nodorothyparker]

Lonesome Dove remains one of my all-time favorite books too and one more than any other I can think of that really gets to the heart of the duality of the reality and mythmaking of American history.  I generally found the sequels fairly weak, although I have a strong perverse love for Streets of Laredo.  Mainly I think because that same perverse part of me has a weird admiration for a writer who would basically say oh people have a great sentimental love for this book that was made into a wildly successful miniseries?  Yeah, I could just give you more of the same but instead I'm going to start off right out of the gate by killing virtually everything and everyone you loved about it. 

I've been really hit or miss with McMurtry for a long time as my tastes have evolved but every once in awhile I'll still pick up one of his and remember what I loved so much about him. 

[dubbel zout]

I find that if an author is fairly prolific, say, four books or more, I tend to lose interest in them because their writing tics become so noticeable, and as an editor, that really annoys me. As an example, I'm pretty much over the Temperance Brennan series, by Kathy Reichs, because Brennan is always getting clocked on the head and waking up somewhere she has to bust out of (or have someone bust her out). Find another way to put her in danger! Or better yet, put someone else in danger and have Brennan do the rescuing.

[fishcakes]

2 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I reread Forever a few years ago during Banned Book Week and was kind of amazed at how underwhelming it was.  I remember when I first read it, when I was about 13, being completely scandalized by it.  When I re-read it, I just kept thinking, "This is...just incorrect." 

The simultaneous orgasms is particularly LOL.

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

I'm doing a reading challenge this year where I have to read a Western, so I'm going to give him another go with Buffalo Gals.

I read that a couple of years ago and didn't love it. The Calamity Jane stuff is melancholy in the best way, but long stretches of the book are just boring. If you're going to read one of his Westerns, I'd recommend either Horseman, Pass By or Leaving Cheyenne. They're Westerns but not Old West; they're set in the first half of the 20th century. 

2 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Lonesome Dove remains one of my all-time favorite books too and one more than any other I can think of that really gets to the heart of the duality of the reality and mythmaking of American history.  I generally found the sequels fairly weak, although I have a strong perverse love for Streets of Laredo.  Mainly I think because that same perverse part of me has a weird admiration for a writer who would basically say oh people have a great sentimental love for this book that was made into a wildly successful miniseries?  Yeah, I could just give you more of the same but instead I'm going to start off right out of the gate by killing virtually everything and everyone you loved about it.

I didn't care for the prequels much, but I love Streets of Laredo and in some ways I like it more than Lonesome Dove, which is one of my favorites (and has the best last line of a book ever written). There's something so poignant about watching Call dwindle yet find a way to keep going, and as you say, McMurtry is uncompromising and unsentimental about who he kills off. In general, I find I often like his sequels more than the original; I liked Duane's Depressed more than The Last Picture Show, and I loved Some Can Whistle but didn't particularly care about All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers. Maybe it's just that I'm getting older so I feel an affinity for these characters as they age.

Edited January 13, 2020 by fishcakes

[Ailianna]

The only McMurtry book I've ever finished is Anything for Billy, but I absolutely loved that.  For some reason I never got into anything else I tried, but I didn't try very many.

[RealHousewife]

I've read my fair share of Danielle Steel. I remember really enjoying them. Lots of people mention sex in her books, but the ones I've read were all pretty tame. The reason I enjoyed her writing is the heroine usually goes through a lot and finds happiness. It's not even so much about the romance for me. I love a good hardship to happiness type of story. I've been meaning to get back into reading her work again. Maybe the soap girl in me enjoys it. The characters are described as beautiful. The settings are glamorous, and drama unfolds. 

[isalicat]

I stopped reading Kathy Reichs as well because of the plot redundancies (and eventually what I perceived as gratuitous torture of helpless victims, which is less of a problem for me in other authors, not sure why). I read *26* (from the first to the second most recent) of Peter Robinson's murder mysteries but unfortunately he has gone all political in the last few books and I'm not interested in some Canadian guy's endless ranting about U.S. or U.K.  politics in the middle of a nice murder mystery.

[dubbel zout]

I stopped reading Reichs for those reasons, too, as well as the fact that Tempe got conked on the head in nearly every book and had to fight her way out/rescued. I also got tired of the science that was explained in (for me) exhaustive detail. I don't need to see the math to know it works. I think she needs to take a breather. She sets her books in interesting places, but the stories themselves are getting repetitive.

[auntlada]

2 hours ago, isalicat said:

I stopped reading Kathy Reichs as well because of the plot redundancies (and eventually what I perceived as gratuitous torture of helpless victims, which is less of a problem for me in other authors, not sure why). I read *26* (from the first to the second most recent) of Peter Robinson's murder mysteries but unfortunately he has gone all political in the last few books and I'm not interested in some Canadian guy's endless ranting about U.S. or U.K.  politics in the middle of a nice murder mystery.

I read Peter Robinson up until the most recent one. I read a sample of it and also found it too political. I hoped it would get better once it got more into the story, but I haven't been willing to try yet.

I quit reading the Temperance Brennan books for a bit, but then started again. I quit after Cross Bones because of what I considered dumb assumptions by Brennan in the book about Jesus' family being rich and important. I eventually went back, but Brennan's behavior -- constantly running off on her own to investigate things that are properly the job of the detective, not the forensic anthropologist -- and the back and forth with Ryan still bug me.

The main character making the same stupid mistakes over and over again are also why I just can't bring myself to read Steve Berry's books any more.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 6/20/2019 at 7:53 PM, dubbel zout said:

As a professional copy editor, this alternately enrages and depresses me. 

I used to be a copy editor too!  But you wouldn’t know it from some of my sloppy posts using the iPad. It’s too annoying to type correctly. 

[WendyCR72]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:45 AM, OtterMommy said:

I reread Forever a few years ago during Banned Book Week and was kind of amazed at how underwhelming it was.  I remember when I first read it, when I was about 13, being completely scandalized by it.  When I re-read it, I just kept thinking, "This is...just incorrect."  I get why it was controversial when it was first released, but YA fiction has come a long way since then and, thankfully, treats its readers with more respect.

I'll always have a soft spot for Judy Blume as it was her books that really got me into reading.

Still, yeah, a lot of her stuff is dated now. That said, one book that stayed with me beyond the usual YA books of hers, is Tiger Eyes. The subject matter of the heroine, Davey, losing her father to a homicide/robbery was pretty dark, and I did like how the struggles of moving on in a new locale with new friends, etc. was handled.

Hard to say, however, if it would still hold up for me as I have not read it in decades now...

[chocolatine]

It pains me so much to say this, but I'm done with Kazuo Ishiguro after finishing his latest novel, Klara And The Sun. I never thought I'd get to this point, because The Remains Of The Day is my favorite novel of all time. I disliked Never Let Me Go (even though it was a critical and commercial success), but was hoping he would get back to what he does so well. The latest novel though, is everything I didn't like about Never Let Me Go, raised to the tenth power. I believe now that The Remains Of The Day was a flash in the pan, and he's not able to sustain that level of writing. (I still think he deserves his Nobel Prize just for that one novel alone.)

Speaking of flash in the pan, that is Joseph Heller to me. I loved Catch-22 - and so did many others, judging by its consistent presence on the "best books of all time" lists - but I haven't been able to read anything else of his because it was all so witless and dull. It's like he poured all of himself into Catch-22 and after that there was nothing left.

Since several people have mentioned John Irving, I *loved* A Prayer For Owen Meany, and really liked The World According To Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire when I was in my late teens/early twenties, but couldn't get into any of his later stuff. I've always thought it was because I "grew out" of his writing, but it sounds like a lot of folks on this thread felt the same way.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

Since several people have mentioned John Irving, I *loved* A Prayer For Owen Meany, and really liked The World According To Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire when I was in my late teens/early twenties, but couldn't get into any of his later stuff. I've always thought it was because I "grew out" of his writing, but it sounds like a lot of folks on this thread felt the same way.

The last book by him I read was Last Night In Twisted River. I thought it was just ok although I did steal a couple of his recipes. I started losing interest with The Cider House Rules though. He just got too weird. And what was his fixation with bears?

[Danny Franks]

13 hours ago, chocolatine said:

It pains me so much to say this, but I'm done with Kazuo Ishiguro after finishing his latest novel, Klara And The Sun. I never thought I'd get to this point, because The Remains Of The Day is my favorite novel of all time. I disliked Never Let Me Go (even though it was a critical and commercial success), but was hoping he would get back to what he does so well. The latest novel though, is everything I didn't like about Never Let Me Go, raised to the tenth power. I believe now that The Remains Of The Day was a flash in the pan, and he's not able to sustain that level of writing. (I still think he deserves his Nobel Prize just for that one novel alone.)

I never wanted to read Never Let Me Go, simply because the subject matter is just too miserable and nihilistic for my tastes. But I thought The Buried Giant was a beautiful, elegiac novel, full of melancholy and depth. It was very subdued and sombre, focusing on loss and grief and how you learn to live with it.

13 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Speaking of flash in the pan, that is Joseph Heller to me. I loved Catch-22 - and so did many others, judging by its consistent presence on the "best books of all time" lists - but I haven't been able to read anything else of his because it was all so witless and dull. It's like he poured all of himself into Catch-22 and after that there was nothing left.

I've never even tried to read anything else of his. Catch-22 is one of my favourite novels, and I don't want to even risk sullying it by realising that Heller wrote some bad stuff as well. I'm happy for it to stand on its own. I feel the same about The Great Gatsby and have little interest in reading anything else F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

I've never even tried to read anything else of his. Catch-22 is one of my favourite novels, and I don't want to even risk sullying it by realising that Heller wrote some bad stuff as well. I'm happy for it to stand on its own. I feel the same about The Great Gatsby and have little interest in reading anything else F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

That's really too bad. Fitzgerald wrote a lot of really good books. In fact I think TGG was his worst. Also Heller wrote a book called Oh, God and it was pretty funny, no Catch 22 though.

[BlackberryJam]

I have a read a lot of crap in my time, simply because I have had times in my life when I needed a book escape that was total, fluffy meaninglessness. Books, that didn’t make me think or feel or cause any sort of introspection. Enter, the cozy mystery.

A lot of cozy writers are really good. They create interesting plots, good characters and the books hang together. Then there are some who just...I don’t know, get to the point where they are throwing words at a page in some order.

Example 1, Charlaine Harris. I loved her Lily Bard series. The small town is interesting. The characters develop. The mysteries are solid and make sense. The series ends at a reasonable point. Also the beginning of her Aurora Teagarden series and Sookie Stackhouse, good. But good gravy, the last few books in each of those...absolute shite. The last AT book I read had massive continuity errors as well. I’m just done with her. (Okay fine, if she vomits out a Midnight, Texas book, I’ll read it, but the rest, DONE.)

Example 2, Joanna Fluke. Her Hannah the Baker books are fine. Fine. In the beginning. At about six books in, I started to wonder if the main character would ever have sex with either of the two male leads. Then I realized that, no, she wouldn’t and that for some reason the books were never going to have that development. I understand some people like “clean” novels, but adults have sex.  Or at least heavy pet. 

I like some light fiction as escapism, but wow, talk about bad.

[WinnieWinkle]

1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

A lot of cozy writers are really good. They create interesting plots, good characters and the books hang together. Then there are some who just...I don’t know, get to the point where they are throwing words at a page in some order.

A cozy writer I used to like is Jill Churchill.  Her series about suburban housewife Jane Jeffry's started off really well.  And then somewhere along the line she lost her way.  The last books in the series really read like she was writing about whatever her latest hobby was (horticulture, scrapbooking, amateur theatrics, etc) and the mystery was totally incidental and the killer very obvious.  Not sure if she just lost interest and was writing because her publisher wanted her to or if she really thought this made the books interesting.

[BlackberryJam]

4 hours ago, WinnieWinkle said:

A cozy writer I used to like is Jill Churchill.  Her series about suburban housewife Jane Jeffry's started off really well.  And then somewhere along the line she lost her way.  The last books in the series really read like she was writing about whatever her latest hobby was (horticulture, scrapbooking, amateur theatrics, etc) and the mystery was totally incidental and the killer very obvious.  Not sure if she just lost interest and was writing because her publisher wanted her to or if she really thought this made the books interesting.

Absolutely. Her Grace and Favor books were really good, and then they just stopped. I thought I’d heard she had an issue with her publisher.

[BookWoman56]

On 3/21/2021 at 3:25 PM, BlackberryJam said:

I have a read a lot of crap in my time, simply because I have had times in my life when I needed a book escape that was total, fluffy meaninglessness. Books, that didn’t make me think or feel or cause any sort of introspection. Enter, the cozy mystery.

A lot of cozy writers are really good. They create interesting plots, good characters and the books hang together. Then there are some who just...I don’t know, get to the point where they are throwing words at a page in some order.

Example 1, Charlaine Harris. I loved her Lily Bard series. The small town is interesting. The characters develop. The mysteries are solid and make sense. The series ends at a reasonable point. Also the beginning of her Aurora Teagarden series and Sookie Stackhouse, good. But good gravy, the last few books in each of those...absolute shite. The last AT book I read had massive continuity errors as well. I’m just done with her. (Okay fine, if she vomits out a Midnight, Texas book, I’ll read it, but the rest, DONE.)

Example 2, Joanna Fluke. Her Hannah the Baker books are fine. Fine. In the beginning. At about six books in, I started to wonder if the main character would ever have sex with either of the two male leads. Then I realized that, no, she wouldn’t and that for some reason the books were never going to have that development. I understand some people like “clean” novels, but adults have sex.  Or at least heavy pet. 

I like some light fiction as escapism, but wow, talk about bad.

I still read Charlaine Harris and really am enjoying her newest series. I liked the first two Midnight, Texas books but was meh on the third one, which I am pretty sure was the final book of the series. I enjoyed most of the Sookie Stackhouse books until the last few, when it became obvious the publisher was pushing her to extend the series and she was mostly just going through the motions. She seems to do much better with a shorter series, rather than the longer ones. That said, all the series have had a few characters who interest me. I think writing is her own personal therapy; she confirmed at one point that she had been raped when she was younger. The Lily Bard series definitely has some insight into dealing with the aftermath of rape. 
 

I bailed on Joanna Fluke when the back and forth between romantic interests got tedious.