Author Fan Letter Blog Crawl

Thanks to a great idea from Kassa, this month we're celebrating our favorite authors with a Fan Letter to Author Blog Crawl.  For a complete list of the participants, click on the button above.  Smokin' Hot Books posted her fan letter to Josh Lanyon yesterday, and be sure to check out Rain on the Roof's letter tomorrow.  But, for today, I decided to kick it a little old school with an author I wish was still writing...



Dear Sandy Hingston,

It's rare that I read several books by an author and they all consistently draw me in, make me care about the characters, make me laugh, and make me swoon, but nearly every book by you that I've ever read has done so.

The first book by you that I read was How To Kiss a Hero, which a was delightful!  I instantly identified with Nicola, and "Bollocksing Brown" was an awesome hero.  The novel was more of a coming-of-age tale for Nicola than anything else, with her learning to be independent and accepting of herself through fencing.  But the setting--a girls' school in the Scottish Highlands--and the characters were fantastic, and the romance between Brian and Nicola felt so organic, that it easily became one of the best romance novels I'd ever read.

Then I waited years--YEARS--for the series to continue, which it finally did with The Suitor.  At first I wasn't too sure about this one, as stuck-up Katherine wasn't exactly my favorite character out of the four who girls who shared a room in How To Kiss a Hero.  I was (and still am) hoping to see the other two girls' stories.  Be that as it may, this book was completely different from How To Kiss a Hero, but still drew me in with the frothy romanticism of Alain's attempts to woo Katherine.  I loved his poems!  And I loved when she ran away to France to be with him!  Again, I thought this book was about adventure and finding oneself, even though Katherine did it in a very different way from Nicola.

After The Affair, I hoped you were back to publishing regularly, but instead I was saddened to find out on the intrawebz you were dropped by your publisher.  Yet I still expected you to get another publishing contract--instead, you seem to have given up writing all together.

I understand how an experience like that would have turned you off of publishing for good, but I think it's a shame to lose such a gifted writer just because a few people in a whole industry were assholes.  To me your books were what every historical romance should be--the past coming to life with a great story and a unique point of view, with adventure and romance and comedy and sadness all included.

And just so you know, if you ever do decide to publish again, I will be waiting for the next book--even it takes another ten years.

Sincerely,

Tasha B.

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Traumatic Reading

Au Booking Through Thursday:

Which is worse?

Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or

Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?

The latter has happened to me too many times to count.  As I've mentioned before, I can hate just about anything if I'm in the right mood.  It also seems like some authors have split personalities, so sometimes they write books just up my alley, and other times they write books that to me seem laaaaaaame.



Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of those writers to me.  Actually, I can pretty much predict whether or not I'll like her latest book based on whether or not I liked the previous one:  it seems to alternate fairly regularly.  Since I'm used to it by now, I'm not really that upset when I don't like one of her books.



Then there are other authors that I usually just adore.  When they publish something I dislike, I get really upset.  For example, Sandy Hingston (who of course isn't writing anymore because she actually wrote books I liked) was one of my favorite writers.  But she wrote this one book, The Lover's Charm, that I absolutely hated.  So I wrote a scathing review of it on Amazon.  Then, one time I met her and I was like, "I've loved every single book you've ever written, you're my favorite writer eva!" etc. etc.; and she said, "Wasn't there one book of mine you didn't like?"  <----GASP!  How did she know???

So that's another example of why one should think about censoring one's remarks when writing book reviews.



Anyway, I think being disappointed by an author you love is worse than finding a book I love by someone and hating all of their other stuff.  You have more invested in an author you love--you get excited about their new release, you bump all the books in your TBR pile so you can read their new release next, etc.  You go out of your way to read their books, so if the book is disappointing, it's more of a let-down. 

I haven't had all that many authors write just one book that I liked, except perhaps Neil Gaiman.  I loved Neverwhere, but when I went to read Stardust, I hated it.  That was a bit of a let-down, I have to admit, especially since Stardust seemed like it would be right up my alley.  I have to admit I haven't picked up a Neil Gaiman novel since; whereas I did continue to buy books by Sandy Hingston--and Sherrilyn Kenyon--after their books disappointed me.  So maybe I'm actually wrong and finding a book I love, then hating everything else by that author, is more traumatic for me.  I just block those instances out of my mind and try to move on.

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