I think authors today listen too much to their fans, and not enough to their creative muses (or whatever they want to call it). Or maybe they listen too much to their publishers who think they know what the fans want, but really don’t have a clue. 

I miss the days when a historical romance could stand on it’s own, instead of having to spawn 20 gazillion spin offs. I’m tired of the brother of the hero in the first book hooking up with the cousin of the best friends sister by the 13th installment of a series that should have stopped four years ago after the first one came out.

I don’t mind trilogies, or stories that sort of have a connection, but don’t you think there should be a point where the storyline stops and a new one comes in to play? Do we really need a spin off to the Wallflowers series with a whole new set of Wallflowers? Do we need Bridgerton or Knight cousins to have their own endless array of stories?

Okay, so I liked Cam in Devil In Winter, but I could have waited a while for him to have his own story.  I cannot express how happy I was to see Lisa Kleypas step out of her zone and write an American Contemporary Romance, and to have it be in first person (kind of cringing on that one, but I think if anyone can pull it off, it’s Kleypas). 

I have read all the Bridgertons, but I don’t need any more. I’d really love Julia Quinn to try something different (and no I don’t mean a contemporary), say in America, somewhere. It doesn’t even have to be in the old West, what about Revolutionary War time America, or The Gilded Age?

As far as Galen Foley and her Knights turning in to new Knights, I think she could have made them Smiths or Knickerbockers, and they would have sold just as well. They didn’t need to be cousins, or friends to the previous characters.

And don’t you find it ironic that most of the stuff that is put out for historical romance is all in England or Scotland, and 99% of the authors published in America are all, er…..American. What the hell happened to writing about our own country. The US is filled with so much drama in it’s past to pull from, and it’s all going to waste. Instead, we are treated to more regency era romances, more Vampires from Ireland, more secret agents who work for Westmorland. Blagh!!!

People, we had a civil war, a Mexican War, a Gilded Age, a Gold Rush, an American Revolution, WW1, WW2, Native Americans, African Americans struggling to make it in a world of slavery and post Civil War oppression, The Dust Bowl, The Depression, Earth Quakes and huge ass fires. Do you know who dared to write about all that stuff? Authors from the 80’s and early 90’s. Old School. So eat that wussy English historicals!

I Am The Cheese!