Comments on: Sequel-itis: Where Do You Stand?

By: Joane

Joane — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:12:52 +0000

I don’t like series.
In the end, the first book is great, but the following ones are disappointing.
It’s the same kind of book, with no surprises, no new worlds or places to discover.
I had this sensation with SEP and Kleypas, for instance: the same story told many times under different names, so I can hardly distinguish one book from the other.
And I would rather not mention all those books Nora Roberts puts her name on -or her pseudonym.
One of the things I love about Sandra Brown is that she usually does not write series.

By: Carol Lowe

Carol Lowe — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 02:13:19 +0000

I like the way Margaret Maron writes her Judge Deborah Knott series. She has a huge extended family some of which are in every book, but the people involved in the mystery are usually new. You don’t have to know the back story of every family member but they certainly add interest to the book.

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:00:35 +0000

I think the main complaint here may be when authors introduce characters for no reason other than to set them up for a sequel. Personally, I find that some authors are just running a series on without having the ideas to make subsequent books worthwhile. I’ve given up on series where the author seems to have run out of steam but keeps producing sequel after sequel.

The “In Death” series (to name a long, successful one) has endured – at least partly – because Nora Roberts is a good writer and the characters grow and change and we get to see them developing and get more and more of their backgrounds.

By: Blackjack1

Blackjack1 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:33:09 +0000

Sequels have market value and so publishers and authors are routinely including them, which to a large extent has taken the surprise out of learning that a supporting character has his/her own story worthy of an entire novel. Many authors, I think, are using the sequels as a crutch to avoid the hard work of creating a complex world for the characters as secondary characters now simply piggyback on the previous novels. In the end, it really is up to an author to make this literary device work well. Some can pull it off but many more cannot. I tend to get more interested now when a novel is a stand alone as that is fast becoming a rarity in romance writing.

By: farmwifetwo

farmwifetwo — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:19:12 +0000

It’s not just series’ that get old, it’s the “I want on that money train too” that’s frustrating. I’m currently reading the latest Virginia Kantra “Carolina Moon”??? Carolina something… anyways I just made my point.

JoAnn Ross has a quote on the front. It’s like reading Friday Harbour all over again…

Good story line, decent characters (except for the “teenager” teacher, sigh…. just a peeve) but it’s been done a thousand times before. I needed something to read following the Deborah Harkness, and an unoriginal story is what I was looking for, but please… different place, time, characters. I’ll read your books forever if they are original.

By: willaful

willaful — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:52:46 +0000

My husband was at a Peter Beagle signing once and highly irritated by a woman who gushed “oh, you must right a sequel!” to Beagle about a book that was most definitely finished.

Dare, btw, is not the first writer to be unfairly accused of sequel bait. I remember reading a review of Lord of Sin by Madeline Hunter that claimed several sisters existed only as sequel-bait. I didn’t see that at all — they were young and annoying characters — and in fact there were no sequels about them. It’s sad for authors if they can’t even write some secondary characters without being accused of sequel baiting.

By: LouiseAAR

LouiseAAR — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:48:50 +0000

I think that a series, like a stand alone book, depends on the author. The good authors do them well, the bad ones, not so much.

@December – try Ward’s BDB series. She has previously HEA couples deal with real life issues going forward – the newlyweds that can’t connect idealism to reality, the couple that adjusts to being parents very suddenly, etc. In other words… reality!!

By: Tinabelle

Tinabelle — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:19:24 +0000

What makes or breaks any book for me, series or standalone, is the writing, the story, and the characters. I can think of a number of authors who have short or long-running series that work because of the writing. A good author can make it work. A few authors that come to mind immediately are Robyn Carr, Tessa Dare, C.S. Harris, Deanna Raybourn, Louise Penny, and Ashley Gardner. There are many others.

I also think that books in a series, limited or not, should stand on their own to a certain extent. While I can accept and often argue myself that you may miss some backstory about plot and characters having not read the previous books in the series, you should be able to understand and enjoy the book on its own. Readers discover new-to-them authors all of the time and often jump into a series in the middle. If they are interested, they can go back and read the previous books. If they choose not to, they deserve a complete story.

I enjoy a good series but do long for some good standalones, too.

By: Carole

Carole — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:54:00 +0000

I love mystery series because the mystery drives the book and the character development is the icing on the cake (forgive the mixed metaphors here ! I am also a fan of romance series, though I do burn out on some (Stephanie Laurens, for example) and I don’t really like Harlequin “series” that are written by different authors.

I confess to loving the “adorable children, baby cooing” HEA couples. I KNOW it’s not real life – I am reading for the escape from real life (Virgin River here I come).

“Sequel-bait” – LOL – now I’m going to be seeing this in every book!

By: VictoriaS

VictoriaS — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:35:11 +0000

I have sequel/series-itis bad! I have read all 43 J.D. Robb’s “In Death” books and am looking forward to more. I have read Nora Roberts, Stephanie Laurens, Rex Stout, John D. MacDonald, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, Agatha Christie etc., etc., etc. The only thing I DON’T like about sequels/series, is when an author dies and the publisher/family/estate gets someone else to write the books UGH!
And I kinda think “sequel-bait” (what a great phrase!) is fun. I like to see if I can correctly guess who the next book is gonna be about. And I really like this trend of releasing two or more books in a series all within the same year as Mary Balogh did with her “Huxtable” series.