AAR

[Tinabelle]

I always check in on discussions of JG's new releases w/hopes that the buzz will be positive. I loved Garwood's historicals and was disappointed when she switched to contemporaries. I read her first few releases and enjoyed them but they started going downhill IMHO and I stopped reading. Haven't read her in years. Looks like this one is more of the same. Boo hoo!
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So many books; so little time!
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[Eliza]

[Pan's Wife]

My theory is Julie Garwood has sold her name and now ghost writers crank out her books for publishers. Her last handful of books are so not her early works in terms of writing quality, tone, humor, character development and story strength. Either a different person(s) is writing her books or she had a stroke. I know an author sometimes burns out and repeats themselves or their stories get weak, but this is a case of someone not being able to write a sentence as well as they used to. There are plenty of really good authors out there for me to spend my money on, so Ms. Garwood is off my buy list for life.

[dick]

I don't think Garwood could ever, even in the historicals which everybody likes so much, lay claim to being much of a prose stylist. It wasn't her writing style that appealed as much as it was the tone of the stories and the gusto or something akin to it which infused those stories. Some writers, Garwood amongst them I think, whose primary interest is telling a story and are more interested in that than in sprucing up the telling of it. I look upon Garwood, JAK in her many manifestations, and some other authors, as always providing a reasonably good story at least and thus always a reasonably safe choice if not a particularly exciting one.