Overcooked

The Avon message boards are boring me to death lately. As expected, no one ever responded to my query regarding Judith Ivory. I’m not surprised. I did manage to write a quick few lines to Ivory’s agent. Hopefully, I’ll get some response. I don’t understand all the secrecy. Is she part of the Valerie Plame/CIA leak investigation as well? In any case, with the exception yet again of Lisa Kleypas (yes, I am biased…so what?), I believe Avon authors have stopped creating butterflies in my stomach…or, at least, their characters have. My most recent Avon read was THIS RAKE OF MINE by Elizabeth Boyle. Now, I enjoyed SOMETHING ABOUT EMMALINE and, believe me, THIS RAKE OF MINE was not bad by any means, BUT it wasn’t one of the best romance novels I’ve ever read either. Maybe my expectations for the book were too high or maybe…just maybe…I’m sick of the overused “You ruined me, so now I’m going to become a social graces teachers in a school for young ladies” plotline. Hmmm…maybe, I just don’t know. How many times can you read a book with the same recycled storyline before you start pulling your hair out?
Again, the book was good; it wasn’t bad. It was good…just incredibly unoriginal. I don’t know. I guess I was expecting something that didn’t occur 5 years later or 10 years later. Authors are always letting the years just fly and they never really explain in sufficient detail what the heck the heroine went through or how the douche bag hero reformed. It always explained in a paragraph or two and then back to the present. The reader never gets a chance to see the hero reform or experience the heroine’s pain…just a bunch of empty words. Is it the authors’ fault or Avon? Well, what do you think? AVON, of course. Why? Because they have the ability to demand a rewrite or different plotline. They have the ability to force the author to find some original thought and fast. What would it take for Avon to actually do something beneficial for their authors and for the fans? I honestly don’t know. I’m just 100% certain I’ll be reading another “ex virgin turned teacher in hiding” book in a couple of months by another Avon author.