Retro Post: So Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want

Posted January 26, 2017 by Rowena in Discussions | 24 Comments

This week, I’m posting an old post that Holly, Casee and I wrote back in 2009 together. I’m sad to say that we still don’t have answers for some of these. Still, it was a fun post to write and for me, still completely relevant today, Ha.

This post was originally posted on July 22, 2009

Rowena: A long time ago, I came across a review for All Through the Night by Suzanne Brockmann over at Jill D.’s blog, Romance Rookie, and I commented on her review about something that I really want Suz Brockmann to write about. That was where my thoughts about starting this post came from. So because of course I had to blog about my comment on Jill’s blog, I emailed my blogging buddies and we started laughing, throwing thoughts out there and then we got to work.

Yeah, we obviously stopped working on this post but because I want to post this up, I resurrected it and finished it off because it’s still something that I’m mighty curious about and would like to discuss with each of you readers out there.

So, we all have read many books and wondered what happened with certain characters, wished for other characters to get their happy endings and wanted the authors to write certain things to satisfy you. This post will be all about what we want, what we really, really want from our romance authors, books and whatever else we can think of.

I really wish that Suz Brockmann would write a book where Team 10 had to team up with Team 16 to save the world. I’d like to see Joe Cat and Blue kickin’ their feet up with Stan and Cosmo and the rest of Team 16, while Crash and Wildcard make a beer run and Christian, Harvard beat up Gillman and Lopez and Zanella trade football stats with Frisco and you know, I’d like to see something like that…bringin’ everyone together. That would be so frickin’ cool to have both teams working together to fight the bad guys and then afterward, shootin’ the breeze with each other.

I also want to know what the heck Judith McNaught’s hero Noah Maitland from Night Whispers does for a living.

I want to know if Faith ever wandered off Church grounds and if Quinlan ever caught her in Julie Garwood’s The Wedding?

It’d be cool to find out whatever happened to Thurston and little Ulric. Did Justin ever get to tell Thurston off for abandoning him on the battlefield? Whatever became of baby Ulric? Did Nicholaa ever get to see them again? This is all from Julie Garwood’s The Prize.

Holly’s Turn:

I think Julie Garwood left us with a lot of unanswered questions.

I also want to know:

Whatever happened to Maggie Shayne’s romantic suspense series? The last book came out in 2005 and I’ve heard nothing about it continuing. She really left us hanging though and I want her to finish it out.

Casee:

I am totally w/ Rowena about Julie Garwood. I want to know what happened to Faith. Did she get her happily ever after w/ Quinlain? I also wouldn’t mind finding out what happened with Crispin. To me, those are the two most memorable secondary characters Julie Garwood has written.

Way back in 2003, Katherine Sutcliffe wrote a romantic suspense titled Bad Moon Rising. J.D. and Holly were some hellsa tortured characters. The way the book was written, it seemed as if Sutcliffe was planning to continue there story. Then she dropped off the face of the earth.

Suzanne Brockmann–I want her to write Jazz’s story. I’ve read she intends to do it in the future, but I really wish she would bump it up.

Judith McNaught–I really want that time travel story. You know, the excerpt in the back of Remember When?

Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more, but we’ll leave it at that for now.

So what about you? If given the chance, what would you ask your favorite authors to write? What are you curious about in any of your favorite authors worlds? Anything at all, sound off!


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24 responses to “Retro Post: So Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want

  1. I actually have done this–just last week at RWA I asked Lorraine Heath about writing the story of that young kid from her Texas trilogy. Who doesn’t want to know what happened to him, how he grew up, how does he fit in with Dallas’, Houston’s and Austin’s families?

    She answered me, wisely, that while she too would love to write his story, she realizes that after these many years there’s no way that anything she wrote would satisfy readers’ expectations, and that, therefore, we are all better off without his story.

    I confess that I pouted a bit at this–even though I completely understand and agree with her.

    However, if we are doing only the ‘wouldn’t it be great?’ thing, my answer would be: I would love if Elizabeth Lowell ever actually wrote Eric’s story, from her medieval trilogy, as well as Utah’s story, from her Blackthorn’s categories.

  2. Oh nice post: agree with all the Julie Garwood questions.

    My most favoritest book in the world is Cry No More by Linda Howard. I’ve always wanted a follow up on Justin, especially what the initial conversation was like with his birth parents (and spouses). His story would be great to read.

  3. KarLynP

    Pamela Clare to please write Connor MacKinnon’s story. I know its planned, but I want it now.

    My number one wish will never come true, and that is have Karen M Moning write another stand-alone Highlander romance, not just urban fantasy series. But word is she has no plans to do this. 🙁

  4. Luci

    KarLynP I am avidly waiting for Connor’s story too from Pamela Clare but I would think it is a good two years away because she has Naked Edge out in march 2010 and she is writing another book before Connor’s story:(. I keep reminding her I am dying to read Connor’s story, just to make sure she doesn’t forget about him.

    I agree with you all about Julie Garwood. I still have to read The Wedding but even in all the medievals I read there is always somebody’s character whose story she sort of leaves dangling. In The Prize for example there was much ado at one point about the heroine’s rebel brother and his son but nothing came out of that story. Sorry I cannot remember the characters’ names. The Wedding is my next book to be read and I looking forward to it. I love her medievals.

  5. I wrote a blog post not that long ago about secondary characters that I really wanted to have stories.

    My #1, all time MUST HAVE story is for Cat from Tom and Sharon Curtis’s The Windflower. It’s a travesty that they stopped writing before they wrote that book! A more sexually ambiguous, fascinating secondary I’ve never encountered.

    Also, Joe Travis from Lisa Kleypas’s Texas contemporaries. You should have heard me get after her when she said she had no plans to write his story. Um, what?!

  6. I want to know when Jessica Bird (aka JR Ward) is going to write the next in the O’Banyon Brothers series. (Silhouette Special Edition) Maybe there aren’t going to be more, but I got the distinct impression it was supposed to be a series. I am not in the loop so maybe she no longer writes for SSE and they abandoned the series idea.
    Not the end of the world, just one of those little things that niggles in my brain occasionally.

  7. AL, ah Eric. I want his story too. I don’t think Elizabeth Lowell has any intention of writing it, does she?

    Wendy, that really disappoints me about Katherine Sutcliffe. Not that it’s not okay to retire, but don’t leave a reader hanging, you know? But Bad Moon Rising knocked my socks off, too.

    Another character whose story I want is Ian in Kresley Cole’s Sutherland Brothers Series. I think she’s said that she’ll write it someday. Maybe.

  8. Casee, back when EL had a board on her website, she posted that she considered one of her contemporaries (I believe it was Running Scared but don’t hold me to it, please) to be Eric’s story–it was about the greatgreatgreatgrandgreatchildren/sortakindareincarnations of both Eric and Serena, the witch who made the dress for the heroine in Enchanted (and I can’t believe I’m blanking on her name!!!–except that I still haven’t recovered from RWA)

    Either way, she also said that she’s not going back to those characters–nor to the Donovans, nor the Blackthorns, or the remaining brothers in her Only… series, because she’s a different writer now and can’t recapture the feeling of those characters after so many years.

  9. Anonymous

    Ditto on Garwood and KMM Highlanders. Also E. Lowells series of brothers, you know The Pearl Cove series that had to do with all the jewels. She totally left us hanging there.

  10. Rowena

    AL,

    Awww, that sucks and even though you know they’re not going to write it doesn’t stop you from wanting it. =(

    Mariana,

    Oh man! I just reread Cry No More the other week and it never occurred to me to wonder if Justin would ever get his own book. I would totally read that. I’m adding that to my list of what I wish authors would write!

    It would be interesting to find out what happened to Justin from his own POV after he was taken from his parents and all that.

    Great choice!

    KarLyn,

    I heard that about KMM too and it bums me out because those are my favorite books that she’s written. I want more Highlanders from her!

  11. Lorraine

    Yep, I agree about Eric’s story from Elizabeth Lowell. I loved her medieval series and read that book about the great, great grandchildren and it wasn’t very great. Eric’s character wasn’t even really in it, certainly not as depicted in the the trilogy…sigh.

  12. Wendy

    Casee: Sadly, Katherine Sutcliffe has retired. Most readers seem to point to Darkling, I Listen as their fave rom/sus by her – but I am ALL about Bad Moon Rising, which knocked my socks off. I really need to do a reread of that one…..

    Most of my wishing involves authors returning to sub genres they’ve abandoned, not so much revisiting characters. I’d be overjoyed if both Lorraine Heath and Nicole Jordan returned to westerns. And I’m so easy going, I’d be just fine if they started something “new” in that sub genre as opposed to revisiting previous series.

  13. Tabitha

    Ditto on Faith and Quinlan from JG.

    I wish there could be a re-write of Susan Anderson’s Obsessed — a different relationship on Jaz and Terry who were the heroine’s cousins. But SA said it was too much, too late.

    I wish also that Judith McNaught would expand the ending for Night Whispers because the ending was a bit too abrupt and unsatisfying. And if there could be a story on Courtney Maitland (I think that was Noah’s sister’s name).

  14. Rowena

    Luci,

    The characters you mentioned from The Prize are Thurston (Nicholaa’s brother, the hardheaded one) and then Baby Ulrich (Thurston’s son) they just kind of rode off into the sunset, never to be heard of again. I’d like to see where JG took them and what happened to Ulrich. I’m DYING for her to write a story for Justin. He was my very favorite character in that whole book. Even with his one hand having self.

    Ooh, you’re reading The Wedding soon, that’s one of my favorite JG books period. LOVE CONNOR!

  15. Rowena

    Kati,

    That’s cool, my nosy self wants more than just secondary characters to get their own stories. I want two series to be entertwined, I want to know what the hero did for a living in this story and what ever happened to the hero’s hat that he left at the heroine’s hat (that was so a Sam and Alyssa plug. I already know what happened with the hat but well, you know.) That kind of stuff. I don’t necessarily need a whole new story but it would have been nice if those things were included in the story or would come up in future stories. That kind of thing.

    I’m just a nosy bit of goods. Annoys my Mom to no end, =).

    I so wish that Joe was going to get his own book…do you think LK would change her mind?

  16. Rowena

    Samantha,

    I so hear you. It’s not that important, but you do wonder and wish you knew, huh? I’m right there with you.

    Wendy,

    I haven’t read a really good Western in such a long time. I’ve tried picking up some westerns but they’ve driven me up the wall. I wish there was a bigger selection.

  17. Wendy

    Casee: Yeah, she just vanished, which was really annoying. I finally found out she retired because another author mentioned it in passing on the Murder She Writes group blog.

    Rowena: You just need to spend more time reading my blog for awesome western recs 🙂 Although sadly I’ve been on such a category binge lately that I haven’t read a western in a while. Soon. I’m jonesin’ for one.

  18. Rowena

    Wendy,

    When I get a chance today, I will mosey on over to your blog and look through your reviews then, 😉

    Tabitha,

    I would totally love to read Courtney’s book. That would be an interesting read.

  19. oh you know I never thought of this as a discussion before!!! I do think about it when an author delays a book or wonder what has happened with this character. I am so glad you mentioned Suzanne Brockmann. I don’t think I could ever get enough of her SEAL team 16 series. I love every character and I so want Jazz’s story too. For me I want Maya Banks to continue her highlander series.

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