Lisa Valdez’s long awaited Patience is being released on April 6th, almost five years after the release of Passion.
Karen Robards’ third book the Banning Sisters Trilogy, Shameless, is being released eight years after the release of Irresistible.
When you think about the staggering amount of time between releases, it could make you wonder. Why now? Does anyone care after all this time?
The first historical book I ever read was a Karen Robards. She branched out into romantic suspense and was very successful at it. It was after Claire Banning’s book came out that Karen Robards told her readers that she didn’t know when and even if Beth’s book would ever come out. Why? Because she was writing romantic suspense. She wanted to write Beth’s book for her readers, but business is business. If you’re doing well in one thing, why would you abandon it? Obviously Karen Robards didn’t abandon her readers. She never promised Beth’s book, but now here it is.
Which leads me to Lisa Valdez. I read Passion back when it came out. I was looking forward to Patience. Then I started losing respect for Valdez b/c of the continual excuses. One excuse I read was that the readers that reacted badly to Passion hurt Valdez so badly that it messed up her writing mojo. She had to do Patience justice and wasn’t able to do that. Then it was going to come out about two years ago. Again it was delayed. I want to know when she had the book completed. Was it completed four years ago and she was just too cowardly to put it out after the backlash of Passion? I read what people wrote about Passion. I read about how offended people were by what they deemed was the vulgarity of a regency historical. Then there were readers like me who thought it was a breath of fresh air.
Lisa Valdez had a real chance to become a big name in historical romance. I really think she blew it with Patience. Now I’m questioning if I even want to read it.
What book have you waited for? How long is too long?
Whoa – Robards is finally doing another Banning book? I remember enjoying the one, but truthfully I’ve moved on. Not really interested now.
As for Patience, I’ve got a copy coming, so I do plan to read it eventually, but I do wonder if I’d be anticipating it if it hadn’t been for the continued online wonderings of when it would come out. That kept it fresh in my mind. I’m thinking I wouldn’t be reading it either, just like Robards, if it weren’t for that. So in a way, the author’s waffling may have also saved her some readers. BUT, not really burning to read it. I’ll get to it when I get to it. Had it come out ina timely manner, I bet I’d have read it right away.
Valdez did make the whole thing seem somewhat scandalous. Which may have been a good move on her part.
This is a huge problem with Author’s that write series. There’s that one Character they keep dangling on a string throughout the story line. While I know a lot of people enjoyed and loved Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon, I didn’t feel the same way. Tohr in the J.R. Ward series, Alaric in the Atlantis Series by Alyssa Day and Hawk in the Nalini Singh series. Turns me off to be honest. Suzanne Brockmann did it. For whatever reason this happens (whether to keep readers reading or it’s “not their time”) it never leaves a warm fuzzy feeling with me.
I have Passion in my TBR pile for 5 years.. I know I’m back logged but if I loved that book and I was waiting for the next book to come out and it took 5 years I would have been done waiting for it after the year mark. I’m feeling the same way with Series. I used to be an “Author Auto Buy” person, but not anymore. I hate being stringed along. I know I sound grouchy but I’m not really 😉
I also have a copy of Patience coming. I am glad that it is finally being released. Even though years have passed, I have high expectations, not because it so long for the release of the book, but since I sincerely enjoyed Passion.
Since I don’t know the reasons for the delay of the book and since I am not a writer, I can’t judge Lisa Valdez. I can only imagine what it’s like to have your work eviscerated. Besides romance, especially passionate romance, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe it was the backlash, maybe her creative juices weren’t flowing, whatever. If you didn’t like the book, you don’t have to trash someone else’s work or put them down. I’m just looking forward to Patience and hoping Primrose is not another 5 years out!
I can’t think of a romance series where I felt so impatient that I was irritated at the author for the delay. The only recent example of a *really* long wait for the next in a series I can think of is Elizabeth Peters’s Vicky Bliss series. There was a 14 year gap between the last two novels in the series because EP was too busy writing her other series. And because they were contemporaries, the delay was *very* apparent.
I loved Passion, but I won’t read Patience. I don’t care how good the first book was or how good Patience might be–Valdez lost me as a reader when she acted the way she did about the writing and release of it.
Normally, I don’t care if the next book in a series takes a long time to come out. I mean, I do get anxious while waiting for it, but if it’s an author and series I like then I’ll wait without complaint.
I agree with everything Chantal said. And 14 years is too long, and the actions of that author not so good. Better to have said nothing or to just say she was working on other projects.
Holy goodness, 14 years??? That’s too long.
I had a cow waiting all those many years for Acheron’s book but I ended up loving the heck out of it because you could tell that the beginning was written when the first books came out (back when I was uber obsessed with them) so I loved it.
Then there was Sam and Alyssa’s book that came out years after I met them but I didn’t mind so much because they were involved in the other books so it wasn’t like they were just absent from everything.
But I don’t know how long I’d wait for a book to come out. I can be pretty patient (well you know what I mean) but if the author was behaving the way that Valdez was behaving, I probably would have walked away the series all together.
Meh.
I will get Patience – I loved Passion and yes, am looking forward to reading what Ms Valdez has written next.
I don’t judge her for what has happened, I don’t *know* what happened in spite of the endless speculation, I am just here to read and hopefully enjoy an author’s work.
I couldn’t put a time limit on when sequels are published and when I would cut an author off – it would all depend on whether I wanted to read the book when it did eventually come out.
The whole thing with Valdez left a bad taste in my mouth also. I haven’t read Passion, but I have it in my TBR and was planning on it. Now I’m not sure I want to. Even if it was the BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN, the way the author acted about Patience turned me off.
As for waiting..someone brought up Judith McNaught on Twitter. She’s a great example of an author who constantly pushes her releases back. I always get pissed when she does it, too, and vow never to read her again. Then the book comes out and I can’t help myself. I’m hopeless.
If an author keeps crying wolf over a release, like Valdez did, I tend to get frustrated. And after reading Patience and can say that after waiting 5 years, that book is a big fail, IMO.
It someone is writing an epic tale like a Tolkien or a 1,000 page book, than I understand, but take a look at JR Ward who writes over 120,000 words at 700 pages and she releases a book a year.
I think waiting 2-3 between a release is acceptable. I really don’t know how some authors are writing 3-4 books a year. I am in awe of them.
My gosh Judith McNaught. I’m hopeless as well. She is amazing. She can write the worlds WORST heroine, yet still make it a book that I love love love.
Only a truly great author can do that.
Willa, there was no speculation–at least not on my part. I base my opinion on Valdez from words that came out of her very own mouth (err, typed with her very own fingers)