Saturday, May 14, 2005

Mid-List Authors I enjoy

Well, I shared a couple of debut authors whose books I really enjoyed. Today it’s a couple of mid-list authors.

Susan Mallery has been an autobuy author for me for ages but she is someone I very rarely see mentioned on message boards. I started reading her harlequins, the hometown heartbreaker series, many years ago and really liked them. Then she began writing single titles and I liked them even more. She wrote a trilogy a couple of years ago about threes sisters, The Sparkling One, The Sassy One and The Seductive One, whose family owned a vineyard. I thought these were pretty good stories but they seemed to generate very little buzz. After that, she wrote a wonderful story, Someone Like You. This is a coming home story and rediscovering your first love. The sequel, published in March/05, Looking for Gracie, is another wonderful story with the same theme. Gracie had become a town legend in her youth in her pursuit of Riley, the hero who had left town years ago. Gracie and Riley just happen to show up back in town years later. This book I gave 4 out 5
She also has written some westerns that I thoroughly enjoyed under the pen name Susan Macias.
I haven’t been reading her latest Harlequins; they are those dreaded Sheik and Heiress books, but I really recommend her singles titles, her older harlequins and her westerns. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. I’d love to see more readers discover her books.

Michele Albert is an author I have loved since her first book Absolute Trouble. This was written under the name Michele Jerrott and this one got me from the very start. The hero, Luc, is posing as a male stripper in order to avenge the death of his brother. He is sent to stay with Dulcie, a former cop who had to leave the force on a disability. I knew right from the beginning that this was an author I was going to love. And I have, all of her books. Although I had been thinking of doing this kind of promotion ever since I started blogging, it was a blog about the issues of being a mid list author she wrote that I read via Maili that really prompted me to begin. When she switched her pen name to Albert, much to my dismay, none of the bookstores where I lived carried her book, Getting Her Man. Because I love her books, I specially ordered this one, something I don’t do that often. Although I think all her books are great, my favourite ones are Absolute Trouble and Off Limits. I rated both of them 5 out of 5. So for anyone looking for great contemporaries, great heroes and heroines I urge you to take the time to read Michele Albert.

6 comments:

lost said...

I agree with you. Although her other books are good but -- well, OFF LIMITS and ABSOLUTE TROUBLE have that *something* that put them above her other books.

As for Susan Mallery, I rarely pick her books up because I keep thinking that she's Susan Napier. I'll give SM's books a try. Thanks. :)

Mary Stella said...

I loved Michelle Jerrot's early book and didn't realize that she'd switched names. Thanks for the info!

Anonymous said...

Maili: Another Mallery single title I forgot to mention that I really enjoyed is Sweet Success.

Mary Stella: She has been hard to follow :). She's changed her name, her website (twice) and her publisher. While her latest release No Way Out isn't one of my favourite books by her, Mrs Giggles gave it a 93.

Anonymous said...

I always love Susan's (Mallery) books!!

sybil said...

This is probably a really stupid question, but what makes an author mid list?

Anonymous said...

Sybil;
That's a good question!!! I don't know exactly where the line is drawn but one way I think of telling them apart is how many books they have on a bookstore bookshelf. Off the top of my head I think Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, SEP, Suzanne Brockman are all top sellers and have scads of books on the shelves. I think of midlist authors as only having a few books on the shelf. Not very scientific and it doesn't explain Cassie Edwards at all. Another thing is midlist authors books don't stay on the shelves for that long either. Their print run isn't as large or as long.