AAR

[Schola]

+IHS+

I've found, at least 90% of the time, that when one of my favourite Romance authors really, really likes another Romance author, that the latter won't be to my taste at all.

The first example which pops to mind is Julia Quinn. She loves everything Eloisa James writes, but I don't care for James at all.

Does this happen to anyone else?
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton)

[willaful]

I actually have found author blurbs fairly useful as a rough guide. I bought a Julianne MacLean book based on the Jo Beverley blurb and loved it. I often see authors I don't respect much blurbing other authors I also don't respect much. So it mostly works for me.

Of course, the other day I saw a blurb from Linda Howard for Diana Palmer and that one kind of made me go WTF?, so it's not infallible.
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_

[Kass]

My favorite authors' tastes in reading are simply awful. And book blurbs are more likely than not to put me off reading a book than getting me to read one.
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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

My blog: http://www.thoughts.com/allergywoman/blog
http://www.shelfari.com/o1517440994

[dick]

I always like to read other authors' cover blurbs because they're such masterpieces of ambiguity. JAK's for E. Lowell for example: "I'd buy anything with her name on it." Well, OK. But would she read it?

Has anyone ever encountered a negative statement by one romance author about another romance author? (Although Julia Quinn once posted that she'd read some books for RWA contests that she thought couldn't possibly get published.) As far as I know, not a single one of them has an itch anywhere.

[Vanessa]

I agree with the Julia Quinn one. I love her stuff but I'd rather spend my time staring at a wall than reading another Eloisa James book

I can't really remember any other time that the "recommends" have been so far off the mark for me, but I can say that I first picked up Joanna Bourne because of the Diana Gabaldon recommendation on it. I've never seen her name on anything and my love for the Outlander series knows no bounds, so I jumped right into it. Happy ending all around, Bourne's become my new autobuy

[MaryK]

[Mingqi]

Like MaryK says, if you're talking about those short blurbs on the covers- I don't pay to them. They're just one-liners and not in-depth explanations on why they like the book. And sometimes I get the feeling they re-use those blurbs. I do pay some attention to recommendations on author websites. However, most of the time I don't pick up the recommendation because I find that the plot wasn't my kind of story and am surprised that it's the author's kind of story. Maybe the author doesn't want to read the kind of stories that she writes. Overall, I know people's tastes can vary infinitely and they have different quirky pet peeves. And it's sort of proven with the aar "if you like..." list- if you like susan elizabeth phillips, try so and so. I guess I'm one of the few who love Eloisa James (except for her Pleasures series which was horrible), but I didn't like 'And Then He Kissed Her' by Laura Lee Gurkhe as much as Julia Quinn (and many people on AAR) did.

[Schola]

[Yulie]

[Amanda]

Actually, I discovered Judith Ivory from a blurb that SEP wrote saying that Beast was a fairy tail for adults (or something like that). I enjoyed Beast so much that I raced through her back list. Sadly, I didn't find all of Ivory's books as entertaining. . .

[Acorn]

I got the book TILL DAWN TAMES THE NIGHT by Meagan McKinney after seeing that it was a favorite of Sabrina Jeffries. The book is a favorite of mine now but I'm not too crazy about Sabrina's books.

[Lily]

A lot of times I have the feeling that the editorial houses tell their authors to recommend the work of another author.

Anyway, sometimes you can really tell some authors are friends, like when Catherine Coulter dedicates a book to Linda Howard (I think it was Night Fire, and that was the first time I ever saw Linda Howard's name. Obviosly, when I ran into one of her books, I read it out of curiosity and then I was hooked. ) Jude Deveraux and Judith McNaught did that a lot too.

I prefer recommendations from other readers. I havn't been dissapointed so far, and I think AAR is a great site for recommendations.

[Schola]

I think that Lisa Kleypas and Christina Dodd also dedicate books to each other.
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton)

[Elaine S]

Schola said:

I've found, at least 90% of the time, that when one of my favourite Romance authors really, really likes another Romance author, that the latter won't be to my taste at all.

I think author blurbs are useless and totally unnecessary. I think I get better value by looking at what my preferred reader/reviewers here and and amazon are reading. If you find a reviewer's whose tastes are similar to your own you are more likely to be led to an author whose works will please you. I found Mary Balogh, Carla Kelly, Judith A Lansdowne, Mary Jo Putney and Jo Beverly by these means plus numerous others.

[KarenS]

I've used these recommendations with a grain of salt. I consider them a help by giving me a new name to try. And sometimes that's all I need.. I think I tried an Amanda Quick on an Elizabeth Lowell recommendation. Had not heard of AQ at all until I saw EL's glowing comment. What did I have to lose so I tried an AQ and now I've read almost everything that's been written by this wonderful writer in her many forms.

Romance writers seem to be very generous in supporting each other which is a good thing. It's basically introducing someone new and leaving it up to the reader to decide if said new author appeals. Sorta like a blind date in a way.