Losing Author to Another Genre Still Hurts

You know, I thought I'd gotten to that zen place where I could be philosophical instead of angry, hurt, and bitter that an author had abandoned writing the books I love to read. Really, most of the time these days I'm grateful for the romance novels they did write and accept that some kind of necessity--or death--led them in a different direction (e.g., into writing suspense novels, women's fiction, or stopping writing altogether.)

But reading this entry on Anne Frasier's blog made me sad all over again. It's her take on some missteps that crippled her career under the name Theresa Weir. I guess I can be grateful she was turned away from writing romantic suspense earlier in her career because this meant we were gifted with a run of wonderful romances she wrote for HarperCollins in the late 90s. She's now writing straight suspense novels that I have no interest in (I tried HUSH) and seems to be successful. Good for her.

The quality of her romance stories--the wit, the humor or the angst, the style, the heroes--was nearly unmatched in the genre. I found them refreshing and unbelievably romantic and just plain special.

Fucking Bantam. But despite it and HarperCollins, I just don't understand why she didn't become a bigger name in the romance genre. Curses on you, you undiscerning romance readers who didn't buy her books!!