Anyone here read her stuff?
One for the Money
Two for the Dough
Three to Get Deadly
Four to Score
High Five
I read Four, and I just started Five. These books are incredible! They’re all set in New Jersey; specifically, Trenton. A lot of Four took place down the shore, too.
Her style of writing is a lot like Sue Grafton, I think, but funnier. Damn great stuff!!
Any other fans?
I have read them all, and think they are wonderful. I grew up on murder mysteries. I kinda like to think of Stephanie Plum as a Nancy Drew gone wrong. Many people think her books are absolute fluff. But there is no denying the writing and the character development are flawless. Read them all! She also has a really down to earth website run by her daughter. www.evanovich.com.
You forgot to mention Hot Six. And I understand seven just came out.
Read them all; like them all. I think she is a hoot. I prefer Kinsey a little more, but Steph is definitely up there especially since I haven’t heard much from V.I. lately.
Get ye hence to the booksellers!
Seven Up and Hard Eight are available now.
I am patiently waiting for #9, and picked up an earlier book Full House, which I am reading now. A bit different, but still recognizable as Evanovich.
I really like Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books (and yes, we’re up to #8 now). The characters are hilarious. I do not classify them as mysteries, really, although the bookstore and the library do. I suppose that’s the simplest classification (which also explains why I keep finding Diana Gabaldon’s books in the “romance” section.) Hard Eight just came out in hardcover at the end of June, so I’m thinking it’s going to be awhile before #9 comes out.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Evanovich’s books on audio as well, but it appears that the original reader of books 1-6, C.J. Critt, has been replaced with someone who sounds an awful lot like Minnie Mouse on speed. I can’t even bear to listen to these, and I’m hoping Critt will return.
I love 'em. My mom gave #1-#5 awhile back and I didn’t read them for some time, but then sat down and read them all over the course of a few days. Hilarious!
She is contracted through book 10, and also has a holiday novel called Visions of Sugar Plums coming out in November.
I suppose that they are geared towards women. A female friend loaned me the three-in-one hardcover when I was desparate for something to read. They weren’t horrible, but I viewed them as mind candy, and would hesitate to call them mysteries. I would not recommend them to men, I don’t think.
I think you can recommend them to anyone who’s ever been to New Jersey. 
Sheesh, I’m reading them on the train and I keep having to hold in laughter. These are great!
I’d never heard of her before, and my mom gave me these two (Four and Five); now I’ll be heading over to the library to check out One-Three and Six-Eight.
Heh heh, Khadaji – they were recommended to me BY a man. I would agree that they are more geared toward women in general, but I’ve lent mine to men who’ve enjoyed them thoroughly.
Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell… I’m male. 
I read one of them (either the third or fourth, I forget) because it was sent to me as part of a Mystery Guild selection I forgot to cancel. I liked it so much that the next time I went to Waldenbooks I picked up the rest of them.
I love the Stephanie Plum series. Yes, these books aren’t going to solve any world crises, but they sure do make me laugh.
Steph is such an appealing heroine because, well, she isn’t perfect. She screws up and does dumb things, but she also does these amazing courageous things, too. And Evanovich’s characters, albeit wacky, are mostly well drawn and pretty well fleshed-out, too.
And I frankly would like to sink my teeth into Morelli and Ranger. They’re some of hottest guys in fiction. (Along with Trooper Jim Chopin in the Dana Stabenow mysteries).
Mrs. Furthur
Yeah, Stephanie Plum is fun. Good delightful reads.
I’d like to see Janet E make Stephanie a little bit more competent as she goes, though, which doesn’t seem to be happening. I don’t think she’s taken the gun out of the cookie jar in the last 4 books.
I think Kinsey and Stephanie are the sexiest fictional women alive. Yum Yum Yum.
I really enjoyed the series, too. They are great beach books because they’re light and entertaining. I do have a couple of nitpicky criticisms:
Recycling plots - e.g. people following her around because they want to get their hands on the FTA or having her car blown to smithereens (I can’t imagine what HER insurance rates are!).
What’s the normal life span of a hamster? A year? Surely Rex has outlived it. even though he’s cute.
She really needs some security at her apartment because people are constantly getting in through the window.
Hoping Hard Eight comes in paperback soon!
I really found them to be a blast–no, not great literature, certainly, but really fantastically well-written, funny books. Comedy is so hard to write well–I mean, if you get drama 99% right, it’s still drama, but comedy that is 99% right is boring. And then when you do it well people dismiss it as “mind candy”. I’m sorta shocked the books haven’t haven’t been filmed: they seem so cinematic to me, and a lot of the dialouge would translate perfectly to the screen.
I agree they’re not deep and significant literature, but they are funny! I like the surrounding characters as much as Stephanie - wouldn’t we all like a grandmother like hers?
Are there any other mysteries in this vein that are half so good?
About the nitpicky issues:
Janet said on her website that her characters (and she included Rex) don’t age and won’t die.
I had a pet hamster live to almost 4 years of age when I was a kid. Most of them live for about 2 to 2.5 years, I think.
Yeah, I wondered about the car insurance rates, too. Our were bad enough when my husband had 3 speeding tickets in a year - I can’t imagine what they’d be if the cars had exploded!
Originally posted bty Pundit Lisa
Check out Hard Eight, the security theme gets hilarious.
Allow me to vent a pet peeve here. Why when books revolve around a central character that is female, is it considered geared toward women and unworthy of men? Yet we are expected to have no qualms reading the countless, absurd suspense novels written by men, Patterson, Scott, etc. in which the main character (male) is always a narcissistic control freak. And don’t even get me started on how most “great” literature centers around a male protagonist.
More positive note: Check out Lewis Purdue’s Daughter of God. It is one of the more interesting mass market novels, based on the fact that the husband and wife are both developed almost equally as characters.