I read Laurell K. Hamilton’s latest book Mistral’s Kiss. I won’t say that it’s horrible–but I did feel kind of let down at the end of it. All that and nothing happens? I mean there’s sex, and magic, and visions, and fights with relatives (and others) who have power in faerie, but I’m not really sure that the plot advances a whole lot. Just like the last book in the series.
I’d like to read a short story treatment of the series–where one can find out whether Princess Meredith Gentry gets pregnant (and who the father is) and becomes Queen and get a sense of whether happily ever after is likely, without reading about all the sex and blood and sadism and people who like sex and pain mixed (and people who don’t) and the details which hold it together.
Another series I’d like to read a short story or maybe a novella of is Carole Nelson Douglas’s Midnight Louie Mysteries. Some of the books in her series work in and of themselves, but a lot of them feel kind of like she wants an overarching story connecting the first book and the last one (there will be 27, she’s not quite 2/3rds done). I’d like to know if Temple finds true love with either of her on-again off-again highly conflicted gentlemen friends, but I’m not sure I want to read the rest of the alphabet books.
How about you? Think of a series, or maybe a book, that you’d like to be able to read a well-developed bare bones outline of the plot, without the clutter and side stories the actual series contains?