In response to an email I got today (you know who you are) I quote Jennifer Crusie’s answer to this question which is asked too often.
Are you ever going to give up romance writing and start writing real books?
No. I like writing fake books. It gives such joy to those who need to feel intellectually superior.
No. I prefer to write to entertain. You know, like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens.
No. I think it’s important not to trash the taste of those who read and supported you while you were learning your craft by announcing that, now that you’ve established your name, you’re giving up romance to move onto bigger and better things. …
And let me take this opportunity to remind you that Bet Me (Jenny’s new novel, which I reviewed here) will be hitting the bookstores tomorrow. Also, I point all parties yet again to this essay of hers, In Praise of Scribbling Women.
I think I told you once that reading your books was like getting a history lesson wrapped around a romance novel….I remember the pain I felt in my heart when I read about Elizabeth and Nathaniel’s little Robbie and how they lost him. I was so much in love w/ the character he was named after and felt that loss as well and it pained me to read that his little namesake was lost to illness at an early age. I wanted to read on and find out that Elizabeth and Nathaniel had more children after Robbie to hopefully ease my pain and theirs….funny, but the writing seemed real to me!