I just needed to vent. I went online trying to get a list of Kasey Michaels' books. I want to know which ones are connected and which aren't. Whenever I pick up a new author I look them up to make sure that I'm not starting in the middle of a series. Some are listed as a series, but not all and I know there are more connected that what I found.

Wouldn't you think an author would want a person to know that there are books that are connected to each other? Wouldn't it generate more book sales that way? I emailed an author a while back about her books and she came back at me with "They all stand alone, however I have 2 that have connected characters in them." (If they stand alone, why is there a character connection??) I don't know how to explain it, but it seemed like she was being a little snobby about it.

I'm just frustrated...I've checked Kasey Michaels' web site and that gave me even less information than Fantasticfiction! Any sites out there that have total and complete listings of series or "character connected" books? I'm tired of reading a book and feeling like I missed something!

I know what you mean - I just read a book that was the second of a trilogy.  The book jacket clearly stated that it was "introducing" this character, I checked carefully for any other hints like "by the author of...", etc.  Then once I start reading it becomes clear that not only is this the second part of a trilogy, but that the main character had a huge role in the prior book that carried over to the second book.  Grrr...

I belong to fictiondb.com, and they list 4 continuing series and 9 sets of related books.  If you give me the name of a specific book, I can tell you more about that one. 

The book is called "Stuck in Shangri-la" by Kasey Michaels. I know there's a book after it called "Everything's Coming Up Rosie" but I'm thinking there might be one before it. Just character connections...

Sharon, I've been there more times than I can count!

Eileen - fictiondb.com showed no related stories, but my Byron showed the second book you mentioned, no priors.  HTH.

gosh, I have both those books but can' find the shangri-la one so was thinking of trying the rosie one..glad you told me it comes next LOL!

I hate it w hent hey don't tell you either or worse, when the book is obviously missing a story somewhere...I got one called cabin fever by pappano and someone in the series romances happened to mention the bethlehem series and this is way down in that series which Ididn't know til after I'd read it..wasn't too thrilled because this one ended 'hanging' so you 'have' to get the next book..geez...

I think Authors look at series books as a good way to make money and draw the interest of the reader........they like having you "hooked" so that you have to buy more books from them to complete the story.

I've had the same thing happen, Eileen. Even worse, I think, is when Harlequin puts out a "series" but all the authors are different.  It's really difficult to tell if you've got them all.

I have been trying to collect an older Heart of the West series.  I thought it was 5 books, according to the info on the back.  A friend found a listing for me and there are FIFTEEN BOOKS in the series! 

Very frustrating.

Yes, that is sooooo frustrating!  I understand why they want to do series of books.  Get you to buy one and you almost feel obligated to buy the others.  BUT, if you can't easily see there's a series, that just makes it 50 times harder to find them all.

Dee Dee, thank you! I thought maybe there was a book before it because they mentioned a friend's wedding (the wedding in the Rosie book) like I should know what they're talking about, it seemed. no biggie. My library has the Rosie book, so I'm taking a trip there later!

I remember when I first got back into reading about 3 or 4 years ago and my friend handed me a Johanna Lindsey book. The book itself was good, but I was so confused about the rest of the family. It was smack in the middle of the Malory/Anderson series and I felt lost. I never did read that series in order, but now that I've read most of the books, I know who's who now.

Kasey Michaels has a bunch of books (historicals, I think) with similar titles, but no information on whether or not they're connected. I'm not touching them!

There are authors out there who don't even have a web site of their own and that doesn't help any! Johanna Lindsey and Linda Howard are a couple of them. I have to depend on other sites to point me in the right direction.

I have started avoiding harlequins and such that have different authors and all a series. Trueblood Texas is a perfect example. I read 1 and realized my mistake and by the time I tracked down the main core series (there were some minis off that main), I didn't care anymore! I did read most of the LSCC series, but even that got old and reminded me of a soap opera.

I love a good series (by the same author), but I love it even more when they say "#2 in such and such series" right on the cover of the book!

My MIL did that to me once.  She sent me a bunch of books for my birthday one year and i come to find out the one book is like the final book in the series and she didn't bother to check to see if I wanted the others. 

Now my rule of thumb is to make sure that all books I look at aren't part of a series and if they are, I try to get the books too.

I use this site a lot.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

it will list the author's books and in orderof their series.  it's been a great help to me. 

I'm always there, Jeanette...I love fantastic fiction, but they didn't help too much in this case (Kasey Michaels), but most of the time they are a huge help!

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It is frustrating. I've read several Diana Palmer books with connecting char.  You can read them out of order but there are hints that let you know there's a book out there.  I went to her website and they are not listed as connected.  I went to Amazon and read the info on her books and Wish listed the ones that were conn.  I'm talking about her contemporary series where for most of them the hero was Native Amer. or Half-Native American and the heroine is white.  Paper Rose, Lawless, Once in Paris, Outsider, Renegade and a few others.  They were issued by dif publishers and I think that's why they aren't listed as connected.

I'm a huge Diana Palmer fan.  I have most of her stuff.  Let me tell you that most of her books are connected to others!  Very few are standalones, with characters not appearing in any other book.

Yes, Diana Palmer has series and then she has a habit of intermingling the different series together...I gave up trying to read them in any type of order...

I got frustrated with Diana Palmer when I read one that was obviously part of a series that referred to two other characters and their HEA - but their book had been held up because they decided to publish it as a hardback!  So they give away part of the story before you can even read it! 

I also avoid multi-author series like LSCC, the Fortunes, etc.  Too much name dropping and trying to connect the story to the other stories, more because the author probably didn't know what was going on as opposed to the readers. 

I'm careful about forcing myself to read earlier books in series - I've found that it greatly increases the size of my TBR pile (not to mention my shopping list), and often I don't like the earlier book so I put off reading it and never get to the book that caught my attention to begin with. 

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DeeDee, I ought to follo that philosophy...I'm always striving to get the first book in a series and start from there. I generally do pretty good, but sometimes I finally give up on reading any of the books in the series. Stephanie Laurens' Cynster series is one of them...there's like 14 or more books out in that series now! Do I really want to track all of them down? I read the first one, then started the second, but gave up. 14 or so books in one series seems so daunting when starting from the beginning. Same thing with Jo Beverly, she has a series with a bunch of books in it, but I've read the latest 4 or so, I'm not bending over backwards to track down the rest.

Some of the series get way out of hand.  They start off as being about 1 family. The next thing you know there are best friends, cousins, unknown illigitimate children/siblings coming out of the woodwork w/their own books.  Like the Cynster series by Stephanie Laurens. 

Now I'm definitely staying away from the Cynsters, lol!! :)

I still red them when I come across them. But I don't go out of my way to get them or read them in order.  Maybe if I find them cheap at a used book store or a good deal on ebay.