Excerpts in the back of books....a rant

Hmm, you just finish a good, or adequate, or wonderful or some other descriptive adjective for a book and you turn the last page of an epilogue but wait...there are another 20 or so pages, and it's not the usual advertisements for other books by the same author or from the same publisher, instead it's the tease of this author's NEXT work, usually either an intriguing prologue, or worse the first chapter of a book. NOT YET RELEASED. The writing tugs at you and implores you to keep reading, but no, they cut it off right at a hook, leaving you dangling, wanting more so desperately you're willing to go to eBay to search out an illicit ARC just to get some relief. I'm not sure if it's worse when you've just finished a good book or when you've finished a mediocre one, but either way it's a mean ass tease.

But wait, the ubiquitous THEY have done something WORSE -- NO RELEASE DATE specified. What's up with that? Coming soon, or spring 2007, or just in 2007. I mean, honestly, what's the point? It's April 2006, do they really think I'm going to remember to get this book a year from now, much less in some non-specified month? Am I going to care THAT MUCH? Or worse, what DO I PUT in my PDA to remind me? There is no entry for "coming soon." And what if they change the title of the book as they've been known to do. Am I doomed to search endlessly for a book that never exists in that form? Or what if they change the character's name? Grrrrr, I hate being teased and confused.

It's not so bad if it's in the end of a paperback release of a previously released hardcover that I couldn't afford to buy and they're giving me a teaser chapter for the soon, as in the next month, to-be-released hardcover, but when it's another paperback and it's not for a LONG period of time, it's just pissy.

I wish this made me feel better, but no, I'm just more pissed...sorry, it's the nature of the game.

So, here's my advice, don't read ANYTHING after the "official" end of the book. EVER. It will save you grief.

Oh, yeah, and if you can do that, you're a saint. Enough said.


BTW, just finished BROKEN by Kelley Armstrong. The next book in her Women of the Underworld universe. It's really not a series, although you get lots of previous characters in it. Set in steamy Toronto, Elena and the Pack are out for an easy job stealing back one of the "Jack the Ripper" letters when a mosquito bite leads to all kinds of unforeseen and unwelcome events. Personally, I'm not a rat person, so I skipped over the demonic rat section and I've already done my stint with motherhood, so the bits of "will I be a good mother or not" were tiring, but even though it was easy to tell who the "bad" guy was from first appearance, BROKEN is a good read and consumed a pleasant Saturday night. Clay and Elena going at it were amusing and seeing more of the courtship dance between Jaime and Jeremy was well worth re-reading. Although I felt the ending was lifted from Jayne Ann Krentz's SHIELD'S LADY, it still worked. And yeah, the Pack needs some more cubs. Who's next, Nick or Jeremy?