This was a sad day for Wendy, as Dorchester was one of the very few publishers left standing that still would spit out a historical western romance on occasion. There's also the minor detail that Dorchester was one of the very few "name" publishers that had a reputation for risk taking. They published paranormal romances back when nobody supposedly wanted to read them. They still published traditional westerns, even though, supposedly, nobody wanted to read them anymore. And they were one of the very few houses that seemed to not pressure their authors to pigeon-hole themselves.
Case in point, Lisa Cach.
During my tenure with TRR (The Romance Reader) I read and reviewed four books by Cach, all of them different. She never regurgitated the same book twice for her readers. Keep in mind this was during an era when the longer Regency historical was king. Countless writers were jumping ship and writing Regencies. Authors were told they had to "brand" themselves. And honestly, you can't possibly brand yourself if you're not writing in the same time period, the same type of story (be that light and fluffy or angst-up-to-your-eyeballs) every time out of the gate. The goal was that readers should see your name and know exactly what they were going to get. Authors that once wrote books in a variety of historical time periods went All Regency All The Time. Authors that once wrote historical romances jumped ship to romantic suspense, or straight contemporary. And once paranormal came back into fashion? Everyone seemed to be dusting off old manuscripts - and let me tell you, I have deep reviewer scars to show for that folly.
Which is what made Lisa Cach so exciting for me as a reader, and a reviewer. I never knew what the heck I was going to get. Ever. Every book was a new adventure.
So it was with a sense of nostalgia and glee when I went trolling on Netgalley one day to discover that she had written a serial (a novella trilogy) for Pocket Star. And sure enough, it sounded absolutely nothing like any of the four books I read by her during my TRR tenure. So in honor of those reviews, and the start of her new 1001 Erotic Nights trilogy, I am declaring this next week Lisa Cach Week here at the Bat Cave. Stay tuned for those four retro reviews from my TRR days, along with a review of her latest release, Slave Girl.
11 comments:
Awesome! I always feel that Cach is seriously underrated.
Willaful: Criminally underrated. One of the more exciting authors working during an era when I was wading through Fluffy Regency Land up to my arm pits.
Okay, I'm interested *gets ready*
I was always excited when I started one of hers to see what on earth I was going to get. I loved several of them. That said, I just dug out one (Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel) from the depths of the TBR and it was awful...
http://rosario.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/have-glass-slippers-will-travel-by-lisa.html
I remember not caring for that one much, though the spy thriller parody one -- Dr Yes? -- was worse. In general, I think her strength was in historical and paranormal. (Ideally, both. :-) )
I did like the ones about the incubus and the succubus very much! But I also liked some of her contemporaries. The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid was really good (I laughed until I actually cried a couple of times) and I also liked A Babe in Ghostland. Glass Slippers was just a step too far for me.
Ahhhh - yes. I remember those days of Dorchester and their risks. Too bad they treated their authors so shabbily.
I have a few Lisa Cach books, I think I even read one or two but I don't remember them at the moment - but I know they were different. I think they were about selkies
Aww, I remember kind of liking that one. Not enough to keep it when I ran out of shelf space though. But enough to kind of regret giving it away.
Dr. Yes was one of those I skipped over because it didn't seem like my thing - even though I'd had good luck with Cach in the past. Continuity series are like that for me though. I tend to only read them when Harlequin does them, and even then I end up stumbling on to them after the fact because a favorite author got roped in :)
Kristie: Yeah, the whole not paying royalties thing was kind of a bummer :)
I found some of their authors wildly uneven, but did stumble across some good westerns with Leisure and then authors like Cach were always a treat to read - mostly because she always seemed to do something different with each book.
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