Jun 7 2006
REVIEW: Viscount Who Loved Me, Second Epilogue by Julia Quinn
Dear Ms. Quinn
Sybil and Keishon pointed out that Fictionwise had the your second epilogues for sale with 100% micropay rebate. I have plenty of micropay $$ so the book was essentially free for me. I purchased the Viscount Who Loved Me because I didn’t really care to know where the diamonds were in the story It’s In His Kiss. The Duke and I and VWLM were the only two books that I have re-read in this series.
The word count on the VWLM? 5,995. Yes, I am not missing a number. Let’s assume that an average book is 80,000 words. A hardcover costs around $25.00 without discounts (and that’s on the high side). For every dollar, readers are getting 3200 words in a hardcover. Harper Collins is charging you $2.00 per 6000 words so it isn’t equivalent in price to a trade, more like an expensive hardcover with no discounts.
So onto the content. Of the 5,995 words, 17 of them are “mine” repeated in a “mine, mine, mine, mine, miiiiinnne” fashion. If you had just thrown in another set of “mines”, you would have been over the 6000 number for word count. But other than the “mines” is the story. We get Anthony rhaspodizing about how witty, bright, sensuous his wife is and how uber happy they are together. We get some sexual interplay. But mostly the entire novella is about the annual Pall Mall rematch.
Parts of the scene are funny and remind me of the book itself. There was some good exchanges between the characters. The Pall Mall scene was entertaining. The problem is that there are so many repetitive words and sentences. I remember when I read Annie Proulx’s Brokeback mountain how no word was wasted or gratuitous. Not so in Quinn’s case. I felt like you were straining to get more words into the epilogue. The sentences were short and often containing only three or four words. I don’t remember that style from previous books.
“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiiiine,” she sang, wrenching open the door . ..
“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine.”
“Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine,” she continued,
Life was good. Life was very, very good.
The day after that
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
Kate looked up from her book.
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
“You– You– ”
One of his brows lifted dangerously. “You never were terribly skilled at vocabulary retrieval when crossed.”
“How did you– How did you– ?”
She was going to kill him.
Kill.
Kill kill kill.
right to the top of the hill.
Right to the top.
Right to the top.
And then down it.
While parts were fun, the stylized writing, repetitive words, and the price made this novella a pass for me. I don’t regret getting it for free, but I don’t think I would be happy paying for 8 of these. C- for this novella and F to HarperCollins who wants to charge so much for them.
Best regards,
Jane
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Jun 07, 2006 @ 14:52:22
Jane said: F to HarperCollins who wants to charge so much for them.
Just as a note, most short-story length ebooks seem to run between $2 – $4. I’ve seen some for $1, but that’s usually for stories between 2 – 3k. Considering that, I don’t think HarperCollins is being entirely unreasonable in their pricing.
That all being said, I’m cringing at the excerpts. *twitch*
Jun 07, 2006 @ 14:58:38
I didn’t realize that novellas were priced so high for the word count. I don’t buy many novellas. I was at Cobblestone Press the other day buying a book and refused to buy a “Tryst” because of its length v. price. A “Tryst” is between 10,000-20,000 words and the cost was $3.99. I wasn’t paying 4 bucks for a novella. So, I guess I give all publishers a low grade for novella pricing.
Jun 07, 2006 @ 15:09:33
Yeah. It’s pretty much the norm — if you go to Fictionwise, scroll down till you see “Short Stories” in the column. Click, then select “Romance” as a category. Almost everything is between $2 – $5.
Jun 08, 2006 @ 04:08:44
Yep I think so with the pricing and novella’s. I did enjoy the one Cobblestone I have read so far. And will post about it soon.
Glad you got this! I will after I read the book :). Just to try it out if nothing else.