Dear Ms. Putney,
Nestled between Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Ain't She Sweet and Amanda Quick's Scandal on my bookshelf are ten of your novels and your novella collection Christmas Revels. It's been over sixteen years since the first of these paper-bound inhabitants settled into my library, and they have not been allowed to gather dust.
I'm a finicky and spoiled reader: only one romance author has written a greater number of books that I have kept, and truthfully, I've mostly held on to her books out of nostalgia. They sit there unread, peering at my well-thumbed-through copies of Petals in the Storm and Angel Rogue, Uncommon Vows and The Wild Child, Shattered Rainbows and One Perfect Rose and yellowing with time and envy. To say that your books are dearly beloved is both a bad pun and an understatement.
I begin my open letter this way in the hope that you will understand that my disappointment with your latest book, The Marriage Spell, is partly a function of my great appreciation for your 1990s works. It is not that The Marriage Spell is a bad book; in fact, my opinion is that it's better than average. …