CASCADIA—CHICK LIT?
As an author, you’re a public figure. Whether you like or not, your works—your books—become a free-fire zone for public opinion.
I don’t disagree with that. People spend their hard-earned money to buy your products and thus have every right to express their thoughts about them.
Your books will be both acclaimed and denigrated. It’s part of the business. I don’t particularly like getting a thumbs down in a book review—and I don’t often—but it comes with the territory. Readers have different expectations and standards. I get it.
But some criticisms totally puzzle me. Like one that Cascadia got a few days ago that said, in part, “This felt like a ‘chick’ novel . . . . I expected more hypothetical scenarios involving the aftermath of the mega-quake, but instead received a novel about romantic relationships.”
Romantic relationships? Uhh, are you sure you read Cascadia?
Yes, there are relationships in the novel. But certainly nothing of a classic romantic nature. There is what I’d term an “anti-romantic” subplot, but true romance? Nope.
And I didn’t, by design, dwell on the aftermath of the disaster. I focused instead on the conflicts, both moral and physical, that people face when caught in the teeth of an unimaginable tragedy.
Like I said, folks have different expectations and standards. But “chick novel?” Gotta be honest. That one left me totally bamboozled.
At least they read it, I guess. I am infatuated with the Oregon Coast and was searching for novels set there and ran across Cascadia which I can’t wait to read. The last time we stayed there (this time Pacific City) the first thing I did was find the Tsunami route.
As the folks who live in the coastal town of Manzanita say, “I’m Prepared, Not Scared.”
Ok…You’ve now covered most of the natural disasters, but as I’m in a small study chat group now, on the recent ongoing eruption of the Bali volcano (not to mention the other erupting volcano’s around the globe), I’m staring at seismographs and guess and hoping your next book is on that very subject. Volcano’s. A long while back, I asked you about tsunami’s and lo and behold you answered saying Cascadia was on the way. Hope to see a volcano disaster novel soon. Take care and happy holidays.
Sorry, Judy. No volcanoes. Next book (if and when) will be set against an historic forest fire in Oregon 1933. The working title is FIREWIND.