Over the past three years, I have read the entire backlist of a certain New York Times-bestselling, RITA Award-winning romance novelist. Although I haven’t loved all of her books, I have been entertained by enough of them that I experienced a little thrill of anticipation recently when I spotted her latest release in the bookstore. I made my purchase, hit the Starbucks drive-thru window on the way home, and then settled eagerly into my favorite reading corner.
Halfway through the first chapter, I was convinced that I had read the book before. I checked the copyright page and realized that wasn’t possible. Then I read on, my confusion mounting. I knew the story. Knew exactly what was going to happen next. Knew how the book would end.
Near the end of the second chapter, I realized what was going on. No, I had not developed psychic powers; I knew the story because I had read it before. Last year, in fact. As it turned out, the new novel is a retelling of the story contained in the author’s previous book, but is related this time from the point of view of a man and woman who appeared as secondary characters in that first story. As I continued to read I was amazed to find entire scenes and long stretches of dialogue copied from the first book, altered only to indicate that events were now being seen through the new hero’s and heroine’s eyes.
There are no story questions in this “new” novel. Readers of the other book will already know exactly what’s going to happen, and when, and why, and how. I quit reading on page 110, less than a third of the way through the book. I hadn’t enjoyed the other book enough to reread it, yet that was exactly what I had been doing, never mind that the main characters had been swapped out for a couple that I found marginally more interesting.
How could such a talented author have made such a mistake? And what on earth had her editor been thinking?
Clearly, this repackaged story was a literary experiment. My opinion is that it failed miserably; I wish I could get back my $7.99 and the time I wasted on the book. But there really is no accounting for taste, so I am prepared to believe that some readers will actually enjoy revisiting the events of the other book and seeing them through the secondary couple’s eyes.
I have never before encountered a “recycled” novel in the romance genre, but I’m betting many RTB readers have come across this kind of thing. I’d love to see some discussion here on what might drive authors to take such risks. Also, perhaps some of you will comment on specific books that have delighted or disgusted you by deviating dramatically from what the authors in question had conditioned you, their faithful readers, to expect.
No related posts.
I actually really applauded the idea…but the execution fell flat for me. I really enjoyed the first book and the main couple and was looking forward to the secondary couple being featured as the leads from another perspective. A sort of romancelandia version of Rashomon (and I’ll admit to being a sucker for all the times that idea is used and reused in cinema).
The problem with Mr. Cavendish for me, though, wasn’t that I knew how it would end but that it was not as interesting a romance story, and the dynamics between Thomas and Amelia were not nearly as compelling as those between Grace and Jack, whom I loved. I think Ms. Quinn was actually holding back from rehashing Thomas too much and therefore I felt his character and motivations were actually underdeveloped. (Even though I had read the first book, I was treating Mr. Cavendish as a standalone book.) I hope people won’t see this experiment as a failure of the entire form, just a failure in execution for a particular book.
Readers may be tired and busy, but they are not stupid.
Those who doubt that do so to their own peril.
I want to read this book now, just to see how it was done, and to evaluate it’s success or failure so that I can learn from it. If it doesn’t work, the flaw began when the first book was written and the stories were created to be parallel. But I’d think there would be enough under the surface and a direction could be taken with the characters that hadn’t been seen originally.
That being said, I think you’re right, Brenda. I bet for every person doesn’t love this reworking of the story from a different perspective, there are an equal amount that love revisiting the characters and the story from this new perspective.
I’m planning to buy the second book, and I’m looking forward to it – but then, I know what to expect.
I have read that sort of take on P&P – a book retelling the story from Mr Darcy’s POV that used huge amounts of the original – which I did enjoy, but it will be so much more fun to see it done by the author herself, because she *knows* what the other character was thinking.
If Stephenie Meyer does release ‘Midnight Sun’ (’Twilight from Edward’s POV) I would want to read it – there’s something that deeply appeals to me about the idea of hearing the same story, by the same person, told from a different perspective.
Of course, whether I’ll enjoy such a book will depend on the execution – if the author just repeats the same scenes and reveals nothing new, that would be boring. If the author lets us see the same events filtered through a different world view, coloured by a different set of values and preconceptions, it could be great.
I do think, however, that it should be made clear to the reader – before they buy the book – the kind of story it is. I’m normally completely opposed to the idea of returning books to a bookshop, but in this instance, I think you ought to be able to get your $7.99 back.
The only way this experiment will fail
is if you return the book.
Otherwise they got their money
and proof it worked.
BTW…
every major bookstore will accept a return for that reason.
They don’t advertise the fact
but they do.
How do I know?
Because I’m very, very forgetful
and often end up buying the same books
again and again.
I’ve never had an issue with returns.
And returning the book
gives you a chance to talk to the booksellers.
They can hopefully prevent other readers from making the same mistake.
Ahhh… reading Sara’s comment,
I didn’t realize it was the Julia Quinn books.
The first was the only Julia Quinn book
I’ve ever disliked
(I know, I know,
this Julia Quinn fangirl was shocked too)
so I’m definitely not reading the second.
I’d rather spend the time
rereading Minx or Splendid
(yes, I’m old school).
I don’t mind the concept but as everyone has basically said, the execution fell flat. There were many occasions in The Lost Duke where Thomas and Amelia were not present in scenes. Quinn could have told us about their story, in the majority, from those occasions.
Also, though The Lost Duke would have set up conversations as ‘fact’, meaning, ‘this is what was said’; the nature of life is that 5 people could listen to one conversation and hear 5 different things. She could have explored that element as well. Same scene but different words – the ones that matter most to these new characters.
And leaving aside the concept of parallel romances now, I would have preferred if Cavendish started up right after the end of Lost Duke so that there would be more development to the romance between Amelia and Thomas. The way Lost Duke was written necessarily constrained how much ‘getting to know each other’ the two could have gone through and resulted, for me, in an inferior romance.
Since this post isn’t so much about Quinn as about the idea of ‘copying and pasting’ in the name of ‘concept’, I’ll say again that I have no problems with the concept. Parallel romances are also cute and I so often prefer secondary romances and wish they had their own story. However, the way in which this was done was unimaginative at best, lazy at worst.
I have not read this book, and probably won’t now. I don’t like rehashed episodes. I might watch reruns, but I get board very easily with reworked stories.
Maybe the author, just simply ran out of ideas, and her agent or editor, said, “Hey I have an idea, use the formal for this book and just change the POV. We have deadline, and you need to write this book.” Well as it has been said, she got her money. You bought the book.
More recently, I’ve taken to sitting down in bookstores and taking the time to read the at least ten pages of a book before I buy it. It has saved me some money. It isn’t fool proof, but it might help from making a purchase that isn’t what you thought it was going to be. In tight times like now, I make sure my 7.99 is spent wisely.
Although it’s the characters who keep me reading through a series, (which is why I bought 14 JD Robb books immediately after reading Naked in Death), I don’t like knowing what happens next.
I cut my teeth on mysteries, where the reader solves a puzzle, and facts are revealed as the protagonist discovers them. For this reason, I’m not a big suspense fan, because I don’t like knowing what’s going to happen before h/h do. And that’s how I write, too, and why I’m anal to the point of stopping a book if I discover there’s another one (or more) already out there.
I loved discovering Suzanne Brockmann, but when I went back to fill in the backlist, I didn’t enjoy reading when I already knew too much about the airplane hijacking that was the central plot of the book, because I already knew how it turned out, and how the characters would end up together in the next book.
And, another minor grumble (maybe not so minor) is that there’s already so much shelf space devoted to reissues…writing the same story from another POV seems one more way to keep new authors off the shelves.
Since this post isn’t so much about Quinn as about the idea of ‘copying and pasting’ in the name of ‘concept’….
Yes. I did realize that many of you would recognize the book mentioned in my post. I chose not to refer to it by title because I didn’t want to see this discussion center on a single book, but on the concept of retelling a story from a different POV, and especially why an author might choose to do that.
Stephanie Meyers has been mentioned here. I think her reason for retelling her first story from the hero’s point of view was to satisfy her readers’ clamoring for “more about Edward.” Clearly, that wasn’t the case with the Julia Quinn book–although I can’t imagine what her motive might have been for writing a novel that way.
By the way, I have been thoroughly entertained by many of Julia Quinn’s books, and I have no plans to return this latest novel for a refund. I’ve never liked the idea of doing that to “punish” an author or “send a message” to her publisher. I buy only books that I think I will like; it’s inevitable that I will make an occasional mistake. While I might grumble about those ill-advised purchases, I see the fault as my own. I should have looked at the book more carefully, checked out some reviews, etc.
The “retelling from another POV” concept comes up a lot in Jane Austen-derived novels, many of which are retold from Mr. Darcy’s point of view. I read one, though, that was basically copied and pasted from Austen’s original text with a few paragraphs here and there describing how Mr. Darcy feels. I didn’t feel like I was getting anything new out of the story, just a slight shift in narration. I’m sure the concept can work, probably quite well, but I haven’t been impressed by what I’ve seen so far.
Considering Julia Quinn’s track record, I would never suspect her of taking the easy way out. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t say anything about execution, but I don’t like the idea.
As a writer, I feel as though I have one chance to make a scene “perfect,” and I limit myself to one character per scene.
There’s a film by a famous Japanese director (Kirosawa?), who made a movie in which one scene is rehashed, over and over again, by many different characters. For him, I guess it worked, because that film is supposed to be brilliant.
I stopped reading Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels for this reading: the stories were told from different viewpoints, but the plot was being rehashed, so you’d get half the last book and half the next one; it felt silly to continue.
I’ve actually written scenes that occurred in two related books, and each time the scene had a different significance to them, was condensed or drawn out in different places.
I cannot imagine recycling a scene even through a PoV change – different people observe different things, interpret them differently, and the events narrated in a book should reflect that.
This happened to me a couple of times last year. Thought I was losing my mind.
Didn’t like or appreciate it.
I have both of these books coming in the mail, and I think I’ll read them as follows – I’ll read the first one now, and then the second one a year later.
Was it bad because you’d read them too close together? That could be it. I could see why in theory such an experiment could work, however – a lot of novels (particularly Quinn’s) there are a lot of internal monologues, the insights into a character that we don’t get otherwise. Switching the characters could (again, in theory) change the scope of the story. In your opinion, it just didn’t work this time.
All props to Quinn, though, for taking risks with the romance genre.
I loved The Lost Duke of Wyndham, and have been considering buying the Mr. Cavendish book. Maybe I’ll check it out from the library, instead. I have read part of the first chapter (while waiting for a prescription at Walgreens), and there were differences. And clearly, the first novel goes certain places where this one can’t–i.e. I have no idea how the couple resolve their relationship after Cavendish loses his title. So, I know the ending, but not big parts of the middle.
But again, if there’s a lot of repeat content, I’ll borrow instead of buy.
Is it just me or have romance novels gotten shorter recently? It seems like 15 years ago, these “two” books would have been packaged together as one, 500-pager. A new trend? I’m not sure I would mind having a single longer title sometimes than a dozen “sequels”…
I’ve actually seen this kind of thing done very well in Jude Deveraux’s Twin of Ice and Twin of Fire. They were two distinct stories and only a little bit of overlapping happened. We also saw a lot of scenes that weren’t in the first book, and I thought both were wonderful.
I see a lot of the comments have already … well named books. While reading this post I was thinking “uh oh – I know one book like that.” I’m only on chapter 3 of “Mr. Cavendish” -but I’m getting that sense. I have to admit I was very disappointed to realize the “timeline” for the books is concurrent.
Also – I liked how you didn’t mention books (although it’s clear what prompted the post.) I’ve read a number of books where the epilogue of one book became chapter 1 of the next etc, entire chunks were the same… very annoying.
Maybe its because I am a devoted JQ fan or maybe its because I knew from the start that Duke and Cavendish were written with the same scenes but I really enjoyed both novels. Actually, Cavendish more than Duke. It was clear from the beginning of Duke who was the real Wyndham so its not like the mystery was ruined for me. Also, in Cavendish, the story really wasn’t about finding out who the duke was, it was about two people finding out who THEY were. I think JQ hit both these books straight on the nail and I definitely do not think she took “the easy way out” with either of them. She entertained her reader, she succeeded.
http://emilybecher.blogspot.com
I’ve never read books written like that from different viewpoints. I’m not sure I would like it unless I really liked the first book. As a writer, I’m going to check it out before forming an opinion. But the majority here didn’t seem to enjoy it. I would think you have to warm readers before they spend money on it or they will feel cheated.
Jean Johnson just recently released two books in her Sons of Destiny series covering two (actually four) different POVs of many of the same events. I thought it was a very interesting way to handle both couples’ stories and broke up the usual sequence of boy meets girl, yada, yada, they fall in love, yada, yada, etc.
I haven’t read the two Quinn books yet, but I’m looking forward to them. However, I DO hope this isn’t a new trend because, sprinkled here and there, it’s an interesting idea. But over and over again? Nope, that would get old real fast.
Based on the description in the post, knowing what was going to happen next, and knowing you’ve read the story before, I wouldn’t subscribe to this technique of writing a story. I don’t see how it could work, rewriting a romance from a different pov. The new characters would have different goals and motivations, that should alter the outcome of the second book. I could see this method working if the characters were more like observers of a situation, rather than participants.
There are two books that used the same scene and each book referenced the other book, but that was the extent of the connection. They were Delores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game by Stephen King. The use of the same scene was handled brilliantly because the characters in each book were observers of that same scene. Otherwise, these were two completely different books with different characters, etc.
In fairness to the reader, I would think the second book you bought would have at least indicated the connection between the two books.
This is the same idea behind the book Ender’s Shadow, it’s a retelling of Ender’s Game but from Bean’s perspective. It’s Bean’s book but it shows some of the already read scenes, I think this is what makes it really stand out. Plus it also comes 5th in the series and you start the timeline over with a character who started out supporting then became the star.
It might help if I remember to mention Orson Scott Card wrote the books.
Diane Whiteside does something similar with her Texas Vampires trilogy. Since the time line of the three books (and one short story in her The Hunter’s Prey collection) overlap, there are common scenes but narrated from different perspectives. While some of the dialogue is the same, there are differences, too, in dialogue as well as internal monologue. In this case, I think she pulled it off really well.
I choose to believe that Wyndham and Cavendish were an unsuccessful literary experiment, not the result of laziness, avarice, or incompetence.
The difference is important to me as a loyal Quinn fan. I’m merely disappointed, instead of pissed off.
I choose to believe that Wyndham and Cavendish were an unsuccessful literary experiment, not the result of laziness, avarice, or incompetence.
Ditto. Why is it that when readers don’t like a book, they assume the author merely phoned it in? We authors do have some pride. I can’t imagine any of us saying, “I need some money and I’m in a hurry and my readers are ignorant, anyway, so I’m just going to slap this book together and call it finished.”
Several years ago, I read a couple Silhouette Romances — I think they were by Holly Jacobs — that overlapped. It worked, but it helped a ton that there were only a few shared scenes. Yes, I knew from book 1 that the characters in book 2 were going to end up together, but for goodness’ sake, it was a romance novel. I didn’t need book 1 to give away the ending. The second book still maintained an appropriate amount of surprise.
But as much as I enjoyed those two books whose titles I have completely forgotten, I can picture the whole concept backfiring. It would be a lot harder to pull off if the leading characters have a lot of influence on each others’ books, because you’d end up telling the whole story in one book.
I agree with Dalia who siad “Also, though The Lost Duke would have set up conversations as ‘fact’, meaning, ‘this is what was said’; the nature of life is that 5 people could listen to one conversation and hear 5 different things. She could have explored that element as well. Same scene but different words – the ones that matter most to these new characters.” It’s hard to execute, but I really support the author brave enough (and well established enough) to make this attempt in earnest. It’s just like witness accounts can vary completely from person to person. For me, the trick of doing this effectively would be in seeing the DRAMATIC differences in perception, with only enough similarity to make you realize it’s the same plot from a different POV. That said, entire events can become skewed by perception, so differing accounts would be more appealing to me as a reader AND as an editor.
I agree on the execution thing. It’s hard to use secondary characters, who are now primary in their own story, to retell some events. I guess it’s okay if it’s for just a few scenes, but to abuse it …well…
I don’t like recycling of books where the title and cover has changed, but the story is the same as a previous book you read by the same author.
I would like to be informed that it’s the same book so I can at least decide whether or not I want to purchase the same book twice.
I read a lot of books and unless I’m reading it again for a book club, I prefer to only pick up a book once and read several different books by said author than reading the exact same book twice.
How frustrating! I can only wonder if she had over committed herself perhaps and this was a stop gap. But, still no excuse.
As for authors changing – I think that is cool. If they always stayed the same and did not evolve in their craft I think that would be dreadfully boring. I have enjoyed the changes in Karen Marie Monings style – she writes a great story.
If this happened to me, I wouldn’t consider it a literary experiment, but an insult.
While I can see some intrigue in the idea of having the same story retold by a different viewpoint character, I think the part where it gets insulting is the part where you can tell there are massive amounts of simple cut-and-paste going on. THAT is laziness, and it cannot be disguised as anything but.
“But how would you tell the same story without some duplication?” you may ask.
Simple. The same way two people hear the same conversation, yet “hear” different words. Sometimes hear entirely different messages. In other words…IT WON’T BE THE SAME WORDS. It won’t be cut and pasted. It will be the same essential conversation, only filtered through your viewpoint character so that it actually comes out different. THIS is getting truly into these characters’ heads–seeing and hearing things the way THEY saw and heard them (which isn’t going to be the way the first book characters did), getting the message THEY got (which isn’t going to be the same message the characters in the first book got), etc.
THAT would truly make it a book told from a different viewpoint–in that everything, dialogue included, will be filtered through the appropriate viewpoint characters, and shaded accordingly. Anything else–especially passages that a reader recognizes verbatim–isn’t truly writing from that viewpoint character, but from the POV of an omniscient narrator who periodically “steps aside” to let the “hero” or “heroine” then have their say. If you catch passages that are identical to the first, therefore, they’re not in anyone’s deep POV…not if you can find identical expression going on.
In deep POV, two different viewpoint characters are going to do even the most basic things differently…including hear, and interpret, different words out of the same dialogue passage. If the author had DONE that, it would be genius. If she didn’t, she didn’t really rewrite the same story from a different viewpoint…she simply recycled material and changed enough details that her editor was willing to let it slide through. Shame on both of ‘em for that.
I’d have returned that book so fast it’d hit the author on the head on the way back from cashing her royalty check…and I’d have written the publisher to tell them WHY I returned it. That’s playing fast and loose with a reader, plain and simple. There’s nothing “experimental” about it…except maybe the gamble on whether readers are going to take it lying down!
My take,
Janny