Beverly:
Personally, of the romance authors that fall into that extremely productive & seemingly endless backlist category, I much prefer Jayne Ann Krentz (AKA Amanda Quick & Jayne Castle most notably) to Nora Roberts (AKA J.D. Robb). There's a certain smoothness to Krentz's writing while she's immersing the reader in romance symbolism that covers a multitude of sins. And I've always adored her quirky, many times strangely unorthodox and atypical characters. By contrast, Robert's characters have always struck me as extremely stereotypical in a bad way and her plots seem, I don't know, just awkward to me.
While I haven't read lots of Krentz, I think I agree here. She's just a better writer. (And you would know good writing, based upon the fact that "In the Beginning" is one of my all time FAVORITE fanfics.) Nora is successful commercially, but she's not that good a writer (technically). I, too, find her stuff repetitive. I find it amusing that her reissued novella anthologies are actually testimony to her
lack of originality. But what do I know either?
What I *am* glad of is that Cruisie is seeing the commercial success that she deserves.
Sherry
