Why A Book 2 Needs To Be Badass

I love series—especially trilogies. There is nothing more satisfying to me than living with characters I love in a world that I’m dying to be in over the span of several books. They tend to be the books I remember best because I necessarily have to devote more time to them. Most of my favorite characters are in series in part because I get to spend hours by their side. Can you imagine there being just one Harry Potter or Throne of Glass? One His Dark Materials, one Alanna? Hell no. Though sometimes crazy-making, it’s a delicious sort of torture when I have to wait for the next book. We’ll call it literary foreplay. By the time I get that book—whether I had to wait a year or a day—I am so ready, so hot and bothered for that story to continue.

All that being said, when an author decides to write a story in series and then falls down on the job I am NOT OKAY WITH THAT. Author and reader are entering into a contract with one another when embarking on a novel, or novels. It’s built on trust: I, author, will not waste precious hours of your life with a sub-par book; you, reader, will pick up my book, trusting I’ve upheld my end of the bargain. I get seriously pissed off when a series doesn’t get better as it goes along. And I get really annoyed…