Poll

I usually don't give up on a series if the first book doesn't grab me. I'll make my decision after I read the second or third book in the series. Never after the first one.

Why? Because with so many really good series the author won't hit her stride until the second or third book. So I would miss out on a lot of really good series if I didn't give the second and/or third book a try.

Sherrilyn Kenyon and Christine Feehan come immediately to mind. Lots of people complain about "Fantasy Lover," the first novel in Kenyon's "Dark-Hunter" series, because it is so different from the rest of the series. And I struggled to get through "Dark Prince," the first novel in Feehan's "Carpathian" series. But they are both good series, so I'm glad I made it through the first few. Well, worth my time and money. :)

xoxo
Laura Stamps
Author of Paranormal Romance and Erotica Novels
http://www.LauraStamps.blogspot.com (to read excerpts from my novel series)
http://laura-stamps8.livejournal.com (my naughty Author Blog/updated daily)

I do the same Laura. First books sometimes fall flat so I give the author another try. If I still don't like it I don't bother reading another one in the series.

Most of the time, I really have to go read the rest. It's drives me nuts to read only part of a series. But if I really hate the first book or 2 (like Anne Stuart's ICE series) I'll give in and not read the rest.

It depends. If it's a new author that I've never read before then I'm not going to follow up with the rest of the series.

If it's an author I do like then I'll give the series another chance and check out the next book. I did that with Eloisa James' Desperate Duchesses series. Hated the first book but I decided to give it another go...ended up hating the second book too!

It depends on whether or not there's a book later in the series that I want to read. For example, I heard that the first book in the Cynster series by Stephanie Laurens was the best so I read it. I didn't particularly find it that engaging but I still read reviews about the others and ultimately didn't go on with the rest of the books. Here weren't any other ones I wanted to read. Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, I read only the first 6 books because the series was going downhill. And I only was interested in the first 4 books anyway. With the Slightly series by Mary Balogh I heard the last book was very good so I read the entire series even though while reading I thought a few of the books in between weren't anything special. I didn't want to miss any little details.