Lyn Hamilton writes the Archaeological Mystery Series which features Lara McClintoch, an antiques dealer. I guess I should restate that: Lyn Hamilton WROTE the series. Hamilton has decided to retire Lara after eleven books in the series. Actually, the final book in the series (The Chinese Alchemist) was released in paperback form at the beginning of 2008. That publication marks Lara’s end.)
I know that Hamilton’s retirement will make a lot of her fans sad… BUT>>> I think that it’s terrific when an author decides to retire a series. Not because I like series to actually end, but because (I feel that) sometimes it appears that an author has lost interest/fresh ideas/a passion for their characters>>> and I think that it’s sad to see that…at least to me it is sad. I know of one cozy author (***NOT Hamilton!***) who is getting reviews on Amazon from her fans saying that they think she is no longer writing the series’ books… but that ghostwriters are being employed to churn out more book$.
I was very grateful when a site reader pointed this tidbit of information out to me. My time perusing authors’ sites is spent on looking at new authors (to the site… not necessarily new authors!) So, I always appreciate hearing from site readers who have an update… as well as possible new authors to the site. (Thank you, Joyce!)
Violette says
I don’t view the retiring of a series as a bad thing. You know the author is just going to start another one that is just as good. The ghostwriting issue doesn’t make sense to me. What writer wants to have a book they wrote be published under another’s name?
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Hi Violette,
When I looked at Hamilton’s website I got the distinct impression that she is indeed retiring from writing any more books. It looked like she enjoyed teaching a college-level class last year>>> Who knows, she might be planning on continuing with that career…
As for the ghostwriting… The posts on Amazon suggested that the series’ fans think that particular author is using ghostwriters to continue the series under her name. I didn’t mean that she is actually writing books to publish under other people’s names.