Us Smarty McSmart Bitches were talking about Books That Suck today, and in the course of the conversation, it was discovered that Cassie Edwards has earned nothing but Fs at All About Romance. Seven different reviewers gave seven different books Fs, and then LLB stepped in and said AAR was no longer going to review any more Cassie Edwards novels. Seven straight Fs. Good God, that’s some hard, hard punishment right there, and you know I’m talking about what the seven different reviewers went through when they had to read those books. Even Connie Mason got a few Ds, though LLB threw in the towel for her too at nine books.
Which leads to the question: Is Cassie Edwards real? And its corollary: who buys these books? Because obviously she’s been writing for a long time, and she sells enough books that the publisher keeps renewing her contract for her to produce new ones. But back to “Is Cassie Real?” Sarah’s theory is that Edwards is what she fondly calls “Crap by Committee,” in which various ghostwriters write books under the same pseudonym. I disagree. I think Edwards’ books display a frightening consistency that indicate yes, all those words emanated from the same brainpan. Plus she has an official website (which isn’t working right now). And a fan club! These surely indicate that she’s real, and not Crap by Committee.
Please tell me only one person and not a multitude are responsible for books like Savage Surrender, Savage Bliss and Savage Embers. (And really: SAVAGE EMBERS? What are they doing, running around maliciously and brutally singeing holes in your good blouse?)
So Cassie Edwards is real, and only one person, right?
Right?
*crickets*
Please hold me, I’m just a scared girl in a hard, lonely world.
For $12 you can enter the Inner Sanctum of CE Fandom and ask them. I’m sure they’d love that question. (And I’m just taking a wild guess about the plurality of the fan club population.) If you make it out in one piece you can let us all know. 😉
Hee. I can’t even be bothered to join the fan clubs for authors I actually like, much less weather the wilderness of the Cassie Edwards fan club, even for a cause as worthy and near to my heart as a fact-finding mission for this website. I know I like to call myself “intrepid,” but even I have limits.
(And to be brutally honest, those limits are set really low. Like, ridiculously low. Like, “Can I Google this and find an answer within 3 minutes?” low. The truth behind my intrepidity is revealed! Sob!)
I’m kind of wondering when that fan club was started. Can you imagine an author today offering a picture of herself and access to her fan’s message board for $12? She’d be laughed off the internet.
And if Google can’t find it, the answer was not meant to be known. It’s a cosmic thing.
Does anyone have one of her books? Would the copyright give the answer? (If it is copyrighted by X Inc., or actually Cassie Edwards?)
And if she is such a big seller, why aren’t there *more* sites devoted to her on the internet? A Yahoo group? Anything? Is her fandom made up of old biddies who use snail mail?
Yikes! I just went to Amazon.com to see if they had a copyright page in the ‘search inside this book’ thingy, and she’s got four stars (SAVAGE DANCE—will save my rant about “Savage” in the title for later)! Four reviewers gave her five stars, and one “this is the most horrible romance I’ve ever read”.
So they are definitely out there.
Or…each of the writers who make up the Cassie Edwards-brain trust also leaves a review *g* Maybe we should ask Mr. Owl?
Yipes! I just checked out the Amazon.com reviews (that was a great idea, meljean, don’t know why it didn’t occur to me) and…. OK, what I’m about to say is going to push me waaaay over the “snarktastic” line and right into the middle of the deepest, darkest jungles of Meanie Bitchylandia, but I’m going to say it anyway:
Can any of the people who wrote the 5-star reviews for those books use apostrophes, commas and/or articles properly? Or at least learn to spell “definitely” correctly, and not confuse “too” for “to” or “two”?
The above doesn’t apply to Harriet Klausner, but even she gives the books four stars, not her usual 5, and everyone knows that anything less than a 5 from Harriet means it’s gonna stink on ice.
OK, OK, I’m done, I’m off to groom my paws and take a quick nap in the sunshine.
Luckily, Harriet’s reviews give away the entire book, including the ending, so we don’t have to read the books anyway. Gushing Cliff Notes for romance novels.
I’ve read/skimmed quite a few while standing in the book aisle at the supermarket (it takes me a long time to get groceries)—they were fun in that train-wreck way. Not a guilty pleasure, but a snarky one, I guess. Man, I am so going to hell.
In my opinion, Cassie Edwards novels are fun the same way MST3K movies are fun: any and all hilarity to be had from the book itself is generally unintentional, and the greatest enjoyment comes from snarking about it with fellow sufferers. This is why I’m feeling unnaturally gleeful that Sarah has agreed to read Desire’s Blossom for our Bad Book Challenge in April. (I agreed to read Honey Moon, which is apparently so bad Sarah couldn’t finish it.)
Oh, and Meljean—last one in goes without sunscreen, nyah nyah!
By SEP?
*clutches chest*
You are so going to hell with Meljean.
Weighing in a bit late here, but Cassie Edwards is indeed a real person, and there’s (as far as I know, of course) just one of her.
Ah, Desire’s Blossom. One of the best bad romance titles ever.
Just wanted to clarify that Cassie Edwards is indeed real and only one person.
The Cassie Edwards Internation Fan Club was started after Cassie received many requests from her fans.
Since Cassie and I are friends she contacted me and asked if I would like to start the fan club and run it. I told her I would.
The fan club is entering it’s 4th year and there are over 500 fan club members at the writing of this email. Each one is very happy with the way the fan club is run.
The $12 membership feel covers their membership packet, an autographed photo, a welcome letter, birthday card, Christmas card, 4 newsletters, contests for members only, a fan club website, updated book lists, fan club bookmarks, and more.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me at the above email address.
Sincerely,
Tammy Russotto