My cubicle roomie at work recently got me slightly hooked on the In Death series by J.D. Robb.
Admittedly, I mostly skimmed the first book since Robb's descriptions continually pulled me out of the story through the first 15 or so pages. The mystery portion was lacking but the relationship aspect played well and I especially liked that the relationship wasn't the main focus. Typical romance novels and I are usually non-mixy... however, I've been pleasantly surprised by Crusie and Robb. So far.

The second and third books of the series show improved suspense. I've only finished the third book in the series just this last weekend, but looking forward to more. (Cubicle roomie brought me three more today but I forgot about them and left them at work.)

By the time you get to like, the 10th-16th book, they are really good. Then, they start to feel like she's just churning them out.

(You know it's Nora Roberts, right?)

I think the most recent Robb was quite good, actually.

(Like Henry VIII divorcing/executing all those wives, never considering that he might be the problem.)

That's still happening. I'm pretty sure the Shah of Iran divorced a wife for having only daughters. (Yup.)

You know it's Nora Roberts, right?

Yup. Found out from a commercial on tv promoting one of her books that was supposedly written by Roberts and Robb.

WTF? I mean, perhaps she uses a different writing style depending on which name she chooses to present as the author...but I was still left wondering if she knew that she was both authors.

By the time you get to like, the 10th-16th book, they are really good. Then, they start to feel like she's just churning them out.

This is what cubicle roomie says too. Still gives me 13 more books to read. BOOKS!

Ooh, there's a book "co-written" by Ed McBain and Evan Hunter that's kind of cool. (They're the same person, too.)

The book written by Robb and Roberts is... bad, imo. It's a gimmicky way to make money. It's really just two novels written with overlapping characters and some plot points that tie them together. The first novel is written in Roberts's style, but not at her best, and the second one is in Robb's style, and, though better than the first one, I think, still not her best work in that style.

I agree with Betsy that the most recent Robb was quite good -- one of the best of the series. The three (give or take) previous to it did have kind of that churned out feel with lots of lingering over the beauty of Rourke-Sue, but she seemed to get her stride back with this one.

There were three or 4 of the last ones - ( maybe less) that made me go eh... but divided in death -- back to her better ones.

In the robert/robb one I actually like the Roberts story betterand about 90% of the time I am not real interested in Roberts books. I read them , but they are forgetable. Roberts wrote one in a vineyard and I felt that it was wasted. " ahh - exotic location #302 - here's a fact , now let's get on with the kissing. "

I used to like Roberts a lot, and then they started all being the same story, so I stopped reading them. However, one of the most recent Roberts, Chesapeake something (I am terrible at titles), was recced in here, and I read it and enjoyed it.

I think Handmaid's Tale is her worst effort.

Wow. I definitely need to get around to reading her other stuff, then, because I loved Handmaid's Tale.

I just finished Lost in a Good Book. I'm not sure how well I liked it. I loved The Eyre Affair. It was a fun read. But in The Eyre Affair, he pretty clearly set up rules about what the fictional characters can and cannot do, and then it seemed like he had characters break almost all of them in Lost in a Good Book. I can kind of see some loopholes as to how it might be OK, but I'm not really sure that all of them work. The universe in this book really seemed to be operating by a different set of rules than the universe in the first book, and I think I liked the way it worked in the first one better.