Not Her Cup of Tea...

"I just finished reading your book (Signs in the Blood) which I won at the ______ library when you were there and really enjoyed it until I read the following sentence..........(Deleted to avoid spoiler).....that was totally disgusting and ruined the whole book for me.............it was so appalling that I felt like I should let you know..................."

There's a useful phrase people use in talking about books -- 'not my cup of tea.'  No book pleases everyone but I kinda hate it that the lady who wrote this email to me found a sentence 'disgusting. ' Makes me feel a little sleazy.

On the other hand, I do ask people to let me know what they think and I shouldn't be surprised if the thoughts are sometimes negative.  Different folks enjoy different types of fiction, even different types of mysteries. And different folks have different tolerance levels -- we've already talked here about the danger of killing a (fictional) cat or dog. 

I replied to this lady, explaining briefly my reason for the disgusting sentence. Probably we both feel better now.

And on the same day I received the following:

"I was lucky enough to win a copy of Signs In The Blood at the Virtual Bcon last year.  I liked it enough to get the rest of the series and have spent this week reading them.  They are all very good, Old Wounds is my absolute favorite as it has a lot of me in it.  ...(Sentence deleted to avoid a spoiler.)

I have stayed up till nearly midnight this whole week reading and now hopefully will be back to my normal sleeping schedule.

Thank you so much for the reading pleasure you have given me!"

So now I don't feel so sleazy anymore.  It all balances out.