Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich - I Read It, and Boy I'm Disappointed

Janet Evanovich is one of my favorite authors, has been for years.  I read about Stephanie Plum with delight, listen to the audiobooks and chuckle, and always await the publication of the next in the Plum series with great anticipation.

Well, maybe that excitement has wained somewhat since nothing seems to evolve with Stephanie and the gang.  Stephanie never chooses between Joe and Ranger.  Lula can be counted on for tight spandex and a new diet or two every book, and there's always the car that's gonna explode.  Then, the Plum Spooky series started appearing in between the number books, and I had hope.

I thought that maybe Janet E. was getting tired of writing the same old storyline, and maybe this paranormal humor test run would do her well.  Kinda like a rock and roll star who gets sick and tired of singing the same old hit song time and again, despite how much the fans demand to hear it.  Surely Rod Stewart has had enough of Maggie Mae?

Diesel would solve everything.  His new series -- debuting as Wicked Appetite this Fall -- would show how Janet Evonovich had jumped into a new pool of characters, new exciting plotlines, fresh jokes.  Oh, I was so ready for this and I thought ... assumed ... she was too.

I was wrong.

Wicked Appetite was a major disappointment for me. It's a poor imitation of the 123 series, and even then not the best of those books (which were the first few, by the way).   Lizzie is too much like Stephanie Plum, the bakery and surrounding neighborhood too much akin to the Trenton neighborhood, and the only thing that I was truly happily surprised to see:  Cluck in a Bucket never appeared. Thank Goodness. 

Same old fart jokes, Carl the Monkey shooting the bird, and the significant amount of white space on the pages had me checking to see if I had a Large Print book by mistake.  (I didn't.)  I didn't estimate a word count, but it's obviously pushing the edge of the envelope here to get the required number of pages of sellable product here. 

Janet, Janet, Janet.  You've got such talent and you've got people out here who love you.  Stop this.  You're disrespecting yourself to the point of being self-destructive here, in an obvious sellout to the Publishing Dollar.  Which, cruelly, will be disappearing soon enough -- I'm not buying anymore of your formula books and I'm reading all over the web where lots of other disappointed readers won't be either.

Maybe falling sales will send the message that all the Amazon one star comments haven't.