The Wayback on Wednesday: Elizabeth Hoyt pens an epilogue.
published on January 1, 2008
Earlier this year we presented to you, our readers, in celebration of our tenth anniversary online, parody epilogues. Unlike the PPP Contest, these epilogues are not be judged; they are simply for your enjoyment.
This one is from the fabulous Elizabeth Hoyt and features the heroes from her superb Princes Trilogy.
A Princely Epilogue
Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was talk of a sequel . . .
“Dude,” groaned the Leopard Prince as he sipped from his mocha latte, half skim, no whip. “There’s no way Elizabeth Hoyt can do a sequel.”
“Way,” croaked the Raven Prince. He poked his straw in his orange frappuccino morosely. All three princes were at their favorite Starbucks, a place at the corner of Never Never and Just Past Midnight, that drew a rather upscale fairy tale crowd. “She could do the Elephant Prince, the Jellyfish Prince, the Giraffe Prince—“
“The Pillbug Prince,” rasped the Serpent Prince, “the Chickadee Prince, the Wolverine Prince—“
“That’s been done—it’s a comic,” objected Leopard.
“But he isn’t a prince,” said Raven. “And anyway he doesn’t turn into a Wolverine.”
“So why do they call him Wolverine?” asked Leopard. He reached across the table and broke off a corner of the Serpent Prince’s chocolate chip scone. “Doesn’t make sense. He should be, like, Claws, or Blades o’ Death or—”
“Back off my scone, man,” hissed the Serpent Prince. “Listen, the point is the woman is running out of viable ideas on how to end her fairytales. Look at me.”
Both of the other princes winced. The truth was that the S-man had definitely come off the worse for wear of any of the fairy tale princes, what with the enormous stainless steel staples used to reattach his head.
The miniskirt-wearing princesses at the table next to theirs hastily looked away as the Serpent Prince cocked his head at them and hissed.
Leopard cleared his throat. Man, he hated it when the S-man did that head cock thing. Always looked like his head might, y’know, come totally off. Kinda gave him the heebie jeebies. “Anyway, point is, we gotta stop this Hoyt woman.”
“Stop her from what?” Raven croaked. “Writing? I don’t think so. She still has payments on her new AlphaSmart and I hear she’s taken to calling herself La Hoyt—“
“La Hoyt?” Leopard nearly choked. “Sounds like an LA suburb.”
“Or an LA nightclub,” hissed the S-man.
“Whatever.” Raven slurped from his frappuccino. “She’s not going to stop writing any time soon.”
All three princes were quiet for a bit then, listening to the shriek of the espresso machine. The S-man scratched at his neck staples.
“Okay,” Raven finally said. “What if we sent her in another direction?”
“Like south?” Leopard asked.
“No, dude!” the S-man hissed. “Wings means like a different writing direction.”
“Self help books are popular.” Leopard perked up. “She could write Authors Who Love Imaginary Men.”
“Or Authors Who Decapitate Their Heroes,” S-man hissed moodily. “Yeah, I don’t think so. The lady’s not cut out for self help.”
Raven cleared his throat. “What about mysteries?”
“Dude, I dunno,” Leopard objected. “I totally figured out who the murderer was in my book, even with the red herrings.”
“Okay, no mysteries,” Raven mused. “What about a different romance subgenre? Vampires are popular.”
“Oh, hey, and she’s been reading a lot of J.R. Ward, too!” Leopard said.
“J.R. Ward?” The S-man squinted. “How do you know?”
“I just know, my brother, I just know,” Leopard was trying to look mysterious but he was a bit hampered by his mocha latte mustache. “You feel me?”
“What is in that latte? Crack?” hissed the S-man.
“Guys! Guys! We gotta focus,” Raven croaked. “Maybe if she just wrote, y’know, contemporary romances, instead of all this historical stuff.”
“I can see that,” Leopard mused. “Maybe with an FBI agent hero and a librarian heroine who takes a harlequin Great Dane on the run with her in a baby blue ’68 Chevy pick-up. And it could be set somewhere exotic, like Wisconsin.”
Both of the other princes stared at him.
“What?” Leopard said, and then caught sight of his watch. “Oh, man I gotta go. I promised the old lady I’d be home for supper. Her parents are coming. Again.”
Raven winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, and every time, they’re always telling her “You could’ve married that young king.” Sheesh.” Leopard drained his latte and lobbed the empty cup at the trash can.
“One benefit to marrying a goat herd girl,” the S-man mused. “No in-laws. ‘Course we do eat a lot of mac and goat cheese . . .”
“Yeah, well, at least your woman isn’t always asking you to do that feather thing in bed,” Raven croaked.
Leopard winced. TMI. “Oookay. Well, it’s been real, guys. Same time next week?”
The S-man made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and shot both Leopard and Raven. “Count on it.” He strolled from the Starbucks.
Raven held the door for Leopard and looked out at the fading sun. He slid on his Oliver Peoples shades and sighed. “Just another happily ever after day in fairy tale land.”
It’s an unfortunate situation, and it can hurt the author’s career. As audio becomes more and more in demand by readers, I hope that publishers will listen to their writers, the fan base, and reviewers of audio books to get better insight as to who is the appropriate voice for a given book/series.
Same here on narrator choice. And often, authors don’t get to have any input over who is chosen to narrate their books, so if it’s someone they don’t like they’re often stuck with them!
For me her delivery is too affected, all style and little substance. Authors that lock themselves into a single narrator for their entire canon run the risk of losing listeners who simply can’t stand that person. Narrator choice is nearly always the reason I pass on a book that otherwise interests me. In Hoyt’s case it makes no real difference, since I’m not interested anyway. But there are plenty of other books that sounded great and then I see who narrates… I can’t do that to my poor ears. Or my brain! Lol!
I kept trying to read Hoyt’s books, for years. But, they just never appealed. I don’t especially like fairy tales, so that left out the Princes Trilogy, and the Maiden Lane books bored me to tears. I have not tried anything else.
I did like this ‘epilogue’ however! If her books had been written like that, I think I would have loved them!
I like her Legend of the Four Soldiers series better than the Maiden Lane. The first one, To Taste Temptation, is on sale right now for 2.99.
Did you ever read her novella “The Ice Princess” by Hoyt? I really enjoyed it. The heroine is a former courtesan who runs a brothel (to safeguard herself and the others that work there). She’s a great character, intelligent and a woman who worked her way up from what life gave her, not one of those “I’m a sheltered noble girl who decided to take up prostitution one day to teach my family a lesson” characters.
I don’t think so. I’ll check it out. Thanks!
I will be honest -after the first few of her books, I started skipping the fairy tales. You don’t have to read them to enjoy the books, at least in my humble opinion.
A big part of the problem with Hoyt is her chosen narrator, Ashford McNab. I’m not crazy about Hoyt’s writing to begin with, and adding poor narration makes the whole package a soggy mess. So, I pass on her stuff these days.
An author and their voice is such a personal choice. Some just work for you and others don’t. My favorite of an author’s works are often their least or less popular book. I’m not sure why. There are some popular authors I just don’t “get” and others that I love that some people don’t care for. It’s like food, everyone has their own personal taste and happily there are plenty of choices for everyone.
Exactly!!
I used to like AM’s Hoyt narrations, but over time began to like them less and less – they’re too same-y and slow.
I loved Hoyt’s Princes trilogy. When I finished “The Raven Prince” I did something I’d never done before, which was to go back to the beginning and reread the whole thing immediately. I also enjoyed the Maiden Lane series at first, but, with a few exceptions (e.g., “Sweetest Scoundrel”), found them less satisfying as the series went on. Too high a percentage of the book spent on lusting, both mental and actual, for my taste. Hoyt can tell a compelling story and develop swoon worthy characters, but I’m not so interested when Tab A into Slot B seems to have more page space than characterization, plot or humor (which she can certainly do, as the Epilogue above shows). Of course, YMMV.
The Raven Prince is still my favorite Hoyt. I so love that book. I also like The Leopard Prince a bunch. I remember NOTHING about The Serpent Prince so that one must not have been a winner for me.
Everyone else seems to love the Serpent Prince and it’s the one of this series I never finished. Maybe it’s time to go back and finally see what happens.
The Raven Prince (despite all the very unlikely happenings) was my favorite too of that series but I did prefer a few of her Maiden Lane books overall.
Well if they thought she wrote a lot of Princes, wait until they saw all the Maiden Lane books! They went on for years. I confess I am a sucker for interrelated stories and characters. I know it annoys some people but I like it. Half the fun of these Immortals After Dark books is figuring out who is related to who and seeing part of a story in one book that gets finished in the next one.
“I confess I am a sucker for interrelated stories and characters. I know it annoys some people but I like it.” Recurring characters can definitely be comforting. I especially like when well-developed side characters in a romance (or any other genre for that matter) get to star in their own stories as well.