To All the Books I Wish I Hadn’t Written
A brutally honest ranking of every novel I’ve published
Rian Stone has now written two volumes of his “I Don’t Like Indie Books” series on Substack, and they’re some of the most useful things anyone has published about indie fiction. He reads the books, says what he actually thinks, and moves on. That sounds like the bare minimum, but in indie publishing, where everyone is terrified of hurting each other’s feelings and burning bridges, it’s practically revolutionary. I love those articles, and they made me want to do something similar, except aimed at myself, because apparently I enjoy suffering.
I’ve published eight novels. Some are good. Some are okay. One was a cynical cash grab that I’ve since unpublished, and I’m going to tell you about that too, because I’ve built a whole brand around telling other authors to be honest about their work, and it would be deeply embarrassing to not go first.
Here they are, ranked from worst to best. If you’ve never read my fiction, this is your reading guide. If you have, this is my public apology.
8. The Prince’s Pawn
I unpublished this book. I don’t sell it in my shop. That’s how much I hate this book. If you end up wanting to read it when I’m done telling you about it, just email me and I’ll send you the ebook.
Here’s what happened: the indie romance market was booming, and I wanted in. I figured I could write a closed-door paranormal romance, no explicit sex scenes, because I am genuinely bad at writing those. It’s not a shyness issue. I just produce very clinical, body-part-focused prose that reads like an anatomy textbook with groaning. So I went closed-door and thought I could make something that would sell well and that I could be proud of.
I got neither.
The premise is actually fine. Aria is an American with psychometric abilities who gets swept into the world of a Middle Eastern prince who needs her powers for political survival. The setup has genuine potential: reluctant proximity, high-stakes intrigue, powers that make intimacy dangerous. I still think the concept could work, and I liked where the first two-thirds were going.
The last third is where it falls apart, because that’s where I was supposed to bring the romance home and instead I kept trying to steer the book toward paranormal thriller territory. I wanted conspiracies and danger, and the genre wanted feelings and connection. My disdain for the genre I’d chosen showed up on the page, and you can feel the book fighting itself. The writing weakens because I was fighting my own instincts the entire time.
The lesson: write to market all you want, but you have to actually like the market. If you’re faking enthusiasm for a genre, the reader will know. They always know. I’m living proof.
Of all my books, this one feels most like content, something that exists to fill a slot on a shelf rather than to say something that matters to me. And I’m the person who tells other authors every day that writing content instead of books is a trap. So, you know. Very cool of me. Love the consistency.
7. Black Magic’s Vendetta (Siren Song Book 3)
Moving up from rock bottom, but not by much.
I overpowered my villain, and it broke the book’s structure. He’s a black magic brujo and a cartel boss. That sounds like a great antagonist on paper, and I was very pleased with myself for approximately one draft. The problem is that Tess isn’t a witch, and Luis, her most powerful ally, is dead. So I’d created a villain my protagonist couldn’t meaningfully fight, which meant she spent large stretches of the book being passive while things happened around her. That’s a structural mistake, and I should have caught it before I was too deep to fix it.
Vendetta works as an inwardly focused book, and the emotional resolution of the trilogy is satisfying. But if you loved Shadow for its velocity and tension, Vendetta will feel like a different kind of story, because it is, and only partly on purpose.
Who should read this: You’ve read the first two books and you want to know how Tess’s story ends. That’s the honest recommendation. The series is worth finishing, and the ending lands well. I just wish the journey to get there had more of what made the first two books work.
6. Sunder of Time (The Mason Timeline Book 2)
This was my very first novel. The idea came to me in 2004 during a History of the English Language course in college. I love England, I love our language, I love time travel, and the image of a modern woman dropped into Saxon Britain just wouldn’t leave me alone. It took many years to finish.
And yeah, it’s bloated. All of my first-novel sins are here: pacing that drags, scenes that could be tighter, the unmistakable tendency of a new writer to include everything because she hasn’t learned what to leave out yet. Readers consistently say some version of “it took a bit of patience, but once it picked up I was hooked,” and I think that’s a fair assessment. The characters and the world carry the book through its rougher stretches. I’m proud of it, even with the rough edges. It’s where everything started.
I wrote the entire Mason Timeline as a hobbyist. Marketing was never a consideration. I sold these books in person at conventions and had wonderful, spirited conversations with readers I’d see year after year. It was the most fulfilling creative work I’ve done, and I have zero regrets about the way it came together, even if it was never going to make me rich.
Who should read this: The same audience as the rest of the Mason Timeline, with the caveat that you’ll need some patience at the front end. If you’ve ever read Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book and wished there were more books in that vein (time travel as a vehicle for deep historical immersion rather than paradox puzzles), this is that.
5. Time’s Assassin (The Mason Timeline Book 1)
In 2073, the United States teeters on the brink of economic collapse, its industries ruined and Christianity a distant memory. Alfredo Jaramillo is the youngest student ever to travel in time, sent to 1688 London for what should be a routine academic trip.
I wrote this as a prequel. It was meant to be supplementary, something for readers who wanted more backstory after reading Sunder of Time. But readers told me it should be Book 1, and they were right. It made the time travel mechanics and the characters much easier to follow, turning what I’d intended as a nice-to-have into essential reading.
The downside of its prequel origins still shows. It’s shorter than a true first-in-series should be and assumes a bit of familiarity with the world that a proper introduction wouldn’t. But it works as the entry point, and I’m glad I listened when readers said to reorder.
Who should read this: Historical fiction readers, even if you normally skip sci-fi or time travel. The history and setting are central to the Mason Timeline, and so are questions about religion, culture, and what happens when arrogant people decide they know better than the past. If any of that interests you, start here.
4. Black Magic’s Prey (Siren Song Book 1)
I started off my paranormal mystery series with Tess Cooper living in RV parks and preparing to run at any minute, all because in ninth grade she embarrassed a boy after he asked her out. And he came from a long line of male witches who practiced black magic. Oopsie.
The writing is good. The characters are good. The concept (multicultural witchcraft in America, how male magic would operate differently from traditionally female magic) came from my fascination with Season 3 of American Horror Story, and I still think it’s a premise that nobody else is doing quite this way.
The problem was never the book. The problem was me badly miscalculating the audience.
I made Tess intentionally bisexual. I knew it would anger my religious community, and it did. They were already unhappy about the black magic, so I figured I might as well write the character honestly. What I did not anticipate was the double rejection. The conservative readers bounced because of the queer content, and the LGBT readers were furious that Tess’s sexuality wasn’t her defining characteristic and that the book had zero social messaging. She’s just… bisexual. It’s part of her life. That managed to upset everyone simultaneously, which is almost impressive.
Then there’s the paranormal-romance association. I never marketed Siren Song as romance, but there’s such a strong audience expectation that paranormal fiction will include a love story that some readers showed up expecting one and left angry. There is sex in these books, and there’s not really any romance. Certainly not the “will they, won’t they” foolishness some were expecting.
Who should read this: Paranormal fans who like their supernatural fiction with a side of crime solving and dark humor. If you’re fine with bisexual characters who exist without a political agenda, if you can handle a book where the protagonist has sex without it being wrapped in a love story, and if swearing doesn’t bother you, this is a very easy recommendation.
3. Fissure of Worlds (The Mason Timeline Book 3)
Now we’re getting to the good stuff.
Originally the second book in the Mason Timeline series, Fissure of Worlds takes place in an alternate 2114 where the Spanish Catholic Republic rules most of North America through religious persecution and control. Shannan Fitzroy knows the truth of how things should have been, and the people in power will do anything to keep her quiet.
The characters are complex, the pacing is strong, and I managed to hold the increasingly messy time travel mechanics together without losing the reader. If you’ve ever tried to write a multi-timeline story where the consequences of time travel compound across books, you know that “held it together” is a much bigger accomplishment than it sounds.
This is also the book I recently went back and revised. I’d written roughly half of Book 4, Treason of Fate, before scrapping it and realizing the problem was how I’d ended Fissure. So I released a second edition with a new ending. The Mason Timeline is my most beloved series, and that’s exactly why it’s so hard to write. Every word has to carry weight, and that kind of pressure makes me the world’s slowest typist.
Who should read this: Start with Book 1. If you’ve made it here, you’re already in, and I don’t need to sell you on anything.
2. The Twitter Crush
My most recent release is holding steady at number two. I’m pretty happy with it.
I’ll be upfront: the decision to write this book was more strategic than any of my other novels. I looked at my audience, I listened to what readers told me through my business, and I designed the book accordingly. But the story is genuinely mine and I’m proud of it. So I guess the lesson is that writing to market works fine when you actually like the market. A lesson I apparently had to learn twice, as you saw at #8.
The epistolary format does make me feel lazy as a writer, though. There’s a part of my brain that insists I took a shortcut, even though the format was an intentional choice that serves the story. I should probably get over that. I have not gotten over that.
Reviews are still coming in and they’re strong so far. I’m already working on the sequel.
Who should read this: Anyone who likes fast-paced thrillers and watching human train wrecks unfold through the artifacts of their digital lives. If you’ve ever suspected that the people performing virtue online are the most dangerous ones offline, Jackson Reed is your guy.
1. Black Magic’s Shadow (Siren Song Book 2)
This is the best thing I’ve ever written, and I’m saying that with full awareness of how annoying it is when authors say things like that.
Black Magic’s Shadow has tight pacing, a twist that genuinely surprised readers (and me, honestly, it showed up during the writing), gut-wrenching emotional reckonings, and a cliffhanger ending that I think actually earns the gut punch. Tess Cooper is the character most similar to me out of everyone I’ve created, though she’s still her own person. She solves supernatural problems the way an HR consultant would: through research, persistence, and a complete lack of magic (or charm).
Being Book 2 in a series means everyone who got here already liked Book 1, so the reviews skew positive. But I’d put this book up against anything I’ve written and feel good about it. This is the one where everything I’m capable of showed up at the same time.
Who should read this: Paranormal fans in the Jim Butcher lane. There are pretty ladies making out, there is a lot of swearing, and the protagonist is bisexual in the way that actual bisexual people are. It’s part of her life, and the book never stops to make a speech about it.
What I’ve Learned
Looking at all of these in a row, a few things become very obvious.
My best work happens when I write characters I find genuinely interesting and put them in situations that are weird and dangerous and not easily managed. My worst work happens when I write for a market I don’t respect. That probably sounds like common sense, and it is. I just had to learn it by actually publishing the evidence.
My character work is the strongest element across all of these books, and I’m especially proud of the fact that male readers tell me I got the men right. Jackson, Alfredo, Paul, Khalid: they feel like real men, and given that my audience skews heavily male, that feedback matters to me more than almost any other compliment I receive.
And the biggest recurring mistake across this entire list is that I consistently failed to think hard enough about who the reader actually was before I started writing. I’m getting better at that, however slowly, through extensive trial and error, as is my way.
All of my novels (minus the one I unpublished out of shame) are available in the Black Market Fiction shop. Ebooks are there, and each listing includes a link to the paperback on Amazon. Audiobooks exist for the Siren Song series (books 1 and 2, but not 3… because I may just rewrite the damn thing).
If you read any of them, I want to hear what you think. Especially if you hated it. I can clearly take it.
Wow. An author listing her L's; L's being Lessons Learned. Are those losses? I don't think so. Every word from your hands, heart, brain brings you closer to authorial and reader Nirvana. It's bound to be icky before you hit your stride. Many have unpubbed. No shame in it. We've all written shit and lived to tell about it. You might start a trend here.
Every book you learn something, see something different.