“San Franciso has Dasheill Hammett, Los Angeles has Raymond Chandler, Florida has John D. McDonald, and Seattle has J.A. Jance.” That was the lead sentence in a 1985 review of the first Beaumont book, Until Proven Guilty, published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer which has long since gone the way of the dodo bird. That was the first-ever published review of one of my novels. Since UPG was an “original paperback,” it’s likely that was the ONLY published review of the book.

That first line sounds like high praise, right? Wrong. That was a merely a cutesy way for the reviewer to start the article. For years after that, Avon Books was happy to pluck those few words out of context and put them on the cover of one of my books after another. But if you happened to read the rest of the review? That was a whole different story.

When the reviewer arrived at my condo and I opened the front door, he was visibly surprised, or maybe dismayed, to discover that J.A. Jance wasn’t a man. In the body of the piece he referred to me as a “tall emotional woman,” and went on to say that the character of J.P. Beaumont was totally unbelievable since no red-blooded American male would ever hire an interior designer to fix up a post-divorce condo. Years later I met a local interior designer who made a good living designing condos for recently divorced folks, male and female both. His job included not only by doing the design work and finding the right furniture, but also by purchasing everything else they needed, up to and including pots and pans, dishes, silverware and glassware. It turns out that’s yet another entirely different story!

But that’s also when I stopped reading book reviews. Publishing a book is a lot like having a baby—once it’s out there, it is what it is. You don’t get to back and fix it according to some reviewer’s opinion about how it should have been written to make it better. The author is pretty much stuck with it as is, warts and all.

So I don’t read reviews. If you’re someone who posts them on Amazon, I haven’t seen them because I’ve learned that somehow the good things people say about my books are appreciated, but they tend to go in one ear and out the other. As for the bad things people say? Those lodge in my heart.

Last week, my editor sent me an advance copy of a review in a national magazine that will be appearing later this fall. My editor sent it. I read it. The gist of it is as follows. The Taken Ones is a gripping mystery. Unfortunately, the mystery itself is sandwiched between Mel’s totally unnecessary retirement party at the beginning and the story’s drawn-out happy ending.

Here’s the deal. I’ve been writing about J.P. Beaumont and his family for more than forty years now. I LIKE catching up with them and seeing where they are now and what they’re doing, and Mel’s retirement party gave me a perfect opportunity to catch up with and touch bases with all of them. As for that happy ending? I happen to LIKE happy endings.

Years ago, when Bill was watching one of Bob Ross’s painting classes on PBS, Ross said something that really stuck with me. He pointed out that what makes a painting is the contrast between light and dark. If it’s all light or all dark, it doesn’t work. As soon as he said those words, I saw how the same rule applies to writing as much as it does to painting. You need the contrast between light and dark to make it work.

If I’m watching a program on TV where one scene after another is nothing but one tired fist fight or gun fight after another, I find it gets old in a hurry. I just quit watching and go back to playing solitaire on my computer until something more interesting comes along.

So here’s a bit of advice. If you’re reading The Taken Ones and you’re someone who doesn’t like the light parts, feel free to skip right over them. In my humble opinion, if you do that, you’ll be missing the best parts, because it’s those very human bits that make J.P. Beaumont the terrific guy he’s always been.