A reviewer and my bruised ego

An online reviewer, who shall remain anonymous, wrote a good  review of Skeleton in a Dead Space, a medium one of No Neighborhood for Old Women, and what amounts to a plot summary of Trouble in a Big Box. But he took the time and had the graciousness to explain to me that yes, I had racheted up the suspense in the third book as I promised him, but he still found that Kelly was drawn into crime-solving rather than being an active participant. He politely said my series was just not for him One of the first lesson an author learns on publication is that you never protest a review, so I wrote a short note thanking him for his honesty and his efforts on my behalf and promising not to send him any more books. But yes, my ego was a bit bruised.
And what he said went against everything I heard from the book group last week and have heard continuously from readers--they like Kelly as a person, they like knowing about her personal life and they admire her compassion. They also like envisioning all the characters and their relationship to each other--some said they could see them in their mind's eye. So do I listen to a reviewer or readers?
Of course, as I've mentioned often here before, when I need advice on writing I turn to Fred Erisman--he shepherded me through a Ph.D. in Western American Literature some forty years ago and has remained my friend and advisor ever since. He reads almost everything I write, and he's read all or part of each of my three mysteries. His take on this dilemma was reassuring and echoed what I hoped was true  He pointed out that of course Kelly is drawn into crime-solving--that's the point of any cozy mystery. The heroine/protagonist is an amateur, not a professional detective. She is going her merry way about her life, when she is drawn into solving a crime. And, he wrote, the qualities that make her interesting are the ones that compel her to poke about in a mystery--curiosity, compassion, outrage. The picture I present of her personal life helps the reader understand her in that context--a reader has to know the character to grasp the larger issues of the novel.
The reviewer was not allowing me the general characteristics of the genre in which I am writing.
Fred's parting advice? Pout a bit and then go on about your business. He, by the way, is not a fan of cozies but he accepts the genre for what it is, rather than looking for thriller touches where they would be inappropriate.
How about you? Do you read cozies with just enough mystery in them? Do you listen to other readers or to reviewers?

More ranch pictures--and a bit about aviation

I promise these are the last of our wonderful day at the ranch, but they are, top to bottom: the headwaters of the Star Hollow Creek (I called it Shady Hollow in yesterday's post, knowing all along that didn't sound quite right); my brother pouring wine--nothing like a bit of wine in a shady grove by a stock tank--the guineas and some of the calves wandered down to visit us; the pony, Pony Romo--so named by my two-year-old great-niece who when asked what the pony's name was said, "Pony Romo. You know, the baseball player!"; a field of Indian paintbrush that Jeannie simply could not drive by without taking a picture as we headed home in the late afternoon.

Tonight I went to hear a talk on young adult books about women in aviation, given by Fred Erisman who was my mentor in graduate school, has remained my friend all these years, and I guess I could now call a colleague (though I'm still a bit intimidated by that equality). TCU Press has published two of his books--Boys Books, Boys Dreams, and the Mystique of Flight about the young-adult books for boys, and now From Birdwomen to Skygirls: American Girls' Aviation Stories, in which I'm proud to say I'm one of the women to whom it's dedicated as "female role models par excellence." Fred was witty tonight, as he always is, but he made fascinating points: in the first decade of the 20th Century, women in aviation were hailed as exemplars of all that women could do, the possibilities open to them; it began to change as we moved into the '20s and '30s, and one series book about an R.N. who was a pilot, a field nurse in the army, and a public health nurse, ended with the heroine marrying her hero and saying contentedly, "This is what I was meant for" or something similar. By the 1940s, women in aviation had been consigned to the role of stewardesses--when the program began, much earlier, they were all R.N.s but increasingly they were hired for their appearance and social skills--although I know, from Jeannie, they also had lots of training in crisis management. But significantly, the young-adult books about women in aviation stopped in the 1940s. Joyce Roach and I found parallels to cowgirls in his talk--where Fred said women pilots introduced pants for women, we looked at each other and said "Cowgirls." Of course, as Joyce pointed out and Fred confirmed, women were in all kinds of professions, and respected, in the early 20th century. It was the 1940s, post-war era that confined women to the kitchen and the nursery, which Betty Freidan railed against in The Feminine Mystique. It was also in the 1940s that rodeo cowboys edged women out of the arena and confined them to barrel racing. Interesting parallels, and an interesting evening.