I enjoy hearing from readers, and this type of question has been coming up a lot lately. I thought I would share my response here.
READER’S QUESTION: Hi I just finished reading A Fire Sparkling. Loved it so much!!! Now I want to read The Color Of A Christmas Miracle. So my question is – do I have to read the book in the order of the series? Also what other books to you recommend similar to A Fire Sparkling?
JULIANNE’S REPLY: I’m so happy you enjoyed A Fire Sparkling! I hope you enjoy The Color of a Christmas Miracle as well.
You asked about reading the Color Series in order – it’s not necessary. You can read as many or as few of the books as you like. Each one stands alone and you won’t be confused from start to finish. But some readers enjoy reading the whole series in order, because each book deals with a character from the book before, so if you read the series chronologically, you won’t have any spoilers about how certain things turned out for those characters.
But I understand that it’s a big commitment to read 13 books 😊. But they are short novels. Readers tell me they blow through each one fairly quickly.
As for what is similar to A Fire Sparkling…. It’s my first “big” book, and my first WWII novel, so nothing will be quite as epic as that, but all the books in my Color series are similar in terms of voice and characters and themes and pacing. They are contemporary, so they are like the contemporary sections of A Fire Sparkling, without the historical timeline. (THE COLOR OF FOREVER has a dual timeline, but it’s slightly time-travel-ish.)
If it helps you to know, I just accepted an offer this week from my publisher for another dual timeline novel, and I’m writing it now. It’s set in Tuscany and covers present day mixed with the 1980’s. I’m sorry that you’ll have to wait for me to finish it, though! It will be a while before it’s released. I’m only on page 43!
Thanks for writing, and have a lovely weekend.
Julianne