What are authors that you almost enjoy

... but annoyingly, you end up DNF'ing or slogging through their work?

Mild spoilers for Sharon Kay Penman's work (tbh not much more than what it says on the blurb).

For me this is Sharon Kay Penman. She is an excellent writer who did a lot of historical research for her novels. Many people love her and I understand why.

Especially Here Be Dragons started out SO good. I was so intrigued and ready to call Penman the next GRRM with how she set up these characters. But when the love story started, I ended up hating that so much, and kind of stopped caring about any of the characters. I thought it was an odd choice to make a marriage between a 14 year old girl and her 30-something husband into a love story. It was uncomfortable.

Then her other book When Christ And His Saints Slept. The author set up the story beautifully and the characters were all SO promising, but then they all just let me down. I thought that that was a problem with both of her books that I read, actually. It seems like the characters are going to have great depth and that their relationships with the rest of the cast will be better developed. But then she kind of drops the ball imo.

OTOH another reason why I didn't like WCAHSS is purely my own problem and not at all the author's fault. It was just so disappointing to see how all of the characters treated Maud/Empress Mathilda. Even the female characters thought she was to blame for her husband abusing her. In hindsight I think this was a historically accurate way of handling these characters, and I applaud her for that. Still, after the book lost its appeal for me, this became more and more unbearable to read about.

Thanks for letting me vent. What are some authors that you ALMOST like but not quite? And why?