I’ve a file where I store emails from readers. It’s labeled “Fans” which is inaccurate, because some emails are from readers who’ve discovered something they dislike about my books and feel compelled to share their opinion with me. Fortunately, most of the correspondence is favorable, which is why I haven’t bothered to re-label the file.

When looking through the file this morning I came across two emails received from the same reader, on the same day, back in February of this year.

In the first email the reader begs me to kill off a character who she dislikes, telling me the character makes her want to stop reading. Since I wanted readers to dislike that character, I suppose that is sort of a win on my part. Yet, I don’t want the unlikable character to chase away readers.

I contemplated how to respond, as I try to respond to all emails. Yet, sometimes life gets in the way, and I don’t get to everyone. Before I had the chance to respond, that reader sent a second email. It read:

Oh wow! That’s it for me. Again, I am on book 24.  You have now added “white guilt”.  Good grief. Does everyone need to feel they need to be woke? I’m now done with your books.  I will not recommend them, or purchase any in the future.  

I decided to look up the definition of woke, as it pertains to urban slang. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, woke means,“aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”

It also stated it is a “general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.”

The only conclusion I can draw after reviewing the definition of woke is that my storyline in Book 24, The Ghost and the Silent Scream, made that reader uncomfortable. 

Did I add white guilt? I don’t think so. To me, a book with white guilt implies adding exaggerated racial content to a story for no reason other than to inspire guilt from white people. That’s not what I did.

Authors find story fodder in all sorts of places, such as personal experiences and history. I’ve always enjoyed using history as story fodder and as inspiration. In my Coulson Family Saga, written under my Anna J. McIntyre pen name, I heavily used American history as story fodder and as a backdrop to the story that unfolds over the five books. 

Did I do it to guilt out men, because a good chunk of the story was about women and how their place in American society changed over a century? No. I simply told a realistic story, and if it made some readers uncomfortable, I think they need to look in the mirror.

Haunting Danielle is a paranormal cozy mystery series, that sometimes involves murder. When reading about murder, readers typically want to learn, by the end of the book, who committed the murder and why. When looking for plot inspiration I often turn to history, especially when many of my characters come from the 1920s. 

In The Ghost and the Silver Scream, the only thing I could find that the disgruntled reader may have seen as white guilt was a storyline that involves parents who have disowned their daughter for falling in love with a Black man, which sets off a chain of events.  

So, how did I respond to that reader? I didn’t. She is entitled to her opinion, and no reader is obligated to recommend my books, or purchase them.

I will confess, I am a little perplexed as to why—at Book 24—this reader decided to be offended. I have to assume she read the prior 23 books. Most of my readers read Haunting Danielle books in order, as they are chronological, and I don’t advise jumping into the middle of the series.  

In previous books I’ve addressed what some might consider woke topics, such as how it used to be illegal for Blacks to reside in Oregon, and storylines have included Oregon’s early history with the KKK. This began in the first book in the series. But maybe it was another woke thing that bothered the reader.