I'd be nice if this book would mention that this was "X" in a series.

This has caught me out many times, and it's really frustrating. Sometimes it's not a problem as the individual books can be read as stand alones and you can sort of fill in the gaps in the background story and history as you go along, but other times it's a big handicap to enjoying them. I think the problem is that when the first of second book in a series, for instance, is originally published, they aren't yet part of a series. But often you have to search in the 'other books by the same author' page inside to find out the information, which does strike me as stupid. It strikes me as an extra sales opportunity for the publisher!

I haven't been caught off guard by it recently. I've been duped before so I tend to look all over the book to see if I can try and find any information about it being in a series. The ones I really hate are when it's kinda footnoted in the author's bio that this is a series, but I can't find a number or a list of the books anywhere on the book. I'd prefer they were clearly marked with a number. Also, when I do find a number it always seems like the bookstore never has #1.

Yes, once, I think. And around the middle of the novel, I realized I was amiss about something, and at the end, I realized that it is a part of a series. It didn't bother me that much but now I have to search for the other books. Dang. And I found this book just at a book sale. All others I've read, I knew that they're in a series, so I almost always had to look for the first book (Type A personality )

I have had that happen to me before.I was reading a book I thought looked and sounded really cool by the summary and I opened it up and read a little.Well, turns out it was number three in the series.I didn't find that out until I looked at the first couple of pages when I started to read it.It was still a good book even though I was confused a little when reading it.Well a little while later I got almost all the books in the series so I started reading the first one and I thought oh now I get it.But the series is so awesome.It's the Cynster series. Awesome!

Yes, I've had that happen a couple of times. I think if an author is writing in a series where its not numbered or obvious that's its part of a continuing story they should make it so the story stands on its own without the rest of the series. Unfortunately not all authors do. One of the worst examples of this I've seen is Patricia Cronwell's Blowfly. I'm actually something of a fan of her work in general, but this book was the first I read and it pretty much REQUIRED you know what was going on in the series to understand it. Publishers are probably a big part of it, after all they want you to see the book on the shelf and pick it up and buy it, not look at it briefly and then go "I'll buy it after I read the previous 5 books". It's a bit of short term thinking on their part but... there you go.