Short (but sweet) review of The Anchoress at: http://lattin-rawstrone.com/read-and-...

Rebekah makes a good point about small publishers. In my experience, the smaller the publisher, the higher the likelihood of their publishing a book that's offbeat or quirky.(Of course they're not all brilliant.)

We can safely rely on the mainstream industry to produce well-packaged, readable, competent novels (as we can rely on Hollywood for movies). But the mainstream industry is risk-averse. Risk-aversion may be a good business strategy, but it's not the most exciting strategy for readers.