What's up with the witch fantasies?

​The witch fantasies are one of those things that stir people up.
On one side, I would estimate a good 95 percent of fans love them. The remaining five percent apparently don’t and they write me (sometimes nonstop) messages explaining how much they hate them. The big thing seems to be that they’re not mysteries. That’s it. Plain and simple.
I get it. Some people only like mysteries. That’s fine. You don’t have to read the fantasies. I always try to at least mention what happened in the most recent fantasy in the following mystery so you can catch up that way. I will not, however, stop writing the fantasies and write two more mysteries a year. It’s simply not going to happen.
The fantasies are a way to do some truly goofy things and have a lot of fun. In general, they’re about character development and wacky hijinks. The stakes aren’t often as high in the fantasies – even though there’s some serious stuff – so (I hope) that readers can just sit back and relax. The whole point of the fantasies is to have fun.
I have a lot of ideas for the fantasies, which is why I upped them from one entry to two per year. No matter what, even if I didn’t write any fantasies, you wouldn’t get more full witch mysteries in a calendar year, though (which seems to be a sticking point for some readers). Why? I’m most comfortable, in most cases, doing two entries in a series per year. I consider the witch fantasies their own series. If I were to write only one series, I would grow bored and not want to write anything. As it stands, by the time I wind back around to something, I’m always excited to get back to the characters when it’s time for a series to wind around in the rotation.
As for upcoming fantasies, the timeline in the witch series forced me to do a Christmas fantasy this year, or risk losing the opportunity for a very long time. I actually wanted to write another fantasy first, but sometimes you have to go where the timeline takes you. That also forced some of the stuff to be cramped together in November and December this year. I don’t really like it but it should be remedied with better spaced releases next year.
There are several witch fantasies I’m really looking forward to, including the one I had to postpone this year for the Christmas fantasy. That one – which will be set in a soap opera world – is something I’m really looking forward to. I’ve always loved soap operas – no matter how ridiculous the storylines – and I can’t wait to write that one.
Other fantasies coming up over the next few years include a western, a zombie brouhaha, a trip to Salem during the witch trials, and a few others I’m still debating about.
So, yeah, I get that some people hate the witch fantasies simply because they’re not mysteries. You can’t always make everyone happy, though. I can make myself happy … and the witch fantasies do that for me.
They’re not going anywhere.
What do you think? Do you like the witch fantasies? What kind of fantasy would you like to see?