Book Length

The length of books has been on my mind a lot the last few days. I got little to nothing done over last Thurday, Friday and Saturday. It's been a rough few days; a family friend's mum passed away on Thursday. The funeral was Saturday, and my wife and I collected Conor's ashes on the same day as she was also cremated. 

I made up for that lack of work by writing two chapters yesterday. I feel better about that this morning than I did yesterday, believe me.

From my point of view as an author, I wonder a lot about the length of my books. At this stage, Silent Oath* is looking at being around 70,000 words. Locked Within* was longer than that by over 4,000 words when I completed the first draft. Of course it has lost a lot in editing so far. I'm very conscious that I don't want to pad out my books with chaff, but am I letting myself down by not using a more detailed author voice, or providing more plot points and challenges to my characters? Or should I just accept that my own writing style is relatively concise and straightforward?

As a reader, I find I get frustrated if I think the author is dragging a chapter out and not getting to the point. Of course, this could also just be from empathising so much with the characters that I want to find out what happens next, so therefore a mark of the book's quality. But on the other hand, I can feel a little cheated if I read a book too quickly. Like I've let myself down and spoiled it. I like a book to last a while, which may be why I read so infrequently. I keep asking myself, would I enjoy my own books if I knew nothing about them beforehand? 

What about you? Would you rather a longer, drawn-out book that takes several sessions to read? Or would you still get the same satisfaction from a shorter novel, one which could be read in a day or two?

*Working title only