I feel like all of Barbara Hambly is a cult favorite in a way, because even if you know her for one series, she's written comparative tons

We talked about this problem at Readercon regarding Tanith Lee! rushthatspeaks and I later figured out that it applies to Andre Norton, too: writers who are so prolific and write across so many genres that you can imprint on a dozen of their books at a formative age and someone else can formatively imprint on a different dozen entirely and neither of you may even realize until years later that the other stuff exists. Curiously, it doesn't seem to afflict the similarly prolific and genre-mashing Diana Wynne Jones, even though we established at the relevant panel that nearly all of us had encountered different Jones first; I suspect it has something to do with availability. You can get pretty completist about Jones with a good library system. Lee published micropress novels I've never seen outside of expensive signed editions in dealer's rooms. Hambly also had publishers do a quick fade on several of her series, which never helps.

so I for instance had read her whole vampire series (which is excellent and which nobody's heard of when I mentioned it) and didn't know about this series which I feel would actually interest me *more.*

I've heard of the vampire series! These are the Simon Ysidro books, yes? I have seen them on and off in libraries and book stores for years and didn't know they were excellent.

I think you would like the first Benjamin January very much, especially for some reasons I'm not going to mention. I'd hope you would like the rest of the series, too, but I feel pretty confident about A Free Man of Color.

HI. I AM JUST HERE TO TELL THE INTERNET HOW YOUR CORPOREAL FORM STILL EXISTS. LO, I HAVE SEEN IT, THOUGH WE DID NOT SHARE THE UNCLEAN FLESH-MEATS OF PIGS AND THE ESSENCE OF TOMATO.

I do exist! I am delighted to have seen you outside of our usual astral projection dates! We should do it more often!