Same Author, Same Story, Not the Same Reaction

I finished the first book in the series Ranger's Apprentice called The Ruins of Gorlan.  Not being the biggest fantasy fan in the terms of strict fantasy a la Lord of the Rings (I do like those books though),  I was happily surprised with this book.

Here are my surprises:

1. I'm old and to prove it I was totally digging Halt not Will, but in my defense I probably would have dug Halt as a teenager.
2. I bawled like a baby at the end and the emotional scene between Will and Halt when Will finds out about his father.
3. Definitely don't judge a book by it's cover - this cover is dark and unappealing!(don't you think?)
4. I just checked out book 2 and hope that I enjoy the rest of the series as much and I'm wondering if I'll cry again.
5. I can't wait to meet the author on November 8th - how cool!!!
6. I liked a fantasy book other than Harry Potter.

Unfortunately, now that I'm done with this audio book, the challenge is picking the next one.  After having a nice long chat with some book store sellers, I decided it's time to read some more adult books.  They recommended The Blind Contessa's New Machine so I put that book on hold, and then headed to the audio book section.  I chose two adult books.  One by a new author to me, but not new in the publishing world and the second one was from an author that I've read before and loved.

As you might guess from the title of my post, I started with the author whom I previously read.  I've never read this book before, but I've read this book before - it's the same setting, character voice and descriptions as the previous novel, which I loved.  In the past, I would have gone through all of the author's books even if it was the same, but now I don't have time for that.  I'm annoyed to be honest, do I continue on or drop it.  What would you do?

For right now I think I'll start with the other book and then go back to this one.   Do you think published authors care?  My husband does, but he isn't published yet.