> I read once that a famous author got started because they read some trashy novel and was so incensed that it had been published that they decided they could do better.

Jim Butcher with Dresden Files, or someone else? Because that pattern-matches to "highly promising book recommendation" for me.

AIUI the scenario with Jim Butcher and Dresden Files was that he was _trying_ to write some "genre hack" novel, and succeeded despite himself: https://www.tor.com/2008/07/25/sdccjimbutcherinterview/

"... struggled mightily until deciding (out of frustration) to reverse course and follow Chester’s rigorous writing techniques to the letter, doing all the plot outlining and character background sheets and so on that the English literature folks often scoff at as the workmanlike tools of genre hacks."

I want to say it was Richard Matheson who said that, but I could be misremembering.