Gosh I must have totally missed the reference about Kit's husband being the third triplet (what was his name?). What was the reference? It'd be great to take a look and see. I really feel I need to read that book again, but I don't have the patience to read a book twice through in a row (even HP books).
And I agree about reading the autobiography. It helped me understand a lot, including the schism, although I still don't know exactly what happened, but I know it dealt with Olaf and Esme.
I was talking with this girl last night about the books. She said she read through like book 4 and stopped because it was getting repetitive, she was annoyed with the definitions, and she didn't feel like there was any character growth. She actually owned through like book 10, but she sold them all (can't remember what Web site). She said she was also annoyed that because there didn't seem to be too much time passing, there was no way for Violet to reach 18 by the end of book 13 and so how was Olaf going to get their fortune. I about laughed at this because she didn't realize how much had changed. I tried to explain to her how the children do start to grow up more and change, how the plot line totally moves away from living with new guardians, and how there is a whole mystery around the VFD. Hopefully this will intrigue her to finish reading the series. I remember feeling somewhat of the same feelings around books 4 and 5, but I'm not a quitter and I'm glad I continued. Once we got past the guardian thing, it started to get really interesting. I still can't see how it can end in one more book, but we'll see.