I have never heard of them! I'll look them up shortly.
I read those books during my one year stint at a school and in a house and village and city I was supposed to spend my years until Uni in. I have lots of fond memories of this year as well as the sad ones though, so that's not really it.
Through these particular books and lots of random/amazing chance, I met the first girl I thought I loved and ended up in a really painful one-sided relationship with, even after my family collapsed and I moved away. It got worse from there, and I eventually had to cut all ties completely for my own happiness. The upside is that I learnt many of the harsh lessons that influence the way I am with girls now, so in the long run I'm really hapy from it. Also, it was my first experience of what I thought was true love at the time.
There's a lot more detail to it but I tried to really cut it down.