Throughts on Abode of The Damned

I have recently been reviewing some reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and I thought now was a good time to address some reviewers points, questions, and ideas in a open discussion. What writing Abode of The Damned has reinforced in me is that genre readers are not overly favorable of the ambiguous ending. Oh sure, in traditional literary fiction some authors can and do pull it off as long as the protagonist’s actions are more meaningful than they appear which evoke an emotional and intellectual response in the reader. Ah, but alas, I do not live in that world. I dwell in the here in the dark where the Knock Out ending rules. The protagonist decisively triumphs or fails. In the end, there are no loose ends – no mystery remains.

So then, how is Abode of the Damned repaired? “What if?” begins the wheels turning.

Does the portal take Cole and Lucy deeper into Hell as one reader/reviewer suggested or is the escape accomplished? Perhaps neither, and Cole and Lucy end up somewhere else – Chaos for example – with no physical form. Can the rebellion in Hell be tied closer to the fate of Lucy and Cole? What if the portal in the Black Mountains is an elaborate decoy and not the true escape route? What if Lucy is not who she appears and was never human?

Your thoughts?

Tagged: Q & A, Reviews