Let's talk about endings...

... more specifically the ending of These Things About Us. 

If you haven't read the book yet, stop right here. This post is going to be full of spoilers!


There have been dozens - and I mean dozens - of people who have been disappointed with the ending of These Things. I've been getting emails about it nearly every day now. 
Believe me, I get it. I know why you're disappointed. 
It was fast. It was abrupt. It was an unsuspected stop. And it wasn't happy.

And nearly all of it was intended that way. In an Interview I said that I started writing stories, already having in mind how I wanted my readers to feel at the end of them, even though I might not have the end envisioned just yet. 
Knowing fully well that I was taking a great risk, I wanted the readers at the end of These Things to feel cheated. I didn't just want readers to realize that Tony and Trace were cheated out of a possible future together by Tony's father. I wanted to make them feel just as betrayed. 
Guess what. Judging by the number of complaints and 'Are you serious?'s I'm getting, I succeeded with that.  

Additional to that: Everything went down that fast, because I couldn't give Tony and Trace the time to acclimate to the situation. It wouldn't have been true to their story. They had just started exploring the romance between them. They didn't have an explosion of epic love. They worked through their issues and fought to trust each other and their relationship was constantly moving - until someone interfered. And that interference was a catalyst. But it didn't just speed up the romance (them sleeping together), it also speeded up the inevtiable end of it. 


So... If you have stumbled across the blog because you were disappointed with the Happily Never After kind of ending, let me assure you that you are meant to be disappointed. 
Because I'm cruel like that. 
And because my local cookie store accepts readers' tears instead of money. ;)