Cliffhangers

A good book should keep you wanting coming back for more. Each chapter keeps you hanging, every time you have to put it down you look forward to the time you can return to the excitement. This can be via explosions and action, or emotional tension and consequence - the point is to keep the reader hooked.

All well and good. Except now I want to clobber a certain author.

I just finished a book for an upcoming blog tour. I read the prior one last year sometime, and enjoyed it. The sequel takes the prior story and ratchets up the tension exponentially. I enjoyed the first book. I devoured the second one.

The only problem...do you know how you're getting close to the end of the novel, and you look at the pages remaining and wonder, "How is the author going to tie this up?" I started pondering the same thing. (Noted later there were a few blank pages at the end...why do they DO that?)

And then the rug was pulled out from under me. The author had two major events happen on the last page. He totally left us hanging. (Literally) And the third book is not due until next summer.

Arrrrrgh!

It's okay. I'll forgive him and gobble up the book next year. Point to the author. That's his goal, and hopefully I can learn from that. But one whole year??? NOT FAIR...