Angie James has become my cliffhanger warning sign. She’s like a giant “CAUTION! DETOUR!” sign at the edge of a literary cliff, warning me away lest I cast myself over the edge and get ripshit pissed off on the way down. She’s warned me off three books now that have cliffhanger endings in the middle of the series, thus ensuring that I will wait until I know the story is completed before I try the series.
Why? Because I HATE cliffhangers.
Some of it is based on Ye Olde Romance Reader’s Expectation, wherein I expect the ending to be, you know, the ending, and I expect it also to be happy. Economically speaking, I like to know I’m buying an entire story when I buy a book.
I have heard many authors on Twitter and Facebook complaining that readers who wait for the series to be complete damage the chance that the series will exist at all past a few books.
My answer: series that contain books which end with cliffhangers damage the chance that I’ll buy the series at all, no matter how long it is. Or how awesome. Because I hate cliffhangers.
There are series wherein each book is a complete tale, with a larger story arc to be completed over the course of several books. I’m down with that. What I am so not on board with is a tale of romance with a killer cliffhanger ending that I have to wait to find out what REALLY happened in the REAL end of the book.
Finishing a book with an ending that leaves the characters with a “happy for now” before laying potential groundwork for the next book is one thing – I’m usually ok with that. There are some long running series (cough cough JD Robb cough cough) that stand alone individually but are made more powerful by the over-arching development of all the characters.
And then there are books that end with the written equivalent of Who Shot JR?
I tweeted about this a week or so ago, about how much I hated them, and someone said, “I guess you don’t like tv much, huh?” Different situation.
Who Shot JR? and the Dallas season finale cliffhanger got a lot of press and is still among the best known cliffhangers - but viewers only had to wait a few months to get the answer when the fall season started up again.
Unless we are talking back to back releases, readers may have to wait six to eight months, upwards of a year or possibly more, find out what happens. And what if something happens to the author (heaven forbid)? There’s a lot of What Ifs in publishing, from contacts to basic mortality. From my budgetary and readerly standpoint, I want the whole story when I buy a book, or I want to know I can buy all the fractured pieces of the story so I can read them all together.
And I appreciate the warning about cliffhanger endings like you would NOT believe. I will wait until Hex Hall 3 comes out before I read Demonglass, Hex Hall 2. I really liked Hex Hall #1, and thought it was terrifically fun YA. But hearing that #2 ends in a cliffhanger means I’ll wait until maybewheneverpants for #3 before I go for #2.
I will wait for Stacey Kade’s YA series to have the answer to the cliffhanger advertised in the blurb for book 2 before I pick book 3. Packed with romance, lovable characters, and a killer cliffhanger, Queen of the Dead is the out-of-this-world sequel to The Ghost and the Goth. What what? Aw HELL no. Thanks for the warning, but not for me. I wait for book 3. And is there a mention of when book 3 comes out? Not that I can find. Daggnabbit.
I often make the mistake of taking cliffhanger endings personally – you might have gleaned that from the vitriolic rage up in here. I find them so offensive and irritating, most especially if I hath shelled out the doubloons for Ye Olde Hardcover.
But at a dinner discussion at RT, I found a lot of readers felt the same way. One said she was unwilling to start a series that had received incredible reviews, whose fans were clamoring for the final installment, because she heard direct from the author that the final chapters of the trilogy would be at least another year in coming. Another said she was irate when she purchased a romance and found herself within a half-inch of the end of the book knowing that there was no way the author could pull together all the plot threads. It was either a deus ex machina magical ending, or a cliffhanger, and either option was bad. And yet she’d invested so much energy and time and emotion into reading the book, she was mad knowing that her time spent would not yield the expected payoff.
Kevin Smokler of BookTour said at a panel he was on at SXSW that inviting someone to read your book is not like a casual date, or having coffee with someone. It’s dinner and a movie and possibly making out afterward: you are asking the reader to spend a lot of time with your book, so you have to make sure that the product is pitched at the right audience who will find their investment of time worth the price.
This fits my reaction perfectly. In my reading, I appreciate the warning signs of cliffhangers, because I get irate when I’ve invested time, emotion and energy only to discover I don’t have the whole story.
What about you? What’s your call on cliffhangers? This is not a new question, (ETA) and Jane is also ruminating on reader feelings about cliffhangers today, but I’m curious if, with the increasing number of series in all different sub-genres, your feelings about cliffhangers are a little different from mine.
ETA: Laurel wrote about her hatred of cliffhangers earlier this month.
There needs to be another choice for the vote. I don’t mind a cliffhanger so much when they are in back to back trilogies (as long as the particular couple is together at the end of THEIR book). It’s worse when the cliffhanger lasts months, years….or beyond. I will often wait to read the trilogy until I collect all the books. As long as I know I like the author, I’ll buy the book and wait. For a new author: it depends on what the plot is, and the various reviews.
I completely agree with everything you said in the post, and I would not have even commented except that today’s Indexed cartoon is EXACTLY about this:
http://thisisindexed.com/2011/05/theres-even-a-horror-series-about-it
I really appreciate it when the authors have a trilogy published montly. I try to wait until a series is completed before starting it. I like long running series as others have said where each book stands alone, but there is a long term story arc.
I love cliff hangers… for some books. If a book is touting itself as a romance, then I do expect a hea or at least a solid hfn. But if I am reading another genre like urban fantasy, and it ends with some kind of cliff hanger, I do not mind at all. I guess I like the excitement and the time between books to think about what will happen in the next book. I think a year is my limit though. If I have to wait longer than a year, I start to get impatient and a little annoyed.
I’ll buck the trend and say I like cliffhangers. Several people have already mentioned Jim Butcher, Changes in particular. That was a heckuva cliffhanger and I loved it. It gave me so much meat and gristle to chew on until the next book. I remember reading Butcher’s Codex Alera series as they came out and really enjoying speculating on Tavi’s identity and various other plot points. Once the rest of the series was out, it kinda spoiled some of it. I like the anticipation, the speculation. It’s fun and I get more out of it that way. I’m the person who had Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows laying on my coffetable for 4 hours before I opened it – because I knew it would be all over once I did. Now, romance novels and cliffhangers? No. I want my HEA at the end of the book, in whatever form it takes.
It depends on the genre. I will not read a series touted as a romance, unless each book features a new couple.
In other genres, I’ll happily read a series with a painful cliffhanger, and if in the end there’s a happy romantic ending? Bonus.
Why do I hate cliffhangers? George R.R. Martin. SIX YEARS!!HTG my reserve on the latest book expired THREE times before the GBPL deleted the book from the database. Even the’ve given up on it. I know it’s supposed to release in July(or is that supposedly?), but they’re not falling for it and neither am I. And there’re two more books planned!! I’ll be on Medicare by the time they’re out. That’s if George, who like me is no spring chicken, is still around to write them
As annoying as a cliffhanger is the series that just. won’t. end. I love a series as much as the next girl, but give me someone like Gail Carriger, Naomi Novik or Meljean Brook who finishes as she meant to at the start. It seems too often the writer (cough.. Sherrilyn Kenyon… JR Ward… cough,cough) or their publisher gets a little positive feedback & suddenly what probably started out with beginning middle and end now just keeps going and going, directionless. (Like that sentence.) And that’s just as annoying. Kenyon should’ve ended it with “Archeron”, instead she just peaked. And you can’t tell me the BDB in any way resembles the proposal. I’m beginning to think any character someone asks her a question about is going to get a book. I loves me the Brotherhood, but enough is enough already.
Ha!! spamword: enough98. Love when that happens!
I am an OUTLANDER series reader…and I LOVE Diana’s books. I love long books/series in general. I have A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES from the library, so it’s nice to know it is a series.
I enjoy the IN DEATH series by J.D. Robb. I have a history of re-reading favorite books, though with the Internet, I run into more books to read (less time to go back to older books).
If it’s an excellent story/series I’ll read it (eventually). Like I said earlier, I’ll generally wait until the end of a series before I read it (other than the previously mentioned IN DEATH or OUTLANDER).
Death to all cliffhangers. I CAN’T STAND THEM.
But i’m willing to make a compromise. One of my favourite authors has an insanely long running series that i’ve been following for well over a decade. In the last four books, he’s decided that every book should have an epic cliffhanger. IRRITATING. But I love the story and the characters, so i’ll give. I’m buying the books and storing them away until he’s done. He’s promised that this last set of four is the last set in the series period, and we’re one book away. So I bought the book, and i’m not reading it until the last one comes out.
If there are any fans of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series floating around out there, maybe you’ll recall the ending of book four, and how it was a HUGE cliffhanger, and it took him over 20 years to bring out the next one. Let me emphasize. TWENTY. YEARS. Most authors don’t have that kind of luxury, but a two year wait is common, and even that’s a painfully long time to find out what happens next to characters that we so often develop a real sense of caring for. It’s unfair, like a big middle finger flip-off to the fans.
I came at paranormal romance (and then romance) from UF and SF. So I don’t mind cliffhangers.
But I’ll be much more likely to stop a series that has them. Waiting a year or more for the story? Having to reread the end before starting the next one? Keeping the last book on the shelf to have it to reread? Double meh. Often the author loses me.
I much prefer a feeling of resolution. Does not have to be a HEA. But that feeling of heck, I can survive this? Oh yes. I want just that one step past the cliffhanger. That pick oneself up and dust yourself off feel.
I am not a huge fan of the cliffhanger, but I am also not a huge fan of series either. There are many well loved series that I loathe because the writing just got phoned in by a certain book.
Because of my crappy experience, it takes a lot to keep me reading and Jasper Fforde is the only one who has been able to do that for me with the “Thursday Next” series. I love her.
Neil Gaiman addressed the “where is the next book in the series?” issue on his blog once when a reader wrote to him complaining about George RR Martin taking so long to complete a book. His answer? George RR Martin is not your bitch. And explained what may or may not be happening to delay a author from finishing a novel. This is why Neil rocks.
I’m in the “don’t mind cliffhangers” camp. Mostly because I think books in a series, ANY series, never really stand alone. I don’t care what anyone says.
Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series are definitely “stand alones”, however I would be irked six ways to Sunday if she stopped writing it now because the overall story arch would be incomplete. And sticking with Nalini, her Archangel series rocketh muchly and yet at least some one book ends on a MASSIVE cliffhanger another ends on a very gentle slope. Yet again, the overarching story is so huge that I would personally hunt the woman down if she didn’t finish it.
As long as the books come out at regular intervals and the story arch has an actual ending at some point, I don’t mind.
I’m with you 100% on this one. It’s pretty much unforgivable. Series with long story arcs are fine, but they better tie things up pretty nice in the first one, or I won’t read another in the series and probably not another by that author. As for TV, I don’t watch those shows that only have long story arcs, either. If nothing really gets resolved in the first show, our Tivo will not be recording another one. A book is a much greater investment of my time and I feel perfectly justified in demanding satisfaction for that investment.
I read the first Harry Potter when it came and then almost died having to wait for the second. At which point I decided I was waiting till the ALL came out before reading any of them (which I did, and read them all in a week—I didn’t speak to my partner the entire time, basically). And those aren’t even real cliffhangers! Real cliffhangers I will not touch AT ALL. Not till I know I can go straight on to the next book. I read for fun, not to stress out over several months about what might or might not happen to characters I care about.
I hate cliffhangers with the strength of a thousand suns. I have been burned so many times by a series not being concluded and loose ends left dangling that I refuse to read a book if I know there’s a cliffhanger. I’m still waiting for Christopher Pike’s sequel to The Cold One (I think that’s the title….it’s from the 90s) and for Dean Koontz to finish the Christopher Snow/Moonlight Bay trilogy. Then there’s the vampire book I read close to 20 years ago that ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger, and I later found out the author died before writing the sequel. I don’t remember the name or author of the book, but I clearly remember my feeling of frustration knowing that I would never be able to read the end of the story.
If an author wants to do a cliffhanger, she needs to write all the books and release them back to back. However, I prefer the book be complete, with a nicely wrapped up HEA at least for the main characters. I’m okay with secondary characters being introduced and their story continuing into their own book; that’s different from the main plot left hanging.
And I don’t like cliffhangers in my TV shows either!
I can’t stand cliffhangers on tv either. One week to another I can handle because they’re trying to tell a larger story in a set amount of minutes. But one season to another, HATE. Stargate SG-1 was where I first started getting pissed about cliffhangers, and by the end of season 2 I knew to look online to see if it was a cliffhanger and by season 3 I knew they always would be. My watching strategy for Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis was to record the last ep before a break, and not watch it until a couple of hours before the new season/part of the season started.
I’m on the meh/hate them side. Rarely do I hate them because I have been groomed on series that rely on cliffhangers. When I was little I also read R.L.Stine’s books, and that man cannot write at all. He basically has every chapter end in a fake cliffhanger. That may explain why I don’t have a huge connection to them.
I can understand being angry about them at times. I LOVED Hex Hall and do not have the patience to wait to read Demonglass, but Hawkins just used the worst kind of cliffhanger for those books. I’ll be intrigued by the Queen of the Dead one, as the Ghost and the Goth was VERY ‘wrap up this ending nicely’ in its style.
However, I haven’t had to do it with majorly long series. I’ve debated when to start the Outlander books, and I’d have to say that part of what keeps me weary is that some may end on cliffhangers. I keep looking for series like the Sookie Stackhouse books or Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series. Those always have one central arc with character development going on along side things. It’s a nice combination and I don’t feel cheated as a reader. And with Stackhouse, I just didn’t feel like I needed to read the rest of the series any time soon (although I loved the first three books easily) so I could drop it without any qualms about where the plot would be headed.
I really hate cliff-hangers. Authors have lost me as a reader more than once by continually employing cliff-hangers. On author had a great debut novel, that ended on a one. When I found out that the second book did the same thing, I decided not to read any of the rest of her books until the series is done. Now, it’s been so long that I only vaguely remember the original book, I’m not sure I care what happens, and I’m annoyed that she felt the need to continually cut readers off from an actual resolution. If your books are not good enough to keep me coming back for more, ending them in a cliff-hanger will not fix the problem. I really like series, but I don’t like reading them until all or most of the books are out. I’m just a really impatient woman and I have a hard time staying invested in characters for several years while the author writes each novel.
That should say: One author had a great debut novel, that ended on one.
Still. . . I love to toy in my mind over what will happen next. But I do that with anything I read, I guess. Do you ever really leave the characters behind with anything you read?
Sadly, after years off, I picked up the first of the Fever series as soon as it was out. Didn’t know it was a series. Threw it against the wall at the end, and haven’t looked back, even though at the time I was dying to find out what happened next.
Harry Potter is pretty much the definitive long-plot series in my opinion, because there was only a year or so between books. And it’s only in book 3 or so that you start to realize you’re dealing with a long plot, and that there are clues seeded through all the earlier books, so my friends and I spent the years between book releases rereading the earlier novels and arguing over theories about what was going to happen next.
But then, it helped that we knew Rowling had the whole story plotted, and had notes so extensive that even if something horrible happened to her, we could at least find out what was supposed to happen even if the books themselves never appeared.
The classic cliffhanger is Fellowship of the Ring. I’ve read the trilogy at least eight times (I think it’s a romance) but they were all in print long before I was born. And there have been a few where I don’t mind the cliffhangers – Harry Potter, as mentioned above, being one of them, though they are not such cliff hangers as wondering when Harry and the Dark Lord will face off finally.
Other than the above, I usually do not read or like cliffhangers. I will occasionally get into them if I know there series exists. And I do look at the ending before I buy most books (except mysteries).
I can’t stand cliffhangers in an unfinished series. Hate them with a passion. It just rubs me the wrong way. Especially if it’s a book that I didn’t like all that much but finished reading anyway just so it’s done and over with and then there’s no resolution and I’m unwilling to spend another cent on a sequel that I know I won’t enjoy just to know how it ends.
Which is why I was outraged at the latest Dresden Files book with the evil cliffhanger. (He never did that before) Add to that that the next book will come out in JULY and not April as the last few. – On a side note: I just checked Amazon for the release date (hope is undying) and saw that the Kindle price is 10 freaking bucks higher than the hardcover!!! WTbleedingH?!
captcha: cost59 Bloody hell, it may as well cost 59bucks >.<
I don’t like cliffhangars and otherwise unfinished stories. I expect my novels to actually wrap up the main plot by the end, even if there are dangling secondary threads to lead into the next story. I detest so-called “novels” that are really 20 chapters out of a 3 or more volume story, and read like it. (I’m looking at you, David Weber, and the Solarian League plot arc in the last umpteen Honorverse books).
I don’t like waiting until the sequel comes out to get the whole story, because by the time it comes out, I will have forgotten book 1, and not really care about the story anymore. I find that I have to read a series back-to-back to really “get it” these days; I forget too much between novels.
So authors, please make your series novels have stand-alone plots; connect them up with an overarcing plot if you can do it as deftly as J K Rowling or Jim Butcher, or tie them together with recurring beloved characters.
p.s. To the person who is reluctant to read J.D. Robb’s “In Death” series because you can’t find them in order, it doesn’t matter. The books have stand-alone plots, and you can read them in random order. Yes, there’s character development over the series that I have vaguely noticed in my random reading of what I can find at the library or book store, but it doesn’t hurt the stories to get them out-of-order.
Hate them!! I consider cliff-hanger books in the same manner as works in progress fanfiction. Tell me when you’re done and I’ll come read your stuff. Too many times a series is dropped before the end is actually due. That leaves me up in the air and it isn’t a feeling I like.
Now continuing series like what Nora Roberts and her counterpart J. D. Robb does, connected series where you might see the same characters again over the years, those I can handle. But I want the main story to be completed, even if the continuing arc/mystery isn’t.
I don’t like cliffhangers in television either. I consider it lazy writing. If your story is good, you don’t need to tease me to keep me coming back. I’ll already be in love with your universe.
Yep. There’s a series called Hannah Swensen Mysteries. These are cute fun reads, with likeable characters with recipes as a bonus. No Agatha Christie, but the mysteries were half decent. There’s a love triangle with main character that developed in the first 2 books. When it hadn’t resolved by number 5 (or 6) and looked like it was going to get worse, I just gave up on the whole series. It was a “cliffhanger” that was supposed to tease me back I guess. But I hate love triangles and after a while, when a character appears to waffle endless, I stop caring. Just couldn’t get over the need to hang onto this “cliffhanger” to enjoy otherwise well written books.
Glad people have already mentioned the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. I started reading that series (unfortunately) just days before the 4th book came out. It’s probably one of my favorite series of all time and the, like, 16 months until the last one came out freaking KILLED me. I wouldn’t let my closest friend even start the series until the last book was out. I will mark book release dates on my calendar. I have been known to take off work to read (and finish) a book I am dying to read (and finish). So no. HATE the serious, want to scream I can’t wait so bad cliffhanger endings.
There are different levels of cliffhangers for me. I thought Richelle Mead handled what could have been a nasty one pretty well in Blood Promise where we think Dimitri is dead, but then we get the ‘I will hunt you down’ letter to Rose. I am ok with that. I think of it as a teaser ending.
I don’t mind cliffhangers on tv, except that sometimes a show does that to prevent cancellation and then it makes me mad if the show is cancelled.( Its awful that the last episode of I Dream of Jeanie, Jeanie left Tony and didn’t come back. JR before Jr)
I don’t mind cliffhangers in books if it makes sense. My feelings about a cliffhanger may also have to do with how I feel about the plot point in general. Some being re-enlisted and forced to on a tour of duty makes sense. On the other it made me crazy when a series I was reading dropped the bomb that the “hero” was getting a divorce (considering we didn’t know he was married.) (This was the end of the second book and I stopped reading after the next book where they stayed together. Carnigie)
Finally I hate super long series that need to be read as such. If you write a super long series had a cliff-hanger it would make me mad. Fortunately right now I can’t afford to read any super long series.
There are cliffhangers and then there are unanswered questions.
I would say Harry Potter contained unanswered questions not cliffhangers.
Most of the series I’ve read do.
A series usually benefits from unanswered questions. It helps the books seem more connected.
I do like some cliff hangers, provided the author is one who writes with some regularity. I used to read Diana Gabaldon, but it took her so long in between books, I completely gave up. On the other hand, I read Richelle Mead religiously, and all of her books have been series, some of them with cliff hangers. It’s all the more satisfying when I sit down to read the next book in the series because I’ve been waiting so long to read it…much like the new Sookie Stackhouse book that I started reading today. It really just depends on the author’s approach.
I’m firmly in the “Just Say No to Cliffhangers!” camp.
Between the myriad choices out there, a huge TBR pile on my bookshelf (and huge TBR file in my Kindle), and my bad memory, I don’t relish having to keep re-reading past books just to remember what all the loose threads are each time a new non-self-contained book in a very connected series appears. I mean, I love re-reading well-loved books, but when it becomes something you HAVE to do because of the way the author built the books, I’m not as thrilled. Though maybe the authors assume their readers have way better memories than I do…
I think it takes mad skillz for an author to do a series that’s very connected and yet each book can stand on its own. I guess as a reader who is not too crazy about the alternative, I’m glad I have the option of looking for those authors. Plus I have sites like these to warn me away from the others…
I love series, and have since I was an Enid Blyton-reading, list-making pre-teen. I love to see how characters grow and develop, although I usually stop reading when authors kill off well-loved characters (Elizabeth George).
A good series shouldn’t have to depend on cliff-hangers to keep readers invested in the characters or the stories. I expect to wait for the next book in a series (I waited YEARS for the fourth and fifth Belgariad book, then he started a second series with the same characters!). But I will not wait on the edge of my seat, so the big questions better be answered. No “Then a shot rang out” and no “It was all a dream.” Cheap, cheesy, and emotionally black-mailing. Tell me a story I want to hear, with people I care about, and I will come back.
This is why, like Lynne, I read the end of the book out of order. Authors can glare all they like – if I am going to invest my time and emotions in a story, I want to know I can live with the way it all turns out.
BTW, Lord of the Rings was written as one story – the publishers refused to print it as one massive tome, and insisted it be split into the trilogy we recognize. Tolkien fought it, disgusted by the implication that readers wouldn’t be able to handle the full story, but the publishers were mostly concerned with cost, believing people wouldn’t pay for such a long book. Surprise!
I voted with the cliffhanger haterz because I have always been averse to the manipulative unresolved ending. I never liked soapies, and the original cliffhangers, designed to keep movie aficionados returning weekly for the latest installment of the Perils of Pauline or Flash Gordon, always seemed lame to me. If I’m investing my time, money, and emotion into a story, I don’t need a teaser at the end. What I do need is an integrated, organic whole, complete with layers of meaning and complex fascinating characters. Standalone or series entry, usually a cheap trick like a cliffhanger ending negates the virtues of a well told story. Since I’m only a part time romance reader, I’m not devastated by the lack of a HEA, but I do expect a work of fiction to be complete in and of itself.
The whole series trend is such a blatant marketing gimmick, that I’ve come to resent them even as I read them. The ones that I’ve followed over the long term are well written and have fascinating characters. Oddly enough, few of my favorites employ cliffhangers as a regular plot device. I nearly plotzed at the end of Butcher’s Changes, but the writing is so great that I can’t regret following the series. Far worse was the ending of Ariana Franklin’s last book. Like Elizabeth, I was distraught when I heard that the author had died. It may seem trivial to mourn the premature ending of a wonderful series and the unresolved fate of its characters under these circumstances, but I know those characters, and they are all that I will ever know of the author herself.
I did recently read a pair of books that might technically be considered cliffhanger material if your definition requires that major characters are in peril when the book ends. Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis had a somewhat cliffhangerish dynamic, but it’s forgivable because they really are a single (extremely) long work in two volumes. Willis jumps around in time and location a great deal in the course of the novels and ends many of her chapters with cliffhangerettes, but her technique completely integrates the device into the story, building tension and heightening suspense as multiple plotlines unfold. I couldn’t put it down. I suppose this proves that, in the hands of a skilled writer, even the despised cliffhanger can serve a legitimate purpose.
If you want a classic example of the worst cliffhanger books in a series EVER, go read my review of ‘Torment’ (number 2 in the Fallen series)… http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/128247991
As far as rants go, this is the rantiest.
Not everyone may consider this a cliff hanger but in romance novels, to me, a cliff hanger is also when the couple doesn’t get together at the end but has multiple books where they are working on their relationship. Not multiple books where they appear as supporting characters (i.e. Nalini Singh’s psy changeling series) but book where they are key characters and the romance takes steps forward and backwards in each book (i.e. Jeaniene Frost’s original Night Huntress series). I read the first book in the Night Huntress series, not realizing this, and was blown away when the couple wasn’t HEA at the end. I now am storing her books up and am probably close to the point where I’ll read them all – then it feals much more like a longer novel to me.
Not sure if everyone would consider these to be cliff hangers but I definitely do in the romance genre!
I umteenth the montion to HATE CLIFFHANGERS! I quit KMM’s FEVER series after the first one because it was ….and I couldn’t stand the heroine. I really enjoyed her first series, but each could have been a stand alone.
But the CLIFFHANGER I REALLY HATE!!!!!! Diana Gabaldon OUTLANDER. Don’t get we wrong, I love Jamie and Claire. But, I could be dead by the time she ends the damn thing. And here’s the deal, DG’s gone off on a tangent, (writing other stories) I don’t think she knows how to end it! So if you’re complaining about waiting 6-8 months….TRY 4 YEARS. I don’t think we’re half-way through the Revolutionary War. John’s married to Claire who thought Jamie was dead, Jamie’s kidnapped John and Willie knows that he’s really the bastard son of Jamie, And oh BTW Jamie’s sis has shown up in the Colonies and the Red Coats are dueling it out with the Rebs…And that’s where we ended. How many years ago?
Cait
ps Knashing my teeth and pulling my hair just thinking about IT! So I ‘;m going to put it OUT OF MY MIND
pps I looked it up, First and second books came out in 1991, last book, #7, in 2009…That’s 18 years for the OUTLANDER series. And we’re not close to the end.
Cait
At my age, not only I hate cliffhangers, but I also refuse to buy a trilogy until all three books are out. I could be dead before the last book, and then I would never know how it all ended (Eh eh, a bit silly of me).
Don’t like cliffhangers AT ALL. Robin McKinley’s latest YA novel Pegasus had a huge cliffhanger ending.
AFTER I read the darn thing I read that it was commonly known that this was a cliffhanger ending. Well I DIDN’T KNOW, and didn’t appreciate it at all. Ptui.
I stopped reading the new Karen Marie Moning books for EXACTLY this reason. The first two were great, but I’m waiting for them all to come out because it’s too damn annoying a wait.