Hello friends!
As a reader, sometimes I don’t want a story to end. But tough luck, there’s only three books in the series and that last one came out years ago and the author has said nothing since.
Until, one day, they do.
I’ve mentioned the book Graceling by Kristin Cashore before. It was a favorite of mine in high school, and when I reread it in college, I still really enjoyed it. In March of 2020, I longed for something familiar and picked it up once more. I found that I still loved it, in so many ways. And I finally decided to read the sequels.
Now, “sequels” is a pretty loose term here. The second book that was released takes place some 50 years before the first book, with an entirely new cast of characters. The third book is set eight years after the first, with some new faces but mostly familiar ones. I didn’t read the sequels in high school because I was being petty over the fact that my favorite characters weren’t in two, and if I didn’t read two, what business did I have reading three?
I read a lot of ebooks, and I check most of them out from the library, because as much as I would love to spend all my money on books, I have to pay bills. Both Fire (book 2) and Bitterblue (book 3) were immediately available from the library, so I read the whole trilogy straight through. I really wish I hadn’t been so petty in high school, because I thoroughly enjoyed both follow-ups. I wanted more! But Bitterblue released in 2012, so I didn’t let myself hold out hope.
And then Cashore announced book four, Winterkeep, that summer.
I read Winterkeep in February and loved it. It was a winner to me. Sometimes it just takes nine years to find the right follow up.
I’d like to think I’m a fairly patient person. But with books? No, I just want them all, thank you. With Winterkeep I barely had to wait. With something like, say, the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, I’m anxiously awaiting the next installment and have been waiting years.
Some books are worth the wait. And some are just frustrating.
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What I wrote this week: Draft 4 prologue; Draft 4, Kita’s arc.
What I read this week: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones; The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin.
Belinda McCauley 