Endings are hard.

That’s true regardless of who controls the narrative. Even if it’s the ending of a book, the author may struggle with the ending. And the ending may be perfectly fine for a standalone work, but may also ruin, or at least leave sour, a series.

Last night reminded me of that. I finished a series by an author named Charlaine Harris, made famous by the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which in turn were adapted by HBO into True Blood. I am not one to watch a show and read the series on which it’s based, so with True Blood, I only watched the show. Years after it ended, I began reading Harris’ latest series based on a character named Lisbeth “Gunnie” Rose.

For the first five books, the series was great. It combined a lot of things I enjoy—strong world-building, Westerns, alternate

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