From Travelblog to Guestblog!
Welcome today to Candace Havens, member of FFP and author of the new release Dragons Prefer Blondes. Take it away, Candace!
One of the things I love most about romance novels is the happy endings. I like knowing that no matter how much hell the character goes through during the book, in the end he or she is going to get a happy ending.
I can guarantee you’ll get one of those with every book I write. It may not be the happy ending one might expect, but there will be one. (Smile). In my new book, Dragons Prefer Blondes, it doesn’t look like my heroine, Alex, has much chance for happiness. She’s in charge of keeping dragons from attacking Earth. It’s a tough job, but the wealthy club owner just looks at it like another day at the office.
She’s a woman who has most definitely given up on the concept of love and happily ever afters. She’s certain those things will never be a part of her life. Imagine her surprise when love smacks her upside the head and she realizes that she could possibly lose the one person who matters most to her.
Through the years I’ve had a chance to talk to Nicholas Sparks about his various books and films. While talking about “Nights in Rodanthe” I thought he explained his style very well. “I write Greek tragedies, and there are no happy endings in a Greek tragedy,” he said. “I give people a hopeful ending, but not necessarily a happy one.” As much as I adore him and his books, it hurts my heart every time I read them or watch the films.
So, while I can’t tell you the ending of Alex’s story, I can say that there is a resolution. And that while she may not get what she thought she wanted, she does end up happy. (Smile).
Don’t tell me the endings, but share some of your favorite books that had wonderful resolutions at the end.
Candace Havens
Two recent reads come to mind..they both deal with characters that have gone through amazingly destructive, abusive histories…and they're both characters you learn about through series, so the build up to their endings is well fed. The other thing both series in general, and these books in prticular have in common would be that the authors both spin their very own brands of happy endings. They make you think about your definitions of "happy" and expand on them.
The first bok would b Demon Mistress, by Yasmine Galenorn, and the second would be Lover Aveenged, by J. R. Ward.
I don'twant the fairy tale HEA; I want something that challenges my ideas of HEA, and that lets me tak those challenges back into the "real world". Both of these authors excel at meeting my reading challenge, everytime, so every ending is a surprise.
Reading both books commented on before me I am hard pressed to see any kind of a happy ending for the first one…. I know it is coming but not quite there YET…. I loved the ending to the Colleen Gleason Gardella series even though I was routing for the other possibility. Dakota Cassidy's Accidental series has fun endings too…. An author friend of mine, Karen Dales, who has just finished her first published work told me at the end of hers that "I don't beleive in Disney endings" for her Angel of Death book when I commented that her ending was torture…. LOL Another who leaves it hanging is Richelle Mead…. It does keep me coming back for more and hoping for a HEA sometime in the future for their characters