Endings

One of my readers, who is a romantic fiction fan, said that one of the things she loved about my book was that it had a really good ending. A lot of the books she reads, she finds, just ‘end’ or have an unsatisfactory ending.  While in some way and for some books, an unsatisfactory ending can point the reader in the direction of the ‘next book in the series’, it can disappointing.
I have a favourite book, George Eliott’s Daniel Deronda.  I first read it in my early twenties after reading Middlemarch (thank you Robin Jamieson, for pointing me in the direction of what is probably the greatest English novel) and for all of you out there who can’t believe I hadn’t read Middlemarch by that time I would like to partly justify my actions by explaining that I ‘did’ The Mill On The Floss for ‘A’ level and that experience was not a happy one). Anyway, back to Daniel Deronda. It was only when I saw the BBC’s excellent adaptation that I realised that I had not actually read the ending. When I went back to the book, I remembered that I was so furious that Daniel chose the whey-faced Mira over the fabulous (but flawed) Gwendoline that I put the book down in disgust and never finished it. I consoled myself by posing the actual ending – Mira would die in childbirth and Daniel would return to England to marry Gwendoline. That was my preferred ending…. While I know that the book was much more complex than the love story, it was the love story which drove in and which proved so unsatisfactory.
Birdsong by Sebastian Falks – clever writer but the ending? What was all that about? Put me off reading anything else of his.
And finally, one ending which was so beautifully written but very, very sad – The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.  Again, watch the excellent adaptation on film starring Gillian Anderson. And no, they didn’t change the ending.
And just in case you were thinking that I was comparing myself to any of the above, get a grip. I write romantic fiction for grown up women – these writers are some of the best – and most successful – writers ever.

So which books disappointed you?