There is one book I’m struggling with. Hometown. It was originally written years ago. Back in ’08, I think. I finished it then, but it had many flaws. When I started redoing it last year, I wrote it in 1st person POV because the story is David’s. It doesn’t need his love interest’s POV. And David does sound wonderful in 1st, at least to me. I worry about how other people will feel about him, because he’s quite a difficult character – at least in the beginning. He grows throughout it though once he realises a few things about both himself and others.
But I’m getting off topic here. I’m struggling with this book, not because of the tense it’s written in, but because I only planned it to end in a certain place. But that place doesn’t end on a happy-ever-after. It doesn’t even end on a happy-for-now. It ends … hopeful. And it is the first in a series, so these characters will be visited again, so the HFN and HEA will reappear there. But I worry readers might be cheated if I end it before at least a HFN?
The original had a HFN, but that direction doesn’t work for the new book. Do you think, as a reader, you would be happy with a hopeful ending? Especially when you’ll see the couple again in the next books in the series? You’ll see that they did get their HFN, and eventually their HEA. Would that be okay, to end it hopefully, or would I have readers raging at me from every which way?