Our last note this month comes from Stan Nicholls, author of The Diamond Isle, who talks about ending a series:

For a writer, coming to the end of a book can be tinged with sadness.  It’s even more of a wrench when the finale of a trilogy’s reached.  You’re saying goodbye to characters you’ve lived with for a long time, probably years, and some of them you really like.  A few you love.  Employing the god-like powers of authorship, you seal their ultimate fate.  Who gets to live, and who’s going to die?  Can she find happiness?  Is he to be condemned to misery?  Will their great enterprise stand or fall?  There’s a certain melancholy in bidding farewell to people born in your head.  All you can do is wrap them against the cold and give them a decent send off.  I hope I’ve done that in The Diamond Isle.