A BRIEF AND MOSTLY ACCURATE HISTORY OF THE CLIFFHANGER (and a giveaway)

SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN FOR THE GIVEAWAY…

The cliffhanger has a long and storied history of authors ruining people’s lives and then acting surprised when those people retaliate. In 2026, readers leave one-star reviews that read like divorce proceedings.

They tag authors in TikToks set to dramatic prison sentencing audio.

They create entire Goodreads shelves called things like “authors who owe me therapy” and “personally victimized by this ending.”

One reader once live-streamed herself throwing a Kindle into a lake. The author reposted it. It got more engagement than the book.

But this isn’t new — the cliffhanger, unlike the book hangover (more on that another day), is as old as storytelling itself.

And readers have ALWAYS retaliated.

Allow me to present the (mostly factual) evidence.

Charles Dickens, 1841 When Dickens serialized The Old Curiosity Shop, readers in New York supposedly crowded the docks screaming “Is Little Nell dead?!” at incoming ships. What historians WON’T tell you is that a woman from Boston waited six weeks for the answer, didn’t like it, and mailed Dickens a box of angry bees. He never acknowledged it publicly. The bees were never recovered.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1893 When Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, over 20,000 people cancelled their subscriptions to The Strand Magazine. One woman in Edinburgh sent him a letter that simply read “You beast” every single day for four months. Doyle reportedly kept them in a hatbox. When asked about it later he said “She wasn’t wrong.”

Scheherazade, circa 800 AD Technically the first cliffhanger girlie. If you don’t know her, she’s the narrator of One Thousand and One Nights — a king who executes his new bride every morning, and the woman who survived by telling him a story every night and stopping at the good part so he had to keep her alive to hear the ending. One thousand and one nights of “but WAIT” energy. She invented the game and honestly the rest of us are just paying rent in her house.

Thomas Hardy, 1895 After the serialized ending of Hearts Insurgent (later Jude the Obscure) left readers mid-crisis for three months, a rector in Wakefield publicly burned his copy and sent Hardy the ashes in an envelope with a note that read “Your ending, sir, as it deserves.” Hardy called it the best review he ever received.

Margaret St. James, 1978 The largely forgotten queen of the paperback bodice ripper who wrote the Savage Corsair trilogy for Zebra Books. Book two ended with the heroine unconscious on a sinking ship and the hero shot in the chest. Readers had to wait ELEVEN MONTHS for book three. During that time, St. James received so many threatening letters that her editor started screening her mail. One reader in Tulsa sent a handwritten alternate ending — 47 pages, single-spaced — with a note that said “Since you clearly don’t know how.” St. James framed it. It hung in her office until she died in 2004. No one knows where it is now.

Me, 2026 And now, in that proud tradition of writers who ruin people’s lives and feel no remorse, I present to you:

Hold on to your cliffhangers, the ride starts TODAY… and let me just explain the SPICE LEVEL IN THESE BOOKS OK? We’re not talkin’ 5 chili peppers. We’re not even talkin’ 5 EGGPLANTS.

We’re talking 🌶️🍆🔥💀⚰️.

That’s a chili pepper, an eggplant, actual fire, death, and a coffin.

THAT’S the rating system.

That’s what Legion does to Savannah and that’s what he’s going to do to you.

I PRESENT TO YOU.. SOME (more) EVIDENCE…

🌾 He eats her pussy until she sobs his name and then fucks her so slow she forgets her own life exists outside that room.

🛋️ She rides his cock in front of a room full of men while he plays with her tits and tells every single one of them she’s his.

🚿 Shower wall. She begs him to make her forget. He doesn’t stop until she does.

👀 He tells her to spread her legs and touch herself while he strokes his cock watching. Eyes locked…

🤚 She rides him slow with his hand around her throat. Light enough to breathe. Firm enough to remind her who’s inside her.

🌙 He bends her over and makes her beg. Makes her say every filthy thing out loud. Then takes her from the back for the first time while she screams she belongs to him.

💀 He pulls out and grabs her hair. She takes him in her mouth tasting herself while looking up at him with innocent eyes.

👅 He edges her until she’s writhing. Then goes slow and deep with eye contact until they came together.

🏜️ No panties. He finds this out with his fingers. Makes her confess every fantasy she’s ever had about him before he’ll touch her again.

🔥 TEN TIMES in twenty-four hours. She tells him she’s never been this horny in her life. They were very late for dinner.

So, YES, I WILL DESTROY YOU WITH CLIFFHANGERS, BUT I PROMISE… YOU WILL LOVE IT

I will not be elaborating further, I will not be apologizing, and I will not be accepting mail.

Especially bees.

Be brave and get BOOK 1 – DUST & FLOWERS now…

Weekly releases won’t kill you… much.

Win a signed copy of DUST & FLOWERS plus a VERY SUPER COOL sticker pack OF ALL YOUR FAVORITE BOOKISH TROPES!

LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO ENTER – ANSWER THIS QUESTION…

What is your FAVORITE EMOJI to use for your spice rating?

MY ANSWER

I have to say, that coffin is workin’ for me 👅 but the headstone is a natural progression! 

And the skull is my personal fav!

What’s Yours?

P.S. I will choose winners WEEKLY for the Legion Giveaways – a new giveaway every week! So stop by next Friday too! If you’re waiting on the winner for the last giveaway (Story Fodder), I haven’t picked one yet because I’ve been waiting for the books to arrive, but I will choose this weekend! So if you haven’t entered yet, go do that!