In my End is my Beginning -- Misha Herwin

 

This month I will finishing “The Ice Angel” the last book in my series “The Adventures of Letty Parker.” Aimed at readers between 8-12 and set in an alternative Victorian England, the stories were originally intended to be a trilogy. As time went by and I became more and more absorbed in the world I had created , Letty and her Associates ended up having so many cases to solve and missing persons to find that what should have been three books became six.

I have, however, finally come to the end. Right from the very start I had decided that there was a point at which I was going to stop and that was when Letty got to the age when she would fall in love. I didn’t want to write romance, but I knew that my readers would want to know what happened on an emotional level to Letty and her friends in their future and as the books went on I seeded enough hints as to who would eventually end up with who without specifically saying so.

In “The Ice Angel” some narrative threads come to an end, others are left open and I still have a vast cast of characters who might find their way into a book at some point in the future. If that ever happens the story won’t feature Letty, though she might play a minor part. The book might even be aimed at an adult audience though that is only a vague possibility that occasionally floats through my mind.

In the meantime, I have finished the final edit on my last chapter. I like books that end where they started and I am back on Tobacco wharf with the masts and rigging of the sailing ships silhouetted against the sunset, just as they were in “City of Secrets” the very first Letty book.

These final paragraphs with their pointers as to what is to come and their references back to the beginning have been the hardest of all to write. Almost as difficult as the opening of the very first book, which went through almost as many re-writes. The trick is to pique the reader’s interest but not to say too much, then finally to leave them with a feeling of satisfaction without going into every detail. Get the beginning and end of your story right and everything comes together.

In Letty’s world, the sun is setting on the river and I am ready to let her go and move on to my next project.