Readers Guide for The Ending Writes Itself

My Readers Guide for The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke discusses this closed circle mystery set in Scotland and featuring a group of writers competing to write the ending of an unfinished manuscript.

Readers Guide for The Ending Writes Itself

Table of Contents:

• Jen’s Quick Take on The Ending Writes Itself
• Character List for The Ending Writes Itself
• The Ending Explained of The Ending Writes Itself

Jen’s Quick Take on The Ending Writes Itself

• I was curious to try The Ending Writes Itself for two reasons: first, this is a author team (Victoria Schwab + Cat Clarke), which I find intriguing, and second, I have enjoyed The Lost and The Found by Cat Clarke (a 2016 YA suspense story). I don’t think I’ve read anything by Victoria Schwab, as she writes mostly fantasy.
• The Ending Writes Itself has a classic And Then There Were None set-up, right down to the mysterious host and the island.
• Six writers (YA, romance, horror, sci-fi, and mystery) are invited to Skelbrae Island in Scotland and are told they are there to write the ending of an unfinished novel by a celebrated mystery author.
• But then one of them dies. And another…
• I’m sorry to say I was a little disappointed by this one. The Scottish island setting was barely described. The characters didn’t feel differentiated. And the book was heavy one dialogue. It was hard to read this after The Library After Dark, which was rich in both setting and character development.
• Given that, I was hoping the plot would be killer. It was fine, with all the typical And Then There Were None tricks, and a motive that was topical and funny.
• Thanks to the New York Public Library for lending me a copy!

Character List for The Ending Writes Itself

Arthur Fletch: celebrated author of the Ashbolt books and the Petrarch novels, featuring red haired detective Julia Petrarch

Eleanor Vandenberg: Arthur Fletch’s intimidating literary agent

Rufus Beaumont: Fletch’s editor at Merriweather Press

Cate Newhouse: struggling new mystery writer who has just been signed by literary agent Eleanor Vandenberg, who thinks she might be the new Fletch!

Penn Stonely: nom de plume of writing couple Malcolm Buchanan and Sienna Wood Buchanan, who write police procedurals

Priscilla Renée Fox: Black romance writer

Jaxon (Oswald Jackson) : sci-fi writer

Millie Mitchell: YA fantasy writer

Kenzo Gray: horror writer

The Ending Writes Itself: Ending Explained

The authors, whose devices are confiscated, are made to sign an NDA and told that the winning ending to Fletch’s manuscript will receive $2 million.

The authors die one by one:

• Sienna falls down the stairs
• Malcolm falls off a cliff
• Jaxon is strangled
• Millie is bludgeoned by Cate (with a gold book). Cate claimed that she was defending Priscilla from Millie.
• Kenzo was stabbed through the neck by antlers

The killer was Cate. She didn’t write her manuscript. She fed all of Arthur Fletch’s books into AI and asked it to write a book for her.

Priscilla survives but she is not Priscilla. She’s really Ava Paulson, Fletch’s editor, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the writing competition. Rufus was actually Holden, Ava’s assistant.

Cate, exposed as the killer, tries to escape with Fletch’s famous solid gold book. But she falls in the water after Ava hits her with an oar. The gold book drags her under the water and she presumably drowns.

Ava says she will finish Fletch’s unfinished book, but she can’t do it.

Merriweather Press decides to release the book as is.

Kenzo survived his impaling! He was rescued and sewn up by Angus the groundskeeper. He then wrote the story of the murders on Skelbrae and sold it as fiction.

Eleanor paid off people to keep all the murders out of the media.

Did you read this one? Did you like it?