Spoiler alert, I am about to spoil most of the plot of Sucker Punch in the comments below. If you have not read the book please don’t read them. I am responding to the spoiler thread, but my reply got too long for Facebook and Instagram. Thanks again to all of you that responded with such enthusiasm and so many comments that I couldn’t respond to them all, so here are some of the highlights that I gleaned from your discussion.
Is this the last Anita book? Of course not. This rumor seems to circulate after every book, though I’m not sure why, so let me reassure everyone there will be many more books to come.
Also, to the people that have started saying the last book will be the big wedding between Anita and Jean-Claude: absolutely not. Neither I, Anita, or any of the people she loves believe in happily-ever-after being the end of the story. Happily-ever-after is the beginning of true love, not the end. And for some of you speculating that Olaf would interrupt the wedding with Jean-Claude, why would he do that? He doesn’t want to marry Anita, just have something similar with her that he thinks Edward has with her, more like a sword mate in the ancient tradition. Also, if anyone thinks that Anita marrying Jean-Claude is suddenly going to make them both monogamous, so Olaf would have lost his chance to bed Anita, um no. Anita and Jean-Claude are both polyamorous, that’s not going to change.
Olaf – I really thought we were going to get to kill him off in the last book, Serpentine, but that part of the plot never materialized, so he got another book, but I always think every book is his last. He surprised, both Anita and me in this one. Shocked Edward, too, which isn’t that easy to do. At this time I’m not planning on ever having Anita and he have sex, but I’ve had bet good money that Anita would not have kissed him voluntarily ever again, so I’ve taken my bets off this table. I agree with those that think that Olaf would kill her before he’d become her Bride. I do think that this weird new dimension of character growth between Anita and Olaf will continue at least long enough for him to come to St. Louis is try to figure out how the other people in Anita’s life work. Olaf is intelligent, except emotionally, so I can see him wanting to come and ask questions of the other men and maybe women in her life. I’d like to see his lion form before he dies. I’d sort of like Olaf to go with Anita and Edward on Peter’s first hunt, along with Bernardo.
The kiss – A lot of you were horrified, or intrigued, or just confused by the fact that Anita and Olaf actually shared a kiss. I tried to write that scene differently several times, but the book stalled and would not go like a car that had run out of gas. I’ve learned that when that happens it means that the characters, the plot, my muse have decided that this scene needs to be in the book. Sometimes I write the scene and then delete it later, but most of the time the muse is right and the scene stays. Yes, it bothered both me and Anita, too.
Edward testing inconclusive for Therianthropy. Sorry, I’m not going to answer any of your questions, you’ll just have to see how it plays out. It’s too big a potential plot twist to give it all away here. Sorry, not sorry. I will say I didn’t see it coming and wrote it out, then put it back twice. I know what it means and where we’re going with it.
I’ll agree with everyone who liked seeing Nicky talk to Olaf. It was fun. Glad so many of you enjoyed the poly discussion near the end with the bigger cast. I enjoyed writing the scenes as much as you enjoyed reading it.
A few of you said that Anita was weak and not bad ass for calling in Edward for help with Olaf. First, it is not a sign of weakness to ask for help when you need/want it. Second, if Anita had just shot Olaf dead early in the book then she’d have been arrested and trying to solve the book’s mystery would have stopped. It would have become a book about Anita having destroyed her life to kill Olaf. If you’ve missed it, Anita is not the most subtle person, if we have to kill Olaf in the future we need Edward with us to ensure that we have a chance of not going to jail or getting executed for it. Anita needed Edward there not just backup and potential protection but for planning how to do the deed and not get caught.
A couple of you said the mystery was too easy to solve and too obvious, because you solved it in the first half of the book. Well, good for you, because you were ahead of me. I honestly originally had Leduc down as the murderer. It was one reason that I made Hanuman, Michigan a fictional town, because if the cops are the bad guys then I will not intentionally besmirch a real police force. Turns out he wasn’t it, but good on the handful of you that say you saw through my plot and solved it before I even knew it was Jocelyn. I thought Sheriff Leduc and Deputy Rico were both in on it, as it turned out Rico was still a bad guy, but his partner in crime changed completely. Jocelyn was originally supposed to be a red herring.
A few more of you complained on how much dialogue and soul searching Anita does in the book. Anita overthinks things, because I overthink things. Also, every serious relationship I’ve ever been in has required a great deal of communication in real life, in fact the fictional discussions aren’t nearly as complicated and long as some real life poly talks. It’s one of the serious downsides to my chosen sexual orientation. Yes, it’s trying, but totally worth it when it works.
Some of you are thrilled that there was no sex and all mystery. Others of you missed the sex and loved the mystery. A few of you missed Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel and the others, and would have chucked the mystery to see more poly couple time. Still others of you were happy not to have them on stage this book. Some of you were cafeteria style and picked a little from several choices above. As a writer and as a person you cannot please everyone, so in the end please yourself, or let the book be what the book wants to be, because I was not happy with the ending.
I’d originally planned to save Bobby, and then we got to the end – twice. I tried to save him a different way and the book stopped dead in it’s tracks. I cried, if it’s any comfort. But I finally realized that this book wasn’t just about the injustice of the execution system, but about why the execution warrants exist in the first place. Bobby proved just how dangerous he was at the end.
A few of you thought that Jocelyn enraged Bobby by accusing Rico of raping her, no. Bobby smelled them on each other and then she told him the truth about their affair and the murder and framing him. The plan was for Rico to shoot Bobby trying to bend the bars and escape after Jocelyn enraged him up, but Rico got too close and Bobby decided he wanted to kill Rico more than he wanted to escape. There’s a reason you’re not allowed to stand within paw reach of the cages at the zoo.