I have an aversion to books that are part of a trilogy or other mult-ology. I’m better with series books, like the Discworld novels or the Old Man’s War novels, where each book is complete by itself, and reading the previous books is helpful but not strictly necessary.
But when I’m deciding to invest time reading a book, I don’t want to commit to reading (much less buying) multiple books if I don’t know I already like it. It’s a bit like agreeing to a first date and then having the other person ask you what kind of house the two of you should live in and how many kids you want to have; geez, buddy, I’m not ready for that kind of commitment!
And so it really pisses me off to get to the end of a book and only then find out it’s only Book 1 of a trilogy. Because that tells me that not only could you not fit a whole tale in a book-sized package, but you figured you needed to trick me into reading it, and then hope you’d hooked me into shelling out for two more books just to find out what happened next.
Not going to happen, hopeful author. I stopped caring about the characters right there and then.
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I don’t have any sequels planned for my book but…. well, admittedly it lacks something in its character development.
And that “startling” plot twist halfway through? Dude, you telegraphed that before Chapter 1 was over. Disappointing.
But the plot shift focused on death and taxes…. You saw that coming?