Hello, Friday! Today, I’m sharing the last few lines of five books I’ve read many times. For those of you who don’t like surprises at the end of books this post is for you. I read the beginning and the ending of books to determine whether I’m willing to go along for the story-telling journey.
Endings to books make or break a book for me.
But for those of you who don’t want to know how a book ends before you read it…
Stop now!
Danger Will Robinson!
SPOILER ALERT!
The endings to these books are below the book covers collage:
The Princess Bride
The African Queen
The Mists of Avalon
The Count of Monte Crisco
How the West Was Won
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Buttercup looked at him. “Oh my Westley, so do I.”
From behind them suddenly, closer than they had imagined, they could hear the roar of Humperdinck: “Stop them! Cut them off!” They were, admittedly, startled, but there was no reason for worry: they were on the fastest horses in the kingdom, and the lead was already theirs.
However, this was before Inigo’s wound reopened, and Westley relapsed again, and Fezzik took the wrong turn, and Buttercup’s horse threw a shoe… And the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit…
The African Queen by C. S. Forester
…He thought about the girl he had married twelve years ago when he was eighteen. She had probably been through half a dozen men’s hands by now, but there had never been a divorce and presumably he was still married to her. Oh well, South Africa and England were a long way apart, and she couldn’t trouble him much.
“Righto, Rosie,” he said, “let’s.”
So they left the lakes and began the long journey to Matadi and marriage. Whether or not they lived happily ever after is not easily decided.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
She turned her face toward the guesthouse. Should she go there and breakfast with the nuns, speak perhaps of the old days at Camelot? Morgaine smiled gently. No. She was filled with the same tenderness for them as for the budding apple trees, but that time was past. She turned her back on the convent and walked down to the Lake, along the old path by the shore. Here was a place where the veil lying between the worlds was thin. She needed no longer to summon the barge—she need only step through the mists here, and be in Avalon.
Her work was done.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
“Who knows if we shall ever see them again?” Morrel said, wiping away a tear.
“My dearest,” said Valentine, ‘Has the count not just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words – ‘wait’ and ‘hope’?”
How the West was Won by Louis L’Amour
Her voice rang loud, as old Zebulon’s had back at the Erie Canal.
Zeb chuckled. “You boys will have to sing louder to keep up with your Aunt Lilith.”
“I sang that song a good many years ago when leaving the Erie Canal…or leave on the Erie Canal, I should say. Folks all along the canal joined in.”
“Away, away, come away with me,
Where the grass grows wild,
Where the wind blows free.
Away, away, come away with me,
And I’ll build you a home in the meadow.”
“Giddap, Sam,” Zeb Rawlings said. “We’re going home.”
[Away in the Meadow is sung to the tune of Greensleeves.]
Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time