Lt. Reilly and the Black Bird Offensive!!!Spoiler Alert!!!. I will be discussing my first two Lt. Reilly books and the endings of both. If you have not read them yet, please do not read this blog post as it will spoil the books for you. Thank you.

I’ve gotten some heat about how I ended my second Lt. Reilly book and I would like to explain my reasoning. My hope is that by understanding my motivation and how I felt it was right for the characters, you won’t feel as off-put by the ending.
First, I don’t outline my books. I just sit down and write. I have no idea what is going to happen or even what characters are going to show up. The fact that Reilly had two women interested in him in the first book was just something that happened.
At the end of the second book, Julie Anne Mitchell and Kayla went from being rivals for Reilly’s affections to best friends who are so close they have sleepovers together. Why would I do that? Well, for one thing, it was unexpected. If a writer’s writing is predictable, then why bother reading it? The twist played into the fact that our hero can solve and fix any problem except those in his personal life. This was a curveball that both the reader and the hero wasn’t expecting. But it also plays into the complexities of the characters. It set the groundwork for the next book that explores their relationships even more and how what we think we feel might actually be something else.
In retrospect, I briefly had a time in my life where I had two beautiful but very different women interested in dating me. Like Reilly, I had not had a lot of luck in the relationship department and had been going through a very long dry spell when suddenly I was dating one woman and then met another wonderful and fascinating woman who was as interested in me as I was in her. Yet, I was never one of those guys who could juggle multiple women. I struggled with the choice for a couple of weeks, but eventually, I decided to commit myself to the one whom I loved and not the one I was just infatuated with. I never had any regrets, but a part of me still wondered, ‘what if’. So, subconsciously I put those feelings into these books.
In the second book, Mitchell got a lot more attention then Kayla so in the third book that’s coming out soon I put more of the spotlight on Kayla. I want the reader to understand her more and why Reilly cares for her so much. I also dig more into Mitchell’s past to show more of who she is.
Now the relationship parts of the books are secondary to the stories. These books are mostly action/adventure space dramas. The relationship parts only make up 10% to 15% of the books, yet it’s the relationship stuff that people get hung up on. One person suggested that I leave out the love stories altogether. That’s a no, as characters are people and to understand people you need to understand their relationships, be it with their parents, siblings, friends, enemies, and lovers. It doesn’t need to be the focus, but without some parts of their personal lives, the story wouldn’t be much more than a witness report.
Now the funny thing is I have had people tell me things like, it would be better if – “Reilly ends up with Kayla and Mitchell dies’, ‘Reilly ends up with Mitchell and Kayla goes away’, ‘Kayla and Mitchell run off together and Reilly seeks a new love interest’, and then some even odder suggestions. I’m never going to make everyone happy and I’m not going to write what others tell me to write. I write the books I want to read because no one else has. There are books out there that I love and authors whom I follow, eager for their next release as I love their work. Yet, none of them write the perfect book for me. I don’t expect them to. And I don’t expect that my books will be 100% perfect for any of you. I just hope most people enjoy my work. That really is my goal.