And so our journey together ends. This story has been just as enjoyable to write as AFS was, and without the heavy political tones that some readers objected to. Like AFS, it ended up going places I never quite expected, but I think it concludes satisfactorily. If there was one overall theme to what people wanted to read, it was Grim vs. Candy Pants at the end; that was always my intention, and I think I did it properly.
Many readers wanted Grim to keep going from 2010, but I always wanted to end in a current time frame, taking down the villain. I had a wide range of suggestions of what Grim could do in the future – many chapters on Reaper babies, including lots of girls, and catching grief from the men in the family, with Grim delivering babies during a hurricane/snowstorm/shootout; Al Qaeda/ISIS/Mexican drug lords coming after Grim and/or his family; Grim as a guest lecturer/instructor at the Georgia Police Academy and/or the FBI Academy in Quantico; Grim and Kelly meeting/hosting/rescuing Tolley Hunter during a visit to Georgia; Grim’s life being made into a book and/or movie, like Audie Murphy’s; Grim and Candy Pants in a gigantic showdown. Those were just some of the suggestions. Many of these ideas had merit, but at some point a character becomes a caricature and, ultimately, a cartoon.
Still, Grim has been one of my most popular characters. He’ll be back for a couple of sequels. Just be patient. I’m returning to AFS for a bit.