Please tell me there's a sequel

Have you ever started reading a novel and had the hardest time getting into the story? Sometimes I think our brains are merely trying to tell us that this is not the book for us in this exact time frame of our life. Maybe we should read it at another time. Maybe we specifically should put it down and never pick it back up? 

Growing up my Mom always told me give it one chapter. Some stories take awhile to get going. For example "The Gammage Cup", I absolutely adore this book, I've read it about 6 times, I could tell you the story from memory practically. However, I almost stopped reading it, the first chapter did not grab me...AT ALL! My older sister really wanted me to read it,  so we started reading it together, and then she caught me hiding under the covers with a flashlight... 3/4 of the way through the book. Some books need time, to really get going. 

So I have this novel the benefit of the doubt, I could feel a slight pull towards the story, there was a lot of suspense to keep you hooked. Then finally, halfway through the book I was hooked, I wanted to know what happened. I was invested and excited. I think it took me two weeks to read the first half of the book. For a reference point if I really like a book and don't have work the next day I will be done with the book before I go to bed given that the book is an average size (400 pages or so). I finished the last half of the book in a night. 

As I'm laying there gobbling up the pages, fully invested in the story, ready to see what happens, I come upon a massive cliff hanger. Of course in my mind as this is a new novel that I've picked up that doesn't mention anything about being part of a series, this book is it. Right? So I turn the page expecting to find the last chapter as there are only a few pages left in the book... 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All I can think is WHAT?!?! There has to be a mistake. I literally lay there flipping back and forth in utter confusion, that was it? That was the ending, but it wasn't an ending, nothing got tied up everything you had been wondering about the whole book was left even wider open.

I've decided this has to mean that there is a sequel coming...there has to be a sequel coming. I am going to hold onto this belief with everything I've got because I am invested in the characters and I need to know what happens next. I would still recommend the book, as the story was wonderful, just you have now been warned that the ending might leave you in serious need of a sequel. 

"What Happens In Paradise" by Elin Hildebran
https://books.google.com/books/about/What_Happens_in_Paradise.html?id=kneGDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description 

Also if you have not read "The Gammage Cup" by Carol Kendall and Erik Belgvad, stop what you are doing, go to the library, go on amazon, I don't care how you get ahold of a copy of this book, but read it! And do not give up on it until you've gotten through the first 3 chapters. 
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gammage_Cup/PgshvgAACAAJ?hl=en 

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