A bit over a month ago I blogged about there being bad things that will happen to good people, and updated the Foreword to make a stronger note of that. The foreword now says:
One important note: I'm telling the story of many people's lives, seen through the eyes of my main character. Bad things happen along the way, sometimes to good people. If they're outside the story codes, I'm not going to add extra warnings. That seems consistent with many other stories. I don't want to say 'X happens to someone at some point' and have everyone wondering to whom X happens and who the bad guy is who does X. I apologize if someone is upset by something that happens. I'm personally upset by some things that happen, but the story is richer for them, I think. There's lots of happiness and love, but all happiness and love all the time makes for a bland story.
The next chapter (40) is one of the reasons for emphasizing that. The chapter itself tells you there's ample reason for caution; nevertheless, I wanted to blog about it as well. I expect chapter 40 to upset people. I hope that, if it upsets you, it's for good reasons, not because I did a lousy job of storytelling (or story-coding, or whatever).
It also brings up a related issue: cliffhangers. I don't intend there to be significant cliffhangers between chapters; they're an artifact of the serialized posting process. Because chapter 40 ends with a cliffhanger, I'm posting chapter 41 tonight as well (bonus posting, not shifted from another day).
Bonus postings are another topic. I'd planned on more, but there's been a lot of editing going on behind the scenes that've delayed posting extra chapters. I'll write more about that in a blog that I expect to put out next week.
All the best! I appreciate all of my readers - thank you for reading and for your comments, thoughts, suggestions, and everything else. I'm glad you're enjoying this story, and I hope you continue to, even when bad things happen.