I recently found myself curious about the status of a once-beloved book series. The author had been a longtime favorite of mine, and I wondered whether she might have made progress on the next installment, or even just offered an update. So, like any devoted reader would, I went digging. What I discovered left me more than disappointed. The series, it turns out, had been quietly and abruptly abandoned. Not paused, not reimagined, just discarded,…