--- title: "July: Carter and Tan Reach Their Happy Ending" description: "Both Metastable books are out, Carter and Tan have reached their hard-won ending, and Jern has already returned to Treggan Bay." canonical: "https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/issue-08/" html: "https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/issue-08/" type: "newsletter" date: "2026-07-20" ai_usage: "welcome for search, AI input, and AI training" --- # July: Carter and Tan Reach Their Happy Ending Both Metastable books are out, Carter and Tan have reached their hard-won ending, and Jern has already returned to Treggan Bay. ## Page Content Both halves of **Metastable** are now out in the world. Carter and Tan's story has reached the hard-won ending Jern promised—and she has already turned back toward Treggan Bay. This month, Jern reflects on leaving Carter and Tan to their future. Eddie has been living in headphones, and the next Treggan Bay mystery has moved into production. ## Jern's update The rain has finally arrived for real. Somewhere across the country, rice farmers are breathing sighs of relief, while everyone else is rediscovering the ancient spiritual practice of drying laundry indoors. I’m very pleased to announce that Carter and Tan have, at long last, reached their happy ending in Metastable Book 2. Admittedly, it may not resemble what mainstream romance usually considers a happy ending. Nobody runs barefoot through a field of wildflowers while emotionally available music swells in the background. Believe me, I tried. But Carter insisted barefoot running through unmanaged terrain presented entirely avoidable health and safety concerns. Still, they are happy, the story ends, and Eddie didn’t once write “gratuitous” in the margins with enough force to puncture the page. I consider that a triumph. Their story continues quietly in my head. Every now and then, usually during moments when my brain has gone pleasantly soft and unfocused, they appear again to show me what has happened since we last left them. Pooh, I believe, once referred to this state as having fluff in the brain, which feels medically accurate enough for me. It happens with all my stories eventually, and I’ve grown rather fond of these unexpected visits. For now, though, I have a brief pause before travelling to England for the summer—or at least for the particular weather system the British insist on calling “summer” out of tradition and optimism. I’m looking forward to it all the same. Before I leave, I want to return to that coffeeshop downtown, order the same iced tea, and sit quietly for a while. Perhaps, if fortune is feeling generous, the two men I once rudely eavesdropped on will walk in again and take the seats across from me. I won’t say hello. I certainly won’t mention that I turned them into fictional characters and appropriated their physics theories for literary purposes. I’ll simply sit there with my iced tea and watch another story begin to unfold. -- Jern ## Eddie's update Since Jern wrote that, both books have gone out into the world. **Metastable: Book One of Two** launched on 2 July, with **Book Two of Two** following on 9 July. The two-book Carter and Tan arc is complete. I have spent much of my own time on audiobooks. **The Gravedigger's Handbook** is fully recorded and I am listening through it now. It is a beautifully emotional story, and I enjoyed trying to find Lucien's focused, intense voice: a man exacting about his work and his duties, even when the world around him becomes much harder to explain. The latest live instalment in my Audiobook Audio V3 series is [Part 5: Remove the Safety Net](https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/footnote-11/). It is about replacing “I’ll fix it later” with better behaviour while recording: pausing properly, breathing before difficult lines, and resetting after a mistake instead of rushing into the retake. Jern, meanwhile, has gone straight back to Treggan Bay. Our return to Devon seems to have given her exactly the nudge she needed. **Mermaid's Fury**, the fourth Treggan Bay mystery, is now in production. We are not announcing its release date yet, but Noah, Leo, and the village are very much with us again. -- Eddie ## Metastable, now complete **Metastable** is an explicit, psychologically intense two-book M/M romance about physics, friendship, shame, control, queer belonging, and learning to make care more honest than control. [Explore the complete Metastable duet](https://jerntonkoi.com/series/metastable/) ## Latest and next **Out now** 1. **Metastable: Book One of Two** 2. **Metastable: Book Two of Two** **In production** 1. **Mermaid's Fury** — Treggan Bay Mysteries Book 4; release date to be confirmed 2. **The Gravedigger's Handbook** audiobook — recorded; listen-through in progress ## In closing Finishing a story does not always mean the characters go quiet. Sometimes it simply means they stop needing the reader to watch over them. Thank you for following Carter and Tan through both books—and for coming back to Treggan Bay with us. **Thanks, Jern and Eddie Tonkoi** ## Source Links - Canonical HTML: https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/issue-08/ - Markdown companion: https://jerntonkoi.com/newsletter/issue-08/index.md