Sometimes you need the happy ending

If you’ve visited Meeghan Reads over the past couple of months, you may have noticed things have been a little… quieter than usual.

That’s not because I’ve stopped reading. Although I have been reading less than previous years. I just haven’t had the energy to read AND blog.

The past few months have been a time of enormous change. I’ve been wrapping up a long career (18 years) in the Australian Public Service (APS), preparing to step away from a role that has been a huge (and sometimes difficult) part of my life for the past four years, even more medical diagnoses, and quietly navigating a level of burnout that I don’t think I fully appreciated until I finally started to slow down.

Apparently when your brain spends years constantly switched on, it turns out it doesn’t simply flick back off again.

What surprised me wasn’t that I kept reading. It was what I found myself reaching for.

When your reading tastes suddenly change

For most of my life I’ve happily bounced between fantasy, historical fiction, thrillers, literary fiction, mysteries, horror, and just about everything in between.

Then, almost without noticing, my reading tracker started filling with romance, almost exclusively. The occasional romantasy crept in. Maybe a dash of cosy fantasy.

But essentially, books with a guaranteed happily ever afters (or HEA).

Books where I knew that, no matter how much emotional damage the author inflicted somewhere around the 75% mark, everything would somehow be okay by the end.

At first I felt a little guilty about it. Shouldn’t I be reading something more challenging? More literary? More varied? Am I just filling a void with guilty pleasures or cheap thrills?

Then I realised something… reading has always met me where I am. Sometimes I want complicated political fantasy with 37 ridiculously named characters and a map that requires its own google app. Sometimes I want a mystery that keeps me guessing until the final page.

But sometimes I just need two fictional idiots to fall in love while defeating monsters, healing old wounds, and reminding me that hope is still worth believing in.

It turns out HEAs aren’t just endings, they’re promises. Because no matter how difficult things become in real life (and let’s be honest, this place has been a shit-show since 2019 at least), these stories quietly reassure us that everything will eventually be okay.

And I think I’ve needed that.

Stories give us what we need

The more I thought about it, the more I realised this isn’t actually unusual. We all have comfort stories.

Some people reread childhood favourites. Some binge the same movies or tv shows over and over. Some disappear into cosy mysteries or historical romances.

For me, the last few years happened to be filled with romance and romantasy. Not because they’re “easy” books, or because I’d suddenly abandoned every other genre. But because they offered exactly what I couldn’t always find in real life: certainty, hope, and emotional resolution.

And honestly, I’m done feeling guilty about it.

Books have always been companions through different periods of life. This one just happened to involve dragons, morally grey love interests, magical kingdoms, and an alarming number of people who communicate exclusively through yearning.

Somthing old, something new

Although the blog has been quieter, I haven’t been standing still.

Over the past year, I’ve been quietly building something I’ve dreamed about for a long time.

Many of you already know how much I love talking about stories — not just whether I enjoyed them, but why they worked or didn’t. Why one redemption arc feels earned while another falls flat. Why a character’s emotional journey resonates. Why a particular ending stays with us long after we’ve closed the book.

That curiosity eventually led me to professional editing.

Over the six months I’ve completed formal editorial training, launched my editorial services, and begun working with authors to help strengthen their stories before publication.

What started as a side project has become the beginning of an entirely new career.

Leaving the APS has been a huge decision, but it has also given me the opportunity to spend more of my working life doing something I’ve loved for as long as I can remember: helping stories become the best versions of themselves.

If you’d like to know more about my editing services, you can find everything over on my Editorial Services page.

The next chapter for Meeghan Reads (and edits)

If you’ve been wondering whether this little corner of the internet is coming back… The answer is absolutely yes.

Book reviews are returning. Top 5 Tuesday isn’t going anywhere (and in fact, I will FINALLY be catching up). There are more game reviews on the horizon. The Editor’s Lens has plenty more tropes to lovingly dissect.

There will also almost certainly be posts about Disney villains, fictional libraries, and whatever wonderfully niche topic captures my attention next. Because suddenly I find myself faced with something I’ve been craving: time.

Time to catch up on reading. To finish video games I’ve started. To continue rebranding the rest of the blog. And to finally write about all of the wonderful, quirky, little brain bites that I’ve been jotting down on post-it notes for the past six years.

So, thank you for sticking around while life got a little messy.

Here’s to new chapters, the happy endings we need when life gets hard, and many more stories to share together.

I’ve missed being here. And I’m very glad to be back.