Castle may have aired its final episode on ABC, but the writings of Rick Castle will live on. That’s because Disney imprint Kingswell has signed on for two brand new books High Heat and Heat Storm that will be “written” by Rick Castle. The books will mark the the eighth and ninth novels in the Nikki Heat series.
The first of the two new books High Heat is actually going to be published fairly soon, on October 25, per THR. This makes me think Kingswell probably had the books in the works before ABC handed down the cancellation order for Castle. The series seemed like it was destined for renewal. The studio took a lot of flack for firing a couple of cast members, including lead Stana Katic, in order to make a budget work for Season 9. In addition, many of the other cast members had worked out new one-year contracts. Alas, the renewal did not work out, and the only way we’ll be getting any new content from Rick Castle’s perspective is through these novels.
Alright, we all know it's fiction that Nathan Fillion is actually a mastermind writer capable of writing mysteries that will intrigue readers around the world. Still, Disney has been big into promoting the fiction. Although the Rick Castle novels are actually written by a ghostwriter, the imprint takes a lot of trouble to keep up the fiction that Rick Castle had to follow around Kate Beckett for years so he would have inspiration for his character Nikki Heat. The books have Rick Castle’s name and image on the front and back covers and are essentially meant to go out into the universe as if they were written by Rick Castle.
Honestly, the big thing these book releases will do for me is to convince me the two lead characters did get the happy ending that was shown at the end of Season 8. We've known for a while that Castle actually wrote a separate ending where our characters would have been in peril (and presumably Beckett wouldn't have made it out alive.) Instead, we got a much happier ending for Caskett, although many fans were still upset by the cancellation. If you missed the finale, you can read up on it, here.
If you haven't kept tabs on network TV, the major channels just recently revealed which shows will be moving forward next season and which didn't make the cut. You can check out our full rundown of cancelled and renewed shows or find out what is coming up this summer with our TV premiere schedule.
