Consider the last two paragraphs of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna:
She, Mika Moon, would not be the witch who transformed the world, but she was making it a little better, day by day. She had once believed witches would never have friendship, community, and each other, but here they were. She had once believed she would never have a family, but here they were, too. She, who had once believed she would never leave a mark on anybody, knew now that the marks she had left were unerasable, as much a part of forever as the sea.
And, really, who could ask for more than that?
Endings are tricky. No one strategy will fit all of them, but this ending works really well. The techniques behind it include a summary of the book in this paragraph (the scenes that make up the book are excellent in themselves as well), anaphora, and epistrophe. The length and variety of the sentences keep the anaphora interesting: “She . . . ,” “She had once . . . ,” “She had once . . . ,” and “She . . . knew now . . .” The same is true of the epistrophe: “but here they were” and “but here they were, too.” Prose writers worry about repetition, but these strategies succeeded in creating emphasis and emotions as the book ends (at least for me). Consider trying them.
Writing Fiction 