The Finish Line

The Finish Line (2021) is a contemporary dark romance novel by Kate Stewart. It is the third and final installment in the internationally bestselling Ravenhood trilogy, which began with Flock and Exodus. Framed as a modern-day Robin Hood retelling, the series follows the tumultuous relationship between Cecelia Horner and Tobias King, the ruthless leader of a secret vigilante society known as the Ravenhood. Years after Tobias forced Cecelia out of his dangerous life, he returns, determined to win her back and confront their shared, violent past. The novel explores themes including The Labor of Forgiveness and Redemption, The Corrosive Nature of Secrecy, and The Haunting Presence of the Past.

Kate Stewart is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author known for writing emotionally intense romance novels. The Ravenhood trilogy became a viral sensation on the social media platform TikTok, where the #BookTok community propelled the series to international bestseller status. The series has since been acquired for a film adaptation. The character of Tobias King is positioned within the literary tradition of the Romantic anti-hero, a brooding and tormented figure haunted by his past. The novel directly invokes this tradition by using an epigraph from Edgar Allan Poe to frame Tobias’s internal conflict between his capacity for love and his deep-seated fear of mental illness.

This guide is based on the 2024 Kensington Trade Paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, murder, gun violence, child abuse, self-harm, mental illness, substance use, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

The narrative opens with Tobias King, age 44, standing on a shoreline in France. He holds a sand dollar, a memento from a childhood memory with his father, Abijah, who had schizophrenia. Reflecting on his life, he acknowledges that his purpose has become Cecelia, the woman he forced out of his life 12 years prior. He walks toward a house he built, his “finish line,” a place he has never entered, waiting for this moment with her. After receiving a text that “Lady Bird is in the nest” (5), he hears Cecelia call his name and rushes to meet her. As he finds her on the balcony, the story flashes back six years to the beginning of their reunion.

The main narrative begins when Tobias is 38. On “Day One” of his return to Cecelia in Virginia after an eight-month absence, he wakes in her bed. He arrived the previous day, promising explanations, but passed out from exhaustion. He finds Cecelia in her garden, upset over a dream. Tobias explains that he spent seven weeks searching for Cecelia after she disappeared. He confesses to killing Jerry, an old business partner of Cecelia’s father, Roman Horner, to eliminate a lingering threat to her. He also reveals how he found her: His brother-in-law, Sean, had placed a tracker on the car he gifted her. Later, at Cecelia’s café, Meggie’s, Tobias becomes jealous of a customer, Greg, and publicly stakes his claim on Cecelia. In response, Cecelia publicly lists Tobias’s past betrayals, to which he admits. The tense day ends with a brief, tender moment after Tobias receives a supportive text from Sean, mending some of the distance between them.

The narrative weaves between the present reunion and flashbacks to Tobias’s past. As a child, Tobias cares for his younger brother, Dominic (Dom), while living with their neglectful aunt, Delphine. When Dominic is sick with chicken pox, a pregnant woman, Diane, gives him a ride and buys supplies for Dom. Unknown to Tobias, Diane is Roman Horner’s wife, and the child she is carrying is Cecelia. Diane was responsible for the accident that killed Tobias’s parents, for which Tobias and his brothers blame Roman. She sends anonymous care packages throughout their childhoods, something Tobias doesn’t discover until many years later. At 16, Tobias leaves for prep school in France, creating tension with Dom and Sean. In Paris, he befriends the wealthy Preston Monroe after saving him from a mugging.

In the present, Tobias begins writing a journal to process his traumatic past and to share his memories with Cecelia. He receives a call from Preston Monroe, who is now President of the United States, and arranges for more protection for Cecelia. That evening, after an argument, Cecelia sees two old gunshot scars on Tobias’s back, realizing he was gravely injured during their separation.

On the way to meet his local security team, Tobias reveals the full truth of his absence. After Cecelia left Triple Falls, the Miami chapter of their vigilante group, the Ravenhood, declared war. He became “enemy number one,” and many members died, including his brother, Dominic. He explains his gunshot scars are from an assassination attempt a year to the day after Dom’s death, an event that left him with no will to live. He also confesses that he and Cecelia’s father, Roman, had a silent partnership to protect her. He gives her the choice to walk away from the danger, but she stays. After weeks of sexual tension and arguments, Cecelia asks Tobias to move his belongings into the house.

The fragile peace is broken when Tobias spots a man, Julien, tailing him. Recognizing him as French and connected to a dangerous figure from his past named Antoine, Tobias neutralizes him and learns that Antoine is hunting him. That night, he gets drunk and has an emotional breakdown over his guilt about Dom’s death. Cecelia comforts him and finds he has recreated their “fireflies” in the backyard—strings of fairy lights that symbolize their sacred place. They reconcile, but their reunion is interrupted by the arrival of Cecelia’s mother, Diane. Tobias and Cecelia learn that Diane was the pregnant woman who helped him as a boy, and they finally tell her the violent truth of their past. The revelations lead to another explosive fight between Tobias and Cecelia over his secrecy, but they make peace once more. A flashback reveals the source of Tobias’s deepest rift with his brothers: At 31, he discovered that Dom and Sean had brought Cecelia into the club and had been deceiving him. Feeling betrayed, he confronted them and exiled them to France for nine months.

In the present, Tobias learns of a new threat and prepares to leave for two days. Cecelia gives him an ultimatum: If he leaves, they are finished. He agrees to stay, and they have passionate sex. Tobias sends Julien back to France with a coded message for Antoine, effectively declaring war. At the café, he realizes that Greg, the man with whom he had a jealous confrontation over Cecelia in the café, is working with Antoine. He races Greg back to the house, where they fight brutally before Tobias is ambushed and dragged inside. Antoine is waiting, and Cecelia is also there, armed after having killed one of his men. Greg is revealed to be Jerry’s vengeful stepson. During the standoff, Tobias puts a gun to his own head to negotiate Cecelia’s freedom. However, Cecelia reveals that she orchestrated the entire confrontation as a trap, having worked with Sean, Tyler, and even Antoine’s own men, Palo and Julien, to lure Antoine to her. The house is stormed by Ravens and Secret Service agents. Cecelia kills Greg, and Tobias kills Antoine.

In the aftermath, Sean and Tobias fully reconcile. Sean reveals that they always had his back and only went to France out of loyalty. With their primary enemies eliminated, Tobias and Cecelia visit her best friend, Christy, to tell her the truth. They then travel to the White House to meet with President Monroe and formalize a plan to legitimize the Ravenhood, granting them amnesty. Tobias confesses his deepest fear to Cecelia: that he might develop schizophrenia like his father. She reassures him she will never leave him.

The epilogue returns to Tobias at age 44, seven years after the confrontation with Antoine. He and Cecelia are in France, their work with the government complete. He breaks the sand dollar from the prologue and proposes. One month later, they are married. Tobias finds Dom’s childhood drawings and, on the beach, finally speaks to his deceased brother. A bonus chapter reveals that a year later, Cecelia becomes pregnant and gives birth to their daughter, Celine. A few years after that, they also have a son, Jean Guillaume, and are living peacefully at their “finish line.”