‘Tis the season for beginning and ending celebrity marriages, apparently. This newest split arrives with much irony. Nicholas Sparks, the scribe known for such “romantic” tomes like Message in a Bottle and Safe Haven, announced that he and his wife of 25 years have separated. Cathy Sparks, who served as the muse for Nicholas’ books, is out the door. She’ll never haunt him in a set of daily letters spanning decades of star-crossed love. Perhaps that’s not a fair assessment. We don’t know what happened here, but I carry enough side-eye for Nicholas’ racist, homophobic ways to assume he may not be a nice guy behind closed doors. Something is amiss. Here’s the sanitized press announcement:

There will be no storybook ending for Nicholas Sparks and his wife Cathy — the woman who inspired so many of the best-selling author’s novels.

The king of the love story, who has penned 17 romantic novels — nine of which, including The Notebook, have been made into movies — is splitting from his wife of 25 years.

“Cathy and I have separated,” Sparks, 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “This is, of course, not a decision we’ve made lightly. We remain close friends with deep respect for each other and love for our children. For our children’s sake, we regard this as a private matter.”

The couple, who married in 1989 — seven years before The Notebook made the young Notre Dame business school grad a literary star — have three sons and twin daughters, ranging in age from 23 to 12.

Though he’s a master at telling love stories, Sparks has always been reluctant to offer real-world romantic advice.

“I don’t like to give marriage tips,” he told PEOPLE in 2003. “There are people who are probably much better at marriage than I am – they’ve lasted a lot longer. I could probably learn from them.”

He always spoke of Cathy, a former lending-company account executive, as his muse. In a PEOPLE interview two years ago, the North Carolina-based couple spoke of how they kept the fire burning in their marriage.

“The marriage relationship has to be primary — it’s one of the best things you can teach your children,” Nicholas said. “So we don’t feel guilty if we go for a walk, just the two of us.”

[From People]

It’s always sad when a family breaks up. Sparks has always pushed his family man image at book signings and film premieres. Do you think this split will affect his art? He might start writing bitter novels about romance gone wrong. That would be interesting, much more so than his schmaltzy tales of destiny, unbreakable love (in the face of such odds!), and all the stuff he lathers, rinses, and repeats in every book. The backstory of this real-life split could probably fill a trilogy, but that’s only a guess.

In other news, Nicholas just launched a furniture collection with Walmart. With five kids (and five rounds of child support), he’s gonna need that money.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN