I loved this book from page 1, it drew you in with the story and characters. This book is one that you don’t want to put down until you know what happened to Jim. I just had to keep reading to find out why Jim left, would he return and what would become of Mary. Kit and Alice are great characters but Mary is such a strong brave lady.
Loved it !
Thanks Net Galley for giving me the chance to read this book

This was a lovely, lovely book. Watching Mary open up and accept help was really heartwarming. The characters were well-written and really came to life. Highly recommended.

I could not put this book down! This is the story of Mary, the silent and elegant lady who spends her evenings standing outside Ealing station holding a sign saying "Come home Jim". The tale is told alternatively over two time periods as we unfold the story of Mary and Jim, one of great love and loss.
This is an emotional ride and the surrounding characters have their own experiences of love and loss, making them hugely sympathetic to the reader.
Beautifully told, with a few surprises thrown in to raise the heart rate, I highly recommend this book, particularly for fans of Jojo Moyes.

A very emotional read which pulled me in at the start and kept me reading until the very end. This book is heartbreaking, emotional and uplifting on so many levels. It is a memorable stand out read.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy.

Such a beautiful and powerful book with so much to say about love and loss, and the most brilliant focus on men's mental health which is so often neglected in commercial fiction. I was quickly hooked, and devastated by Mary's loss. I enjoyed the flashbacks to 'then', as the story unravels and you get to know Jim a little better. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure!

I loved this book! An engaging mystery with easily identifiable characters. i found it diffcult to put this book down and completed in a couple of days (and nights). Thought I knew how the story was going to end, but I was very Wrong. Abbie greaves has completed a lovely book which deserves to be read by all. I will be looking for more writing from this author.

This is essentially a poignant love story .
Mary and Jim meet and fall madly in love . One day, after a fallout , Jim does not come home.
Mary is bereft . She decides to keep a vigil for Jim by waiting at the local train station with a home made sign reading "Come Home Jim " -and when the book begins we learn she has been there every day for the last 7 years.
Keep the tissues handy

Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review

I started this book with high hopes but I’m afraid I soon got bored and started to skip forward purely to find out what happened to Jim. I’m sure lots of people will enjoy this book which deals with loneliness and mental health issues - afraid I’m not one of them.

This book was hard to read, because it is so real. It is about loss, hear break, mental illness.
Maybe little slow, but it is a solid read.

3.5 stars.

A book about love and loneliness and how mental health affects both. I enjoyed it although was a little sceptical about someone holding a nightly vigil for 7 years which is why I gave it 4* and not 5.
Despite that I read it in 2 days and would recommend it.

This book is breath takingly, heart breaking. It’s so beautifully written. The raw emotions of loss and pain are so cleverly exposed in this book.

I was hooked by the idea of a love story which the synopsis seemed to offer, but the story itself was lacking in characters and plot. Overall a real shame or maybe I just expected more.
I will admit that I did read purely to see where Jim was, but not because I cared about him or the other characters just because I was curious.
The pace of the story seemed to drag and while the subject is not light hearted it needed some sort of balance to keep the reader interested.
All in all not for me.
If I was to recommend this book I would say grab it for a pool side, beach read so you can have you light hearted breathing spaces.

This is a well-written novel with a great deal of understanding behind it. When you first start to read it, The Ends of the Earth puts you in mind of a Leslie Thomas novel (I have read at least two such) about a middle-aged man running away from home, except that it’s seen from the perspective of the woman left behind. Actually, it isn’t like that at all, but the true character of this novel does not emerge all at once. The truth comes in layers and none of the characters really want to believe it all.

The author ultimately allows love to heal all, but not until the truth is uncovered and faced and ghastly mistakes that might have “justified” lasting animosity or even legal action, are forgiven. And the “happy ending” is nothing like what the reader is expecting or hoping for, for most of the story. The quiet but firm portrayal of forgiveness as a necessity rather than a mere virtue makes this book a very non-trivial love story indeed.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me this ARC. This book covers many important topics such as loneliness, loss, and mental health struggles in both men and women. The book was just too slow pace for me, I found myself skipping some of the back story.

Mary enjoys a whirlwind romance with the charming and devastatingly attractive, Jim. He's not perfect, she discovers as they begin a life together, but when one night she comes home to find he's left, she's shocked to the core.

Clearly, as we meet her seven years later, standing outside the underground station with a sign urging Jim to return home, she has never got over her loss.

When Alice meets Mary and learns something of these events, she's determined to find the answers to Jim's disappearance. She likes Mary and wants to help her, but the story could also be the scoop she needs to save her job on the newspaper. So she joins the phone helpline and gets alongside Mary and her friends to find out more.

A clever idea, beautifully executed - you can't leave this story before you've found out the answers to the mystery and the central characters are wonderfully compelling. Although I didn't quite believe in Jim, the impact a missing person can have on a life is sensitively presented. Touching, amusing and intriguing. A great read.

This is another astonishing tale from Abbie Greaves. I very much enjoyed The Silent Treatment, and can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

This completely failed for me from the start because I did not believe that anyone would stand holding a sign every evening for seven years, specially as Mary actually had had the chance to find out where Jim was, she just refused to do it. Yet another story which involves someone on a road trip chasing around the country looking for someone (a father, birth mother, husband etc.) I did like some of the characters, particularly Kit, but it was an unoriginal, over-sentimental plot.

A touching read centering on the very important and sensitive issue of mental health. Especially in these times awareness is even more important.. The book does jump about a bit on different timelines, however, these are all clearly indicated so not too confusing. I did find it very slow going in the beginning and wondered how it would resolve itself if it carried on in the same vein, but the introduction of secondary characters enlivened the rest of the book which made it worth reading to the end. So, basically, stick with it and hopefully the reader will be more aware of possible mental issues around them.

Some books are great for a quick unwind at the end of the day but this book tugs at the heartstrings and you find yourself thinking about it whilst not reading.

We have complex intertwining stories - from Mary, Jim, Juliette, Richard, Alice, Kit and Ted... There are twists along the way, as well as a few surprises.

This story covers the issue of mental health and people doing what they need to get by. We never know what's really going on in someone's head.

This story is full of hope pe and denial, as well as acceptance.

The Ends of the Earth, Abbie Greaves

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: General fiction .

I was really intrigued by the description, and having enjoyed Abbie's novels before I really expected to love it. Maybe in a different time I would, but I'm reading this in November 20, caught in the Covid depression fugue that has many of us in its hold, and its just too drear, to somber for me.

It deals with such important issues of mental health that I feel bad about saying I didn't enjoy it, but I couldn't really connect properly to the story or the characters.
I felt when I got to the end ( and of course not the end I wanted...) that I had more questions than answers, and I just don't get along with stories that make me feel that way. I like everything – or almost everything – wrapped up, questions answered, no missing parts, and here that didn't happen. Unless I've missed something ;-)

Stars: Two, I might come back and reread one day, when times are less grim and my mind can take a book that has a lot of sadness in. Right now its just not a story for me. That's down to me, not the book, others love it and you may too.

ARC supplied by Netgalley and publishers

This book tackles the important subject of mental health through a mystery. Mary's boyfriend Jim disappeared 7 years earlier and she has maintained a vigil every evening since at the station, with a sign saying 'come home Jim'. We hear their story through flashbacks, and through the intervention of other characters.
It's a gripping read, as you want to find out why Jim disappeared, what went wrong with their relationship, and is he still alive? On the way, we meet other characters, each of whom has their own back story.
This is almost a very good book, but I felt the author did not develop the characters enough, and the coincidences in the book were a bit unbelievable at times. I can see why they were there, to keep the story moving, but some were not entirely credible. With a bit more editing, I think this could be a very good book.