End Of Story is the third book I’ve read by Louise Swanson. Although it’s not my favourite I did still enjoy it.
The government has banned fiction, there is none to be written or read, all books must be handed in where they are destroyed to make sure no one reads fiction books. It’s five years later and in 2035. Fern was a writer but she’s not allowed to write anymore so her career has gone, she has had to restrain as a cleaner in a hospital. She needs the job as she’s a widow. Fern has started to write in secret though in a notebook about her everyday life, she must be careful as the government send people to her house to search the house for any evidence she is writing. She’s started reading bedtime stories to children through a phone line but with it comes a lot of stress from being found out but it’s with it as a little boy called Hunter has captured her heart and she lives to read fro him.
This was a book from a genre I haven’t read before. The characters were well defined and the storyline was decent, I do think around 20% of the way in it did get a little stagnant but it did pick up again and turned everything I’d read on its head.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I usually struggle with tales told in the future but this one drew me in straight away. I can’t imagine a world without fiction books to read - it must be a nightmare. Not only are there no more such books published but all existing ones are destroyed - even children’s’ books.
When Fern was being questioned by a doctor I could even feel to be closing in on myself not wanting to answer, much as Fern was feeling herself.

I look forward to reading more books by this author

This was a book I was keen to read, having loved Swanson's previous novels, written as Louise Beech, and also her very moving memoir, Daffodils.

End of Story follows author Fern Dostoy's life in a near future, nightmarish world so close to our own. Or perhaps I should say ex-author Fern Dostoy, because in this future, fiction has been banned. Writers, agents, publishers and booksellers are proscribed, sometimes sent to for 're-education' and are generally shunned. Fern has been dispossessed of her career, her home, her books, even her name and allotted a job as a hospital clearer. Sinister Government functionaries - 'the tall one and the short one' she always calls them - visit her unannounced, question and threaten her, and search for books or signs of writing.

To a book obsessive like me this is of course a truly dreadful future. No new novels to consume (or old ones for that matter). No bedtime stories for sleepless kids. No book groups. No book blogs, for that matter, I guess. As Fern tells her story we learn how the very centre of her existence, the things she created and whose creation gave her life meaning, have been taken from her by a government that blames fiction in general, and one of her books in particular, for all manner of ills - and which has worked up an angry mob to enforce its prohibition.

I said "as Fern tells her story" but in this world, storytelling has been banned. Keeping an illicit journal in a notebook, as she does, marks her therefore as still defiant - even if, as she assures us, non fiction is surely still permissible? But Fern goes further in challenging the new rules, discovering a clandestine story-reading helpline for those restless kids who have been denied the joy of fiction. She eagerly participating - it seems she suffers a particular pain at seeing them denied stories - but an atmosphere of threat hangs over the whole enterprise.

I was reminded to some extent of Nineteen Eighty Four, especially the secret, handwritten diary. However, End of Story goes to much, much weirder places. Fern becomes concerned that events in this grim future are echo her most recent book, Technological Amazingness. Something - or someone - also seems to be trying to pass messages to her, but are they friendly or not? Stranded amidst a December heatwave, Fern's life seems to be careering out of control and 'the tall one and the short one' begin to call more often...

It's actually hard to find words for how brilliant End of Story is - especially when there are aspects it's best not to discuss because that would spoil the book. At its centre it is I think an exploration of grief: Fern has lost so much, and is in a sense mourning. She also clearly feels guilt for what has happened - however much it is clearly not her fault, she only wrote a book - and perhaps feels a need to atone for that. Beyond the menace, there is something desperately sad in her relationship with the Men in Black, who come calling. I reflected that there is a sense in which they are the only people with whom she is permitted to discuss what she has lost - anyone else would be horrified, would push her away.

Perhaps almost the only people? We also meet 'Fine-Fayre', a door to door salesman for a company selling tea and biscuits (what a brilliant idea). We never learn his name, but he is in many respects the most human character in this story, apart from Fern herself. Many of the others have a slightly chilling quality, her colleagues in the hospital for example concocting bizarre schemes which they seem keen for her to overhear as she cleans the meeting room, her friends at Story Tellers on edge necessarily.

Indeed, throughout the book, Swanson creates a more and more uncomfortable - can I be pretentious and say unheimlich? - atmosphere, initially founded on the outrageous banning of fiction but increasingly taking in the, well - words rather fail me again here - the texture of Fern's relationship with the world she's in? The sense that she is struggling to hold on to reality - or perhaps that it is trying to reject her? It's a book that could almost be a ghost story (it isn't!) a book featuring a sort of haunting. The kind of book that hooks you, keeps you reading just another bit, and another bit, puzzling over what's happening. The kind of book that wraps you in itself, that you need to read with tissues to hand as the depths of Fern's suffering are - oh-so-slowly - explored.

Simply a thrilling, heartbreaking but also triumphant story. You really need it in your life!

This was an original and thought provoking novel. The premise was interesting and I liked the way it added layers of confusion seen through the eyes of the main character and I did not know how it was going to end, I don’t want to give anything away but the final part when things become clearer is handled very well. Recommended

This is not my normal kind of read as it is set in 2035 however I did enjoy it. I
Fiction has been banned by the government...can you inagine?

Was interesting and well written I enjoyed it

This book was the thing that kept nagging me in my mind all the time I wasn't reading it. A world without fiction is a nightmare and to read about such a world in this book was intriguing and horrifying. The methods employed by the government made my blood boil. Fiction is and always will be a huge part of human life, it is grave injustice to even try to wipe out all fictional works. When I tell you I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what happens in the end, believe me, I am not lying. So yes, I loved reading this one.

The setting of the story is constructed so well! I am absolutely in love with the narrative technique that the author has employed, the way all chapters end in an incomplete word and its significance. The book is divided into 5 parts, named after the 5 stages of grief.

Human grief is incomprehensible. It does not work in a certain manner, nor does it follow a set of instructions. Grief is shown in such a strong and raw manner, it reaches its fingers from the pages to clutch the reader's heart. For many reasons, this slow paced thriller will not leave your mind long after you have finished it!

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher and all opinions expressed are my own. The book is set in 2035 where fiction has been banned by the government . The book follows Fern who secretly reads bedtime stories and scribbles. She begins to bond with a boy called Hunter but they both have secrets. This book is perfect for fans of dystopia with a hint of thrill. I think this book is captivating when you go into the story knowing what the story is about.

What a fantastic book, I really didn’t see the twist coming but oh my gosh!
I can’t imagine the dystopian future where all fiction is banned but Louise Swanson did actually bring that fear to life, I really felt for Fern and Fine - Fayre.
The finger removal and the lobotomies were terribly hard hitting but in a good way.
Thank you so much to Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity to enjoy this literal page turner of a book.

2035 – and what a grim and vividly drawn picture of that future world. Fiction is banned, and people queue at government-run bookshops that now sell only instructive non-fiction to hand over their last remaining books to be burned in mass bonfires – and its authors are forbidden from writing, isolated and controlled, under threat of further action should they continue to write. We see the world through the eyes of Fern Dostoy – a former best-selling and award-winning author, her husband lost in the last pandemic, now working as a hospital cleaner, living in a flat that doesn’t feel like home, just trying to survive – her empty life captured on the pages of her secret diary. Her friends in the book world have disappeared – her only human contact now is with the hospital workers, her neighbour, the tea salesman who calls regularly, and the government agents (the tall one and the short one) whose visits she dreads. But after a chance meeting, she’s drawn into an underground world – a phone line, and a group of people who read forbidden bedtime stories to children. And there she befriends Hunter – a solitary child who calls regularly and speaks to only her, and entirely wins her heart.

The world the author creates is stunningly real and quite terrifying – and even more so when the extreme scenarios Fern wrote about in her best-selling books seem destined to be adopted as government policy. But this is very much Fern’s own story – and, the book having been written during the Covid pandemic, her internal dialogue on the pages of her diary captures so well the experience of many, although we did have fiction to see us through. The clues are always there if you look for them – Fern’s mantra of “If you tell a story well enough, it’s true” underpins the whole story – but the shift that happens in the second part of the book was entirely unexpected and quite perfectly handled.

The writing is, of course, wonderful – but the book’s whole construction is incredibly clever too. It’s easy to overlook the chapter headers of the stages of grief – and to park the moments of incongruity like the reappearing single trainer and Fern’s visceral reaction to the smell of sour milk. And the ending of each section of writing on an ellipsis – to ensure that Fern returns to her story. I’d like to say I was surprised by the book’s emotional impact, but I’ve read enough of the author’s writing that it was just everything I wanted it to be – as Fern struggled through the darkness of her life, I wept with her.

A chilling and totally absorbing read, the product of an extraordinary imagination, and the author’s writing has never been better – a remarkable read I’d highly recommend to all, and without question one of my books of the year.

(Review copied to Amazon UK, but link not yet available)

Rating: 3.5⭐ rounded to 4⭐

It's 2035 and all fiction books have been banned for 5 years and only books based on facts can be sold and read. Fern Dostoy has lost her livelihood of being an award winning writer. She was taken from her home and isolated from all of her friends and the government keep tabs on her to make sure that she is not writing. Despite the consequences of writing, that does not stop Fern especially when she becomes a bedtime story reader and grows an attachment to one particular boy, Hunter. But what is real and what is fake?

Told through diary entries - some recounting Fern's day whilst others are flashbacks of her life. I was not the biggest fan of the diary entry style, from me becoming confused about the time periods to the unfinished words at the end of every entry up until 46% in of the book and then again at the end of the book.

It took me a while to get into this book, whilst I felt sorry for Fern and other characters, I did not find any of them to be loveable. However, I did find the concept of the futuristic world without fiction books to be interesting. It was also interesting to see how far the government were willing to go to push their propaganda of fiction books inciting violence and the lengths that they went to to suppress writers like Fern and Lynda from ever writing again. I could feel the fear that they would have had through the pages due to the government constantly sweeping their houses for any fiction books (whether they were in the house or not), which brought them a lot of paranoia.

Unfortunately, a lot fo this book felt predictable to me - all of the twists I had managed to guess but it did help to make sense of other things, like the appearance of the trainers and the aversion to milk. Although I predicted the twist at the end, I really did enjoy the more psychological aspect to the book. I also did not agree with the take "I remember a proposal before the full fiction ban to have trigger warnings in novels, which I found ridiculous. Real life doesn't have a trigger warning."

⚠️ TWs: book banning and burning, profanity, blood, infertility, Covid-19 pandemic, sexual harassment, sleeping pills, death, arson, bodyshaming, unethical medical practices, alcohol use, medical negligence, sex with a minor, child neglect, gun, vomiting, facial disfigurement, needles, murder, derogatory language, lobotomy, grief, physical assault, suicide, mental health illnesses, overdose, body horror, drug use ⚠️

Fern Dostoy lives in a dystopian world without books. Fiction is banned by the government as is storytelling and writing. Subject to menacing monitoring visits from government officials, Fern lives for visits from the tea man and telling illicit bedtime stories to children. Her relationship with one, Hunter, is steeped in tragedy, guilt, longing and grief.

Fern Dostoy, an ex-author not by choice, is living in a world where fiction has been banned, where she’s been robbed of her house that she bought with the profits from her books, forced to stay away from all of her ex-author friends and contacts within the publishing industry. After years of being kept away from her love of writing, Fern begins writing about what the world has become within a notebook. She must keep this notebook hidden from the two men who check up on her and others who were previously within the industry, who are in control of making sure they stay away from fiction and inflicting punishments on those who don’t.

Fern’s sanity seems to lie within two aspects of her new life—Fine-Fayre and her secret work reading bedtime stories on an untraceable phone line to children who can’t sleep. My favourite character is Fine-Fayre, who visits her house to sell her tea. Fern insults and pushes him away at every opportunity and yet he still comes back. He’s quite a mysterious character, with parts of his life dripped into the story as it goes on. Despite Fern’s treatment of him, she has some sort of need for his visits, some massive soft spot for him under her exterior, an exterior that gradually slips. When it was revealed why he consistently turned up to Fern’s house, remained calm through all her insults and handled every situation respectfully, my heart genuinely broke. I would love a book from his POV that delves into his backstory.

Fern becomes drawn to one of the children she reads bedtime stories to, a child called Hunter. Unable to have kids herself, he’s every bit the child she imagines she’d have had. Being a child who has “heard every story”, she makes one up especially for him, which she continues every time they speak. When she hears some news from his end that their phone conversations will soon be ending, she makes a risky choice to ensure he gets to hear the end of the story.

Fiction seems to flit through Fern’s life throughout, and I read this with the impression that she's so stressed and low that she's creating fiction around her as a coping mechanism. Some parts feel far-fetched, but others feel creepily like a future possibility.

Thank you to NetGalley, Louise Swanson and Hodder & Stoughton for this DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Five years ago the government banned the writing & disseminating of fiction: physical books are burned, whilst digital copies have been erased, fictional TV shows & films are prohibited, even reading aloud a nonfiction book is considered storytelling. Now in 2035, successful ex-author, Fern Dostoy - her book 'Technological Amazingness' was considered subversive - .is now Fern Dalrymple Widowed & childless, she had to move home & change her appearance & now works as a cleaner in a hospital. She has never heard from her fellow author friends & her only acquaintances are her next door neighbour, & the delivery man from FineFayre who sells her tea & biscuits. Fern lives offline as much as possible as she knows that even something an innocuous as a fridge is used to surveil the population, & she receives regular visits from two men, government officials, who search her home & question her about her activities.

Outwardly Fern is quiet & unassuming, inwardly she is slowly rebelling. She has started to write a journal & gets involved with a group called 'Bedtime Stories for the Restless' a secret group who network to read stories over the telephone to children who can't sleep without their story-time. When she is contacted by a young boy named Hunter, against all advice, she finds herself becoming attached to him. The problem is no-one else has heard of Hunter, even though he tells Fern he has rung the storyline before, & he is ringing in on a phoneline that supposedly only calls out. Fern thinks her fellow storytellers are beginning to wonder if she is cracking under the pressure, but she knows Hunter is real, but who is he & is he hiding something?

This starts off as a chilling dystopia, especially to those of us who are booklovers. It's almost impossible to comprehend a world where fiction is banned completely. As it progresses, it begins to feel more & more surreal, especially her strangely halting friendship with Mr FineFayre - Fern's so awful to him at the start you wonder why he keeps coming back. The premise of it all really captured my imagination. There is a slight dip in pace & intensity in the middle where it seems a little repetitive at times, but if the reader sticks with it, the payoff is worth it. Well I thought so anyway, I may just be hormonal but I'm sure I had a tear or two in my eyes as I read the final pages. I can't give it full marks due to the slow middle section, but I rate this 4.5 (rounded down). I'd definitely read more from the author & as a first book, this is good stuff.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review. This review is based entirely on my own thoughts and feelings.

Overall rating : 5*
Writing skill : 5*
Plot: 5*
Pace: 4*
Characters: 4*

Loved it!!!! Great concept which jumped out at me as soon as I read the blurb (yes I actually read the blurb for once). Wonderful characters full of life and an interesting twist. Thriller lovers will devour this novel. Off to see what others from her backlist I can add to the TBR.

There are clues in this emotive dystopian thriller if you keep an eye out for them. Fern Dostoy is our narrator and she is a deeply unhappy woman. No wonder, for Fern is a writer, an award winning writer in a country where fiction has been banned.

It is 2035 and there has been no new fiction published for the last 5 years. Worse, all fiction books have been removed from the shelves of bookshops and libraries and there are regular amnesty days to hand in the last remaining works of fiction, because to be found with such a book is to open oneself up to severe punishment. Storytelling in all its forms has been banned.

Fern’s writing really took off after she lost her husband to Covid. That, and the grief she felt at her childlessness, propelled her to get all her rage and grief out on paper, resulting in a barnstorming best-seller that won major awards. But her writing was not appreciated by those in power and so helped to kickstart the process of banning fiction.

Echoes of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 abound here. Fern Dostoy was compelled to move from her house to a neighbourhood where she knows no-one. She has lost her friendships with fellow writers, most of whom have also been forcibly relocated, and she sees no-one and speaks to no-one. Now she lives alone and works as an office-cleaner under on less than basic wages just to live. Louise Swanson’s novel is written in the form of Fern’s diary. She is our narrator and we see just how bereft her existence is and how much she suffers from being unable to write.

She is regularly visited by two government officials – she knows them as the tall one and the short one. Their job is to make absolutely sure that she is not writing fiction and their unannounced visits also encompass a search of her house looking for any contravention of the law.

Then she strikes up a relationship with a disabled door to door seller of tea. Despite herself, she finds that she looks forward to his visits.

Yet something seems off-kilter in this horrid, cruel alienated world. A blue and white trainer becomes a recurring motif in Fern’s life. The tea man seems to be trying to tell her something, but presses biscuits into her hand instead.

Then Fern is offered a glimpse of hope and from there the trajectory of her life alters.

Louise Swanson’s book will puzzle you and have yo

Thank you #netgalley for a fantastic read and the opportunity to read this before it’s published! Let’s hope stories don’t get banned by 2035!

I was so looking forward to reading this book. I’ve read and loved all the authors previous books but unfortunately I struggled with this one. This is a dystopian fiction and this genre I’ve now realised isn’t for me. I so much wanted to love this book but it just don’t work for me. It’s definitely me and not the book. 2.5⭐️

I was not certain I was going to enjoy this book. However, I was drawn in and found the entire premise highly addictive. I enjoyed the characters particularly the Fyne Fare man! I did not see the twist coming It was quite ingenious

This was excellent, and scary. The dystopian theme built up slowly until you almost felt like a criminal for reading a novel. The twist is great.

End of Story by Louise Swanson Narrated by Sophie Bentinck.
"Now, Could you imagine in the future All fiction books could be banned by the government!!! for five years!!!! Thats a Long time without a book to read!!!
What we do?
Sure thing this world would be a different place to live in!!!!!"

Headlines!.............In the year 2035 All fiction has been banned by the government for five years. Writing novels is a Crime.
Even reading fairytales to children is Punishable by Law.

Fern Dostoy is a criminal. Officially, she has retrained in a new job outside of the arts but she still scrawls in a secret notepad in an effort to capture what her life has become: all her work is on a banned phone line, reading bedtime stories to sleep-starved children;

Hunter, is a young boy who calls her and has captured her heart. As she learns more about him, something is telling her can not she trust him! she also feels Hunter is hiding something! What is it!

She waits for a knock on her door.........for the dreaded visits from government officials.

This audiobook was a strange one, but very interesting
Could you imagine not reading books or books on your kindle in the future!?
What would you do? Hmmmmmmm

I highly recommend this audiobook and the Narrator was good.

Big Thank you to Netgalley, the author Louise Swanson and Hodder & Stoughton for my audiobook and ARC.