#Review: End of Story by Louise Swanson @LouiseWriter @HodderFiction @HodderBooks #publicationday #thriller #dystopianfiction #EndofStory

I’m a bit up to my eyes at the moment – in the process of emptying my lounge to get ready for the arrival of a decorator. But I really couldn’t let the day pass by without sharing my review of End of Story by Louise Swanson – published today by Hodder & Stoughton, it’s now available in hardcover, on all major e-book platforms, and as an audiobook. My thanks to the publishers for my advance reading e-copy, provided via netgalley – but I’ll be adding a hardcover to my shelves when I visit my favourite bookshop, Imagined Things in Harrogate, on 6th April, when the author herself will be there for a signing.

One of the (many) things I love about Louise’s writing is the way she constantly reinvents herself, her writing just getting better and better with every new book. Writing as Louise Beech, my love affair with her books began with her first, How To Be Brave (you’ll find my review here) – and if you pop her name into my search box, you’ll find reviews of every single book that’s followed. She’s the only author whose every book has become a new personal favourite, and has always featured in my annual Books of the Year lists. I will admit there have been times when her books have taken me to places where I’ve felt less than comfortable, and where I rarely venture… but seriously Louise, a dystopian world this time? But I trust her totally and, whatever the name on the cover, I knew the writing would be as stunning as ever…

Too much imagination can be a dangerous thing.

 

It has been five years since writing fiction was banned by the government.

 

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: her work on a banned phone line, reading bedtime stories to sleep-starved children; Hunter, the young boy who calls her and has captured her heart; and the dreaded visits from government officials.

 

But as Fern begins to learn more about Hunter, doubts begin to surface. What are they both hiding?

 

And who can be trusted?

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.

About the author

End of Story is Louise Swanson’s debut. She wrote the book during the final lockdown of 2020, following a family tragedy, finding refuge in the fiction she created. The themes of the book – grief, isolation, love of the arts, the power of storytelling – came from a very real place. Swanson, a mother of two who lives in East Yorkshire with her husband, regularly blogs, talks at events, and is a huge advocate of openly discussing mental health and suicide.

She also writes as Louise Beech. Beech’s eight books have won the Best magazine Book of the Year 2019, shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Polari Prize, and been a Clare Mackintosh Book Club Pick. Her memoir, Daffodils, was released in audiobook in 2022, and the paperback version, Eighteen Seconds, will be out April 2023.

Follow Louise on Twitter and Facebook: she also has an excellent website. Details of Louise’s books written as Louise Beech can be found on her Amazon author page and, other than her memoir, via the Orenda Books website.