My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “End of Story”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. 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.

As much a ride as a read, this tense, paranoid thriller expands into something absolutely show-stopping. End of Story is a rare find indeed! Louise Swanson takes every expectation and defies it - to tell a breath-taking tale of humanity and redemption." - Janice HallettI hadn't actually read the blurb, I love this author when she writes as Louise Beech and genuinely if you can manage to read this with as little influence as possible I'd recommend doing that. Any description you get couldn't possibly encompass the strange beauty of this story it is entirely its own thing.

In this creepy dystopian thriller, the writing is first-class and the author presents an horrific scenario that sets a scene to slowly absorb you. The main protagonist is deeply interesting, and there are deep emotional layers to the narrative. The ending is very cleverly done. If you are looking for something different and a book that is not what it appears to be, then I cannot recommend this one enough. A taut thriller with characters that are both heartbreakingly, and in some instances frighteningly real, and the twist at the end left me bereft, if not a little relieved. A remarkable, thought-provoking story that will stay with me for a long time." - Eva Jordan Fern Doystoy was a Booker winner, one of the big 4, who’s life was stripped bare as she was a writerAs a fiction lover, I found this book a nightmare. Oh, to picture a world without fiction – what a tragedy! I loved how it stressed on the importance of fiction (and I did get some heebie-jeebies at the way fiction was treated.) Only, Fern doesn't plan on going down without a fight. She'll keep writing, no matter the consequences. She will make her voice heard. A masterpiece of storytelling, with a plot that relentlessly draws you in, and then twists and evolves into something utterly unexpected. Wrapped in one of the most original and deeply-realised storylines I have read in a long time, this genre-blending book hits breathtaking new heights in contemporary fiction." - Philippa East Absolutely enthralling, incredibly clever, brutal and heartbreaking. This deserves to be the book everyone is talking about in 2023. I loved it." - C J Tudor That is the premise of this novel where we meet the former award winning author Fern Dostoy, who is now banned from writing and monitored for compliance by the “tall one and the short one”, who can show up unannounced at any time to search her home.