In a London where magic has been banned, and magicians, or "Abras" as they are know, work for criminal gangs , a demon summoning goes very badly wrong, unleashing a force more terrible and terrifying than most Abras could even imagine. Despite hating magic and everything it involves, con artist Amanda is forced to try to destroy the demon, using a crew of people waiting for an opportunity to double cross her. Their mission is to transport the human host and the demon temporarily trapped inside to a remote region in Siberia and perform an arcane ritual to send the demon back where it came from, but it is not going to be easy, The journey will be fraught with danger, death and dirty dealings, and its likely that not everyone will survive.
This is a thrilling and intense book, most of the time the reader is trapped along with Amanda, her crew and the demon , in a sealed container heading to Siberia by rail. This generates a real feeling of claustrophobia and certainly contributes to the constantly rising tension, The background of how the demon was raised, how he broke free and why the stakes are so high for all of Amanda's crew is revealed in a series of flashbacks from multiple perspectives , including , most interestingly , some from that of the demon itself. While this could be a good idea, unfortunately it wasn't always the clearest way of telling the story.
The idea of a world where magic is dealt illicitly,and controlled by gangs and cartels was an interesting one, and I liked how the author developed the idea in the book.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Four and a half
I read the unique synopsis of this and then the very damning early reviews and couldn't quite align the two together in my mind. So obviously I had to discover for myself how a small group of human criminals came to be travelling across Russia with a Demon.
As I began this I struggled to actually like any of the characters. Amanda is the main protagonist but she's a hard woman capable of anything and very stubborn and manipulative. Her closest friend and fellow conman is Caleb and I wanted to like him as in many ways he's a gentle giant but it's difficult to reconcile that side of him with his easy use of violence. Skeebs is the third member of their not so merry troop and he is a troubled teen who sadly is caught up in atrocities beyond his comprehension. The final character featuring here is Steph a young , ambitious Witch sadly out of her depth and the weight she carries could crush her. Now obviously there's the Demon riding with them but alas I think to state more than the fact that he's conniving and evil would ruin the surprises.
This definitely gathered pace and became much darker as I read it. It's a difficult story to categorise but I think it's fair to say it delves into the various characters motivation and fleshed out their reasons for why they all ended up on the train. It's told in real time but as the characters face various challenges we get their flashback to events that set everything in motion. I actually enjoyed this breadcrumbs effect as it drew me in and kept me guessing. There are shocks and twists I hadn't seen coming and the setting just felt so claustrophobic and very unsettling. A book that if I'm brutal wasn't always as smooth as I would have liked but I truly didn't want to put it down and I think that is exactly what the author hoped for.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

The End of the Line
by Gray Williams

1 star

The flow of the story lacks cohesion, making it a difficult book to read.

I found the plot it hard to follow, and the characters lacked depth. With the characters becoming confusing from early in the book.

When her criminal crew decide to hire an Abra to help with their heists, they don’t expect to raise a demon, or to quickly lose control of it. Now Coleman and her crew must travel across Siberia to a remote stone circle in order to kill this murderous creature, who has destroyed everything they hold dear. But as the demon’s power grows, a battle of wills commences. Coleman must fight to survive, facing demons both in chains and within herself.

This title has been reviewed by www.Books-Reviewed.weebly.com This title was provided by Netgalley and the publisher in return for an open and honest review.

#TheEndOfTheLine #NetGalley

I was not able to make it through this book. It sounded interesting but quickly lead to disappointment as the characters were poorly written and the plot disjointed. Not for me. DNF.

#TheEndOfTheLine #NetGalley

The End of the Line by Gray Williams, sadly had a hard time with this book. Does not set up story well, had difficulty following storyline and did not want to keep reading.

Unfortunately, this was a book I could not finish. The opening pages are filled with so many characters and things going on that I was completely lost and had no idea what was going on. I didn't connect with Amanda or any of the characters and ended up stopping. From the blurb, I was really looking forward to reading, but I'm afraid the writing didn't do it for me.

The End of the Line had a interesting plot, but it fell short. There were so many holes in the story or so things that were just not explained. The author has promise.

This book is about Amanda and her crew of criminals who are stuck in a train car across Russia to destroy a demon. There are flashbacks about how it started and a bit about the heists but what you learn about the world is mostly told and not shown. This is very much a first novel, as the writing is more tell than show. It takes some time to care about the characters, and all of them are idiots. Most of the issues even with the demon are all of their own making. Also, sticking an entire book mostly in a train car really gets boring. Despite one flashback scene from the demon’s point of view, this was surprisingly light on the descriptions of the deaths and as such, it was kind of hard to care about them or find the demon that threatening. Also, no one ever explained why the one summoning circle was in Russia and why no one took a helicopter there and saved the entire plot. I liked the ideas and for that it almost got three and not two stars but there were some factual issues, such as bleach and urine should not be combined in a train car, or this would be a much shorter plot.