Falling into the gender dystopia category of novels such as The Water Cure and The Power, The End of Men added a surprisingly prescient element - that of a plague with an almost 100% mortality rate that only affects men.

Set in the not too distant future, at times this read a little too close to home as we are currently living through the Covid-19 pandemic, one that seems to disproportionately affect men though nowhere near at the levels of those found in this book. What's interesting is that Sweeney-Baird completed the manuscript in June 2019 before Covid-19 took the world in its grip and that makes some of the observations she makes all the more unsettling many of them being reflected in real time on our TV screens and news feeds.

The book is set out in a series of vignettes each from the point of view of a different woman (never a man). Some of the women appear frequently and we get to follow their journeys. Others appear only briefly but offer an insight into the different ways the pandemic has affected people's behaviour.

The viewpoints we hear from are varied and span different classes, ages and continents. There was also the inclusion of a trans character, an element that could have felt shoe-horned in for representation but that I thought was sensitively and intelligently explored. We see these women through the different stages of the pandemic from its very beginnings through to a time when some semblance of normal is starting to be restored. Almost every story has an element of loss and heartbreak and even the happier stories are tinged with sadness by the lives and potential lost through the sudden death of a large proportion of the world's men.

I liked how the book explored what happens when one gender is elevated over another and how it can change everything from the size of mobile phones to the makeup of the highest decision-making authorities. We see how different aspects of human life are impacted by the Plague - love, family, friendship, career are all fundamentally changed by this catastrophic event.

The writing good overall but suffered from the lack of confidence you get with a debut author. There were times when the same point was repeated multiple times, just worded slightly differently, whereas a more confident writer would have felt happy to make the point once or subtly hint at it rather than spelling it out to the reader. I feel this is a confidence that will come to Sweeney-Baird in time. She has all the tools to go on to write even better fiction and I will be interested to read what she goes on to write next.

Interesting that this novel was started pre COVID pandemic and set in the future.. Amanda , and A and E doctors alerts the powers that be to the possibility that there is a virus about affecting only men but can be carried by women and there is a percentage of men immune to it too. There is a disconcerting period of disbelief and difficulty being taken seriously . The race is on to find a vaccine and / or a cure.

If I had picked up this book before the pandemic I would have been freaked out and found the whole story terrifying and shocking. Now - it is still very scary but maybe less so than if we were not in the middle of a pandemic.

I thought this was an excellent read and I enjoyed the different viewpoints from
a range of characters from across the globe. From its start in Glasgow we see the ramifications of The Plague far beyond the city. I thought this gave in depth perspectives of the characters featured.

This was an emotional and heartbreaking read in places and I thought it was difficult to read knowing the inevitability of what was happening. However. the sense of hope and the resilience of many of the female characters was captivating.
A excellent read and i am looking forward to see what else this author creates.

3.5 Stars

This book is an awesome, yet hard read as we claw our way out of a pandemic, in almost every way but disappointed me so much that I couldn't rate it any higher.

Ok I am going to go hard on what really really disappointed me about this fantastic book before I talk about any good points as this really truly and utterly brought what would have been a 5 star rating crashing down. THE SCIENCE IS SO CRINGE!

I am a biologist. I hold a PhD in evolutionary genetics and I have studied the evolution of sex chromosomes among other topics throughout my career. I have also worked closely with one of the first physicians to treat Covid within the UK. I clarify this so you know why the Science in this book made me cringe, so hard. It follows an epidemic of a flu like virus that only effects Men. This instantly brings up the question why and the Scientists in the book leap to find out. Problem number one: It then takes them SIX MONTHS to hypothesize its X-linked (associated with the X chromosome). Hoof beats you think horse not zebra, it would likely be this first genetic target eliminated when such sex deterministic structure is involved. Problem two: No women die, or get ill from the virus. This is statistically and genetically unlikely from the proposed genetic target. I wont go into a genetics lecture but this is high school level Bio with the possible combinations of sex chromosomes. By the same reasoning the male immunity rate is too low. Problem three: the whole eureka 100% vaccine efficiency moment - the collective world now knows 100% effective isn't possible and that was just so cringe, a disease with such high mortality rate we would accept lower efficacy just to keep people alive. We also know that more than one vaccine can be created. Only one group can be first, but many other groups kept working towards vaccination.

Its really sad for me as a scientist when a relatively good concept and superbly written books just seems to fail at really easy research. Author's out there, if your writing a book and are unsure don't be afraid to ask! Have a nosy at your local Uni's staff list send a few emails. Tweet, a lot of us are avid readers. Contrary to popular belief Scientists are actually a chatty bunch, a lot of us are happy to answer questions (don't dismiss the PhD students and Post-Docs) if you ask nicely.

My final gripe is not science related but personal, of all the women in this book not a single one of them is not desperate for children. All the straight women, even the child free women express there great desire to have offspring and how the Plague has taken that away from them. There isn't a straight woman who is child free by choice and his happy about that choice. Which for a book so focuses on the world and inner monologue of women is a disappointingly old-fashioned viewpoint. I know this book is about grief, particularly female grief and it would have been nice to have a perspective of a woman who is grieving for the life partner she choose, the life that she had hoped for with him and not just the potential of his sperm.

OK Rant over I can now tell you how gorgeous and heart breaking this book is if you ignore the science/ are happily child-free woman.

The writing in this book is fantastic. It is told through lots of various perspectives, mainly from women, from around the world right from the outbreak of the Pandemic to years afterwards. It has a really diverse number of perspectives cataloguing the initial outbreak, the failing of governments, the development of the vaccine and implemented recovery operations to try and bring life back to the new normal. It covers everything from the medical and bad take on the scientific aspects, political aspects, domestic aspects and international relations too for women all over the world. It covers the loss of fathers, husbands, brothers, sons but not just those lost by death but by distance, mental health issues. It covers love and life after what seems like the end of all we know. The story is detailed and emotional and I did find myself tearing up.

I really enjoyed the varying voices of the women and occasional men we heard from throughout the story. I liked how the author allowed us to sit with their grief, anger, fear. I loved that they were all determined in different ways, some ruthless, some heart broken. There individual stories felt intimate and compelling.

Obviously, the author acknowledges that now one would know how closely art would imitate life, completing her draft in 2018. Therefore, it is a bit of a hard read particularly in the beginning of the book when you recognise the panic, miss information and misunderstanding sweep through the globe that we are now all to familiar with. For those concerned about the amount of perspectives, I found them distinctive and easy to tell apart but I have checked and it appears the audiobook is full cast so may help make the voices even more distinctive.

A while ago Harper Collins asked my opinion on the wording of the book cover and my likelihood of reading the book. I said, under the current pandemic, I would be unlikely to read it. I have, however, just finished the book. It is well written and well thought out creating a believable future. I did find it a bit confusing jumping from one character to another in very short bites. Did I enjoy it? Not really. I nearly gave up half way through as I found it too depressing but I'm glad I read it to the end. Had it been published in 2018 when it was written I would have said the book was brilliant.
I do hope that Christina does not write any more prophetic books as this one was too close for comfort.

Having written the review a few months ago during the worst of covid, I now realise what a good book it was and very thought provoking. The thought of pregnant women fearing their unborn child may be a boy that would die soon after birth has stayed with me. There is hope at the end of the book but it is too close to what we have suffered in the last year. Not for the faint-hearted.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

The End of Men is a truly unforgettable book and its insane ability to make you feel everything. The intensity and the raw and gritty edge this story has over other epidemic related narratives, gah, it just leaves you feeling wrought out. Imagine running a marathon – you’re out of breath and gasping…but whatever you do, don’t breathe on your fellow man! This is a book that I’m going to go back to, it deserves a second and third outing, its masterful and bleak and it certainly gets thoughts whirling around your head.

The End of Men have some of the most badass, strong and awe-inspiring women ever to grace the pages. I want to be Catherine, Amanda and Elizabeth when I grow up…can I? Pretty pretty please. On the surface these women have everything, phenomenal careers, husbands that stand with them not above them and beautiful baby boys. What happens when that steady and secure egg cart gets smashed against the wall? All hell breaks loose. A virus that only affects men, women are asymptomatic but can still infect their husbands, partners, sons, uncles, grandfathers and work colleagues. How on earth can you isolate a virus that is spreading like wildfire? How can you isolate it when the powers that be will not listen?

Scratch beneath the surface of all these women and you get a keen sense of the fragility of life. They are the perfect case study of how a woman can crack and the contents spill out for all to see but still carry on for the good of all men, just not the ones they have lost. Catherine is a social historian who has struggled with secondary infertility and lost all that was dear to her. Her calling in this pandemic is to record the story, how it started, why it started and a timeline of events and successes. A personal approach, after all if no-one records it then how can we stop it from happening again?

Dr Amanda McLean. My goodness has this woman been given the roughest shit stick that could be known in history. A woman doing her best in catastrophic circumstances. She discovers a pattern of illness that leads to death in nearly all men that pass through her A&E Department in Gartnaval Hospital, Glasgow. Men that were previous patients in A&E around 3-4 days ago are getting fatally sick. Presenting with symptoms of Septicemia and ultimately dying. She discovered that patient zero came from the Bute and its quickly taking over the hospital. Health Protection Scotland condemn her as the ramblings of a mad woman. Amanda suffers the consequences of their actions. Soon, many will know the astounding pain of loss.

Elizabeth is a pathologist with the CDC, she is sent to London to help with the research team there in trying to decode the gene sequence in order to try and find an effective vaccine. It’s far worse than she ever expected but she volunteers to stay for as long as she is needed.

The End of Men is a stark reminder (especially in the pandemic – ridden world we are living in) that something can come along at any time and not only upset our apple cart but blow it to smithereens. I had so many questions, I struggled with my own rage and the women protagonists gave me hope that our own future can be saved. Each woman has their own flaws but that’s what makes them so relatable. Sweeney-Baird inserted these flaws so effortlessly and with sublime accuracy.

The End of Men has redefined Dystopian fiction. It will hook you in and is a stark reminder to treasure our sunrises and sunsets whilst we still can. Its intelligence and brave characterisation made this a winner.

The End of Men was for me, a difficult read. At any other time I think it would have been an engaging read, but being based on a global pandemic, I found it was too close to reality. And more than anything, being able to escape whilst reading has been so important.

That being said, it was well written and a very interesting slant on the pandemic - a virus only affecting men. Crafted as a series of stories, it was clever to include perspectives from many countries and cultures, but at the same time, I would perhaps have engaged more with fewer characters.

What I liked the most was how the author showed the changed world post Plague. Women have risen to the top in countries all over the world, and men are very much in the minority. For the first time they are experiencing some of the issues women have had to endure - feeling vulnerable and powerless.

All in all, a clever story with devastatingly sad moments, but also notes of optimism for a better world with women in charge.

The End of Men is Sweeney-Baird’s breathtaking, hyper-realistic speculative fiction novel set in a richly imagined dystopian world where men are on the verge of extinction. The novel opens in 2025 Scotland and revolves around the Great Male Plague, a virus that at first acts and is believed to be flu but soon evolves into an altogether different beast and ends up eventually killing 90% of the world’s males, regardless of age or any other aspect, within days of contact with someone who has previously been unlucky enough to be infected by it. It is found that women can be carriers but that they are immune from its effects. It is first detected in a man who dies suddenly, a mere 3 hours after falling severely ill, and unexpectedly at a hospital in Glasgow, who was later labelled as Patient Zero, shortly followed by another unexplained death and when the number of infected exponentially rises, A&E doctor Amanda Maclean, a wife and mother of two sons, realises this could be potentially catastrophic and places a call to The Independent Republic of Scotland’s public health officials and is both bemused and anxious at the fact that her concerns are dismissed out of hand. But she is not deterred and sets out to identify the source of the deadly outbreak. Over the next six years, the narrative not only follows Doctor Maclean’s progress but that of several other characters. Catherine Lawrence, a London-based social anthropologist with a husband and 3-year-old son named Theodore, is collecting stories about the plague and its devastating effects on both individuals and society as a whole. She has recently turned down fertility treatment as she had been unsure whether she wanted a second child.

Then there's Toby Williams, a man who has been confined to a ship for 51 days, somewhere off the coast of Iceland, alongside his identical twin brother, Mark, after they decided to celebrate their 60th birthdays with a trip to see the Northern Lights. The Captain had decided it was safer for them all to remain on board as long as it took - as the virus was spreading all throughout Europe devastating one country after another and obliterating the number of men like a hungry wolf on the prowl but invisible and invariably fatal. Elizabeth Cooper is a junior pathologist working for The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who has been flown to London after spending 9 years studying vaccine development and now wants to put her knowledge to good use. This is a riveting and compulsive dystopian novel that is very much character-driven and encompasses a plethora of diverse first-person perspectives giving the feel of a fully rounded reading experience. It’s a gripping story that shows the short-term impact of men – and only men – dying in high numbers. How do people try to keep themselves, and their families, safe? What would happen in hospitals and to Parliament and food supplies? And then, over the years, how do things change? It explores how the world would adapt and be restructured with a sudden massive gender imbalance, both what that new world would look and feel like. It's a sweeping, prescient and thoroughly gripping tale set between 2025 and 2031 showcasing the immense struggles and incredible resiliency of those under strain. A chilling, emotional yet ever hopeful debut that touches very close to home. Highly recommended.

A viral pandemic? How very 2020. But try to forget all that. This book is astonishingly brilliant! Yes, it's unnervingly close to home, though this virus only kills men .Yes it involves symptoms, tests, races to find causes, cures and vaccines, but this book is so much more. Having women immune to the Plague is such a clever plot twist, allowing their voices and stories to be the focus, and puts the novel beautifully into the modern feminist narrative: how can the world cope without men in charge, without them to fix things, build things, decide things? I won't spoil the plot, but what do you reckon? Plus having men as the more vulnerable sex, medically speaking, is an intriguing concept. Is it wrong I'd quite like to live in this world rebuilt by women? Preferably without so much death though obviously!

Would The End of Men have read differently before Covid? Probably, given its significance as the defining feature of our recent lives. But would it have been any less of a novel? Absolutely not - its perfect pacing, authentic voices, and utterly gripping narrative would have made sure of it. For me this is one of THE books of 2021 and I can't wait to see what Christina Sweeney-Baird brings us next.

The End of Men tells the story of a global pandemic in 2025 which runs amok through the male population. It introduces us to Dr Amanda Maclean, who works in A&E and is the first to notice several deaths, apparently unconnected, with worrying similarities. But she struggles to have her concerns taken seriously. We then follow the story from the perspectives of several other women from around the world (though the story is mainly UK-centric) as 90% of the male population is wiped out.

I enjoyed this book – it was fast-paced and engaging, and I liked most of the characters. The author really got across a sense of the urgency and panic, and also the heartbreak felt by them during the story. As a mum of two boys I certainly empathised with the characters and found myself in tears a couple of times. I liked Amanda and felt as though she was the closest the book has to a central character. There was also an enjoyable humour throughout – from the little touch of Scotland being an independent Republic, to the rapid promotions of some of the women.

I also enjoyed the later parts of the book dealing with the longer term effects – the way the remaining population dealt with previously male-dominated jobs, with fertility etc. I found it thought-provoking.

I did feel the book had a few elements which let it down. There were too many competing perspectives without having one or two main characters to tie the reader to the narrative – I felt most invested in Amanda and Catherine, but didn’t spend quite enough time with them to feel satisfied, or as though I was following their story properly. I didn’t like the news articles peppered throughout the book as much as the other narratives. And although I’ve mentioned that I enjoyed the later parts considering the longer term implications, I couldn’t help but feel this was too much to try and include in one book, leading to these parts feeling a little brief and shallow.

And of course, there’s the fact that currently we’re all armchair experts on pandemics – in some ways this works in the book’s favour, lending an instant familiarity to the situation, but in others it makes some things feel missing – I wondered why PPE wasn’t more of an issue, for example, and some of the vaccination development parts fell flat. It’s fascinating to wonder how I’d have felt about the book if Covid-19 had never happened!

Overall this was an interesting and enjoyable read from a promising new author and I’m looking forward to see what she does next.

What a book to read in the midst of a real pandemic. Written in 2018, it is incredible how accurately it portrays what is really happening in 2020/21.

In 2025 men are drying from a virus and it is only men; women are immune but can be carriers. The world is in a complete panic as the race starts to create a vaccine. The story is told through first-person narratives: Amanda, a doctor who first identifies the disease; Catherine, an historian; Dawn, an intelligence analyst and Elizabeth, a scientist. The characters are really well developed and their stories are both heartbreaking and hopeful. The exploration of a world where women take charge is masterful.

I didn't find this an easy read, given the current circumstances but it is an accomplished, character-driven novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an ARC is exchange for an honest review.

This is my second book I’ve read this year which explores what happens when a killer virus spreads across the world and I have to say The End of Men is my favourite – which is a strange thing to say I’ll admit!

Let me begin by saying that the author wrote this book before the COVID pandemic and I’m in awe at how similar some of the scenarios were. I think living through a pandemic now helps to relate to some of the things that happened during the book. I had a better understanding essentially and could relate a lot more to how the characters were feeling (although the virus in the book is a hell of a lot worse than our current situation).

It’s told from a number of different characters point of views which I thought was going to get a little confusing at times but in the end I think it worked brilliantly. Each chapter gave the reader a glimpse into the life of someone else, in a different part of the world with different circumstances and I think this is what helped to really see just how this virus was affecting everyone. I also liked how the author explored how the virus affects those afterwards, especially for those men who do survive and who are now essentially a minority in the world.

I won’t lie, some parts are devastating.

As a mother to two boys myself, my heart broke when reading the chapters from Amanda. I was convinced children would survive but this book doesn’t shy away from the tough subjects, after all this is what would happen if a deadly virus wreaked havoc around the world. Whilst these parts were devastating to read there were also some moments that actually made me laugh too and I think the author got the balance just right.

Yes this book is hard hitting, especially as we’ve all experienced something similar, but it’s not just a book about the devastation of man kind. It’s a story of love, hope, community and rebuilding lives. It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s a timely reminder that even after the hardest of times there is a way out from everything, those lost will never be forgotten and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

When male patients at Glasgow hospital arrive with flu-like symptoms and are dead within 48 hours,Dr Amanda Maclean begins to suspect an epidemic of some form. But even she doesn’t realise how bad it’s going to get, as the virus spreads uncontrollably around the world, affecting only males, but leaving few survivors.

Written before COVID was even heard of, the End of Men shows a scary insight into how bad things could get in a pandemic, if on an extreme level. With nobody taking it too seriously at the start, and then the rush to get a working vaccine, while trying to protect the few remaining men. I liked the way the story was told from many different perspectives, all around the world - the doctor who originally discovers the illness, the writer desperately trying to protect her young son, the scientist working on a vaccine and the Intelligence Service employee looking forward to retirement to name but a few. All of the women suffer personal and professional tragedies through the pandemic and all have different coping mechanisms. I think my favourite character of all was Toby, stuck on a cruise ship off the coast of Iceland. Of all of the men, he was the one I most wanted to survive.

A very gripping story, which kept me hooked throughout, wondering what sort of a world would be left by the time a vaccine is produced.

My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Uk for a copy of “ The End Of Men “ for an honest review.

It’s so hard to believe that this book was conceived and written pre COVID 19. This was a really thought provoking and well written book It makes you appreciate how , hard as it seems , things could have been so much worse for mankind.I must admit I would have probably been better off reading this in a few months time , when life is , hopefully, a little more normal , as it made me feel quite anxious , but that is purely from my perspective..
An excellent debut novel

A deadly virus that only affects and kills men? Women finally being given the chance to save the world? Speculative fiction tends to be very hit and miss for me but the concept of this one spoke to me and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it.

It’s 2025 and a mysterious virus only affecting men has broken out in a Glasgow hospital. Dr Amanda MacLean is the whistleblower but her higher-ups dismiss her claims as hysterical ravings. This leads to the virus evolving into a global pandemic that is killing men of all ages and backgrounds at an alarming rate. It’s down to women to keep the world running and find a vaccine while dealing with intense fear and grief for their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers.

The End of Men is told through the perspectives of women all over the world. Of course, one of these is Amanda who treated Patient Zero and discovered the nature and severity of the virus. Her bosses and the government believe that she is simply blowing things out of proportion and so delay doing anything that could stop the spread beyond Glasgow. It’s highly believable that had Amanda been male, she would have been taken a lot more seriously and the pandemic could have been avoided. The catastrophic consequences of institutional misogyny are touched on several times in the novel and naturally, the uncontrollable spiraling of the virus is strong evidence that women need to be listened to and believed.

There are a lot of parallels to real life, especially real life in the midst of a pandemic. Namely the conspiracy theorists. Of course, in the case of the Male Plague, all of the conspiracists are men, adamant that the virus was created by militant feminists to eliminate them. I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head while reading this fantastically dramatic but realistic blog post. These men definitely exist!

Catherine is an anthropologist, whose life has been dogged with fertility issues. She has a wonderful marriage to Anthony and they have a lovely little boy called Theodore. Naturally, when the virus explodes, Catherine’s life revolves around shielding both of them from it. Her thread is truly heartbreaking and leads her to want to document the human stories from the pandemic, interviewing the widow of Patient Zero and trying to find some kind of positive outcome from it. I cried several times during Catherine’s story, so beware of that!

We also hear from Elizabeth, an American virologist who travels to London to help with the vaccine and amazingly finds love. The increased racism is another parallel to our recent reality. Of course, nothing is the fault of white people. These reflections give the book a degree of credibility. Yes, it’s fiction but it often felt like I was reading snippets of COVID-19 memoirs.

When international travel and trade stops, the UK is forced to adapt. For example, there is a tea shortage which to a Brit seems horrific. Dawn is one of the only Black women working in British Intelligence. She has a fantastic sense of humour and her thread gives us a lot of information about the political upheaval caused by the Plague. The book is set in 2025 (only four years away) and yet Scotland is independent and China has been broken into individual states, following the fall of the Communists. These fascinating insights into a world that isn’t too far away almost act as a warning that humans need to be kinder -to each other, to ourselves and to the planet.

Other characters include; Helen, a mother of daughters whose husband leaves her in search of a ‘better life’ in what he thinks are his final days, Rosamie, a Filipina nanny working in Singapore for a wealthy family who are blighted by Plague tragedy and Toby, a man in his 60s, stranded on a boat off the coast of Iceland, desperately writing letters to his wife in the UK. There is also Maria Ferreira, a Latina journalist, Lisa, a Canadian Virology professor whose team develops the first effective vaccine and Morven, a Scottish hostel owner, who is forced to take in a group of orphaned boys with nowhere else to go. So, there are a LOT of characters to keep up with, which can get confusing at times because not of all of them have particularly distinctive voices. They do each provide an individual view on the devastation but I’m not sure we needed all of them!

Of course with 90% of men gone, women have had to adapt in a plethora of ways. Female sexuality is openly much more fluid with women dating women having risen significantly. There is also a chapter from a transgender nurse who talks about the effects of a virus that only kills biologically male bodies. I would have loved to have had this expanded on because I think it could have been a very thought-provoking discussion on gender and what that really means.

There are some benefits from the Plague and of course, it’s women that are enjoying them. Better health care, better fitting clothes, more stock put into their words and emotions. This illustrates how much better the world could be for women when their issues are forced to be society’s focus.

The End of Men is a unique dystopian that reads like a warning of a world that isn’t very far away. The writing is very sharp and factual, so if you love beautifully written books, this may not be for you. There is a lot of heart in it though and ultimately, it deals with a world forever changed but with a permanent trail of grief and heartache in its wake. An incredibly timely novel.

Interesting that this book was written pre covid
Now it is a well written read but for me I am Covided out and maybe as lockdown eases it wasn’t the right time to be reading about viruses,plagues and vaccines as tbh like most of us have had enough of these words
That said though if you are not pandamiced out you will love this,the different perspectives and stories and how the book is written,ai would say some of it was not plausible but as we all know things that were once unbelievable not are,for me ai just chose the wrong time to read it

What an incredible, gripping, moving, hopeful book! Five stars from me no doubt about it.

There’s a deadly virus ravaging the world, women carry it but only men can die from it. The book tells the story from different perspectives all across the world, detailing the heartbreak and loss of people losing their husbands and brothers and dads, to the race for a vaccine, and women essentially running the world.

I tried to read another book about a pandemic while living in COVID-19 lockdown, and had to abandon it because it was way too close to the bone. Yet this book had me captivated (initially just from the title alone I must admit!) and I would highly recommend it!

The End of Men would have been far less easier to connect with, if it had been published pre Covid. It would have been a fantasy, dystopian, apocalyptic book about a world torn apart by a devastating disease and the rebuilding of the new world during and after.
However, it is scarily prescient, relevant to our reality, emotive, fast paced, utterly compelling and yet also gives hope for humanity and the future.

This is the type of book I would have lapped up before living through a global pandemic. I did have to put it down for a few months as the parallels were a bit much at the time and my concentration wasn’t great.

Told from multiple viewpoints that show the impact of the Plague in different countries, it is a fascinating, thought provoking and chilling read. It weirdly also gives hope that life and the world continues in some form, even after a pandemic more devastating (currently and hopefully anyway) than Covid.

With many thanks to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction, The Borough Press for the opportunity to read this ARC, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Really enjoyed this book. Love how the story is told from very different and sometimes surprising perspectives. Also interesting how close to home so much of it is but with slight differences that make you think how different it could be to experience a pandemic than what we have/are doing now.

What a stunning book! It was quite eerie to read it during a real-life pandemic as so much of how the virus unfolds is horribly familiar.

The book begins mundanely enough looking at the ordinary lives of a few different characters. Of course their lives are about to be turned upside down, not that they know it.

The first inkling that there is a serious problem comes at a hospital in Glasgow, where a couple of men die in quick succession and it isn't really clear why they have died. Symptoms develop very quickly and men are dead within just a few days.

Amanda, a doctor at the hospital, recognises that there is a lethal virus spreading and quickly understands that women must carry it, as the same nurse treated the first victims.

The speed with which the virus grows is utterly terrifying. It isn't on the same scale as Covid-19 - in the book, 90 percent of men who catch "the Plague" die and only around 10 percent of men are immune. But there are still horrible echoes of what's going on in the real world.

There is a growing sense of panic as people scrabble to adjust to a world where everything must be disinfected, social contact must be limited, masks must be worn, and so on. The book is great at describing the awful impact of the pandemic on individuals.

I particularly like the character of Catherine, who is living in London with her husband Anthony and son Theodore when the pandemic hits. She loses both of them. The description of how this happens, and her long-term grief that follows, is heartbreaking.

What the book also does really well is conjure up a world where the overwhelming majority of men have disappeared and investigates what this would mean. So, because men made up the majority of armies and police, there's initial breakdowns in order because there simply aren't the state forces available to contain resistance.

Women have to retrain in hundreds of different roles in order to keep many sectors of society going.

The book also throws up also moral questions that don't have easy answers. For instance, because the plague is so deadly, government programmes are drawn up in secret where newborn male babies are removed from their mothers and kept in a sterile environment - hopefully until a vaccine is found.

This means deceiving mothers and forcibly removing their children - but then again, it also means their children will live.

There are more minor, similar issues, such as laws being passed that force people to house boys during the pandemic, with the threat of decades in jail for people who try and refuse. It all makes for a fascinating read and makes the reader think about all of the issues that such a deadly plague would create and how society could resolve them.

Christina Sweeney-Baird has created a truly riveting novel full of difficult questions and fascinating characters. It's possible that, for people who have lost loved ones during the real pandemic, this would be a hard read. But for anyone who won't find it too difficult or anxiety-provoking, I definitely recommend it.