I was given a copy of The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Mary visits Ealing Station at the same time everyday hoping a sign up for her partner Jim who disappeared 7 years ago. When a video goes viral of her, Alice, a reporter, picks up the story. I really enjoyed the book, with a difficult subject of men's depression. A very well written book.

Really nice relaxing read, great for the summer holidays.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

This isn’t just a love story albeit beautifully told but a foray into men’s mental health, again sympathetically portrayed. I liked the different time lines with the mix of 13 years previously when Mary met Jim and the current situation of how she is living without him for the past seven years. The other characters in the book, Ted, Alice and Kit creep up on you and find a way into your heart. This book was an easy read with a well balanced pace.

All in ome, both heartbreaking and heartwarming this is a beautiful story of love, friendships, compassion and relationships. A portrayal of life lived with severe depression, the interaction of others and yourself and what some need to do in order to protect others while at the same time looking at those left behind and their love and inability to accept some situations.

Mary O’Connor has been keeping a vigil for her first love for the past seven years.

Every evening without fail, Mary arrives at Ealing Broadway station and sets herself up among the commuters. In her hands, Mary holds a sign which bears the words: ‘Come Home Jim.’

A search for the truth of 'missing person' Jim, where is he and what happened to I'm? Mary meets some new friends who join her quest but the end is not all that it seems, though wasn't what I had expected either.

This is really well written, it has great, strong characters who are relatable and who I felt I knew well. I really enjoyed the whole book, which also has a great ending.

I love the premise of this story- who was Jim? Why did he disappear? Will he come back to Mary?
The start of the book really hooked me in, I liked Mary straight away and could visualise her life so vividly and felt her pain of longing for Jim.
The timeline of the start of their relationship was necessary, but I soon got frustrated and wanted to read about Mary's current predicament more. The addition of Alice the journalist was a great medium to tell their story and I wished there was more of her to keep me interested.
The ending will definitely divide readers, and while I feel it needs to be discussed, I am undecided whether I think it was the correct one. Don't want to say any more in case of spoilers!

Quite a slow start, pace improved as novel progressed.
Enjoyed it in a gentle way, still not convinced that Mary would stand outside a station holding notice for seven years..
Mary has had a tough life helping to support her family and with a failed relationship in her past. She is swept off her feet by Jim, a successful surgeon and they set up home together in London, blissfully in love. Jim is supportive of Mary in her career but she is never fully acccepted by his friends and family. When Jim starts to be secretive they have a confrontation after which Jim disappears. Mary struggles through a difficult situation and becomes a volunteer with nightline.
What really happened to jim? Her new friend Alice is determined to find out.

This book was not what I was expecting, it was a tough read at times, with themes of loss and mental health issues. It was very slow, and I struggled to get into it.
This may have been more to do with my own mood at the time of reading, having struggled with endless lockdowns. Not a good choice for me, I’m sorry to say.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this title.

An absorbing and very moving tale of love, loss and relationships. This is an emotional page turner which I couldn't put down as I was so vested in the main characters. It keeps you guessing until the very end about what's going to happen.

This is a story about love and acceptance. Its such a thoughtful book that will tear at your heartstrings. The story alternates between two different timelines to make you understand the true love story. It was a bit of a slow paced book but I still liked it.

This book is the ultimate story of denial. Denial of what, I won’t reveal, but there is a twist near the end that will make your heart break for Mary, as well as making you want to shake her awake.

Greaves has created well-rounded and likeable characters. She writes sensitively about topics that will resonate with many people; missing persons, lost love, mental health battles (particularly, men’s mental health).

I could see myself in Mary and I think that’s why I really identified with her. Just as I would get frustrated at myself, I got annoyed at her. I felt like I’d healed after reading this book. It didn’t leave me open and raw, but stitched up some wounds.

“You are so much more than a woman with a sign.”

This is a dual timeline story. The past features Mary and Jim’s relationship and the present day is where we see how drastically Mary’s life has changed.

I liked how this book is about lost love, but most of the plot actually revolves around friendship and the aspects of love that brings into our lives. Through her friends, especially Alice, Mary reassesses the truth of her past relationships, as well as questioning herself. The story ends on an optimistic note and I would actually love to read a sequel.

a great read, characters were brill loved the way they entwined each other like friends. Great easy read, i was gripped and read very quickly.

Ohhh my heart! The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves took me on such a roller coaster of emotions. Full of the most heartwarming highs and the most devastating lows, with an added element of mystery, it looks at what it is to fall madly in love, mental health (particularly in men) and, the million dollar question – what on Earth happened to Jim??!

What a beautifully written and poignant book. We join Mary seven years after Jim’s disappearance, and I found it totally heartbreaking how completely her grief at such a loss had consumed her life. It felt as though she had wanted to freeze time, her shifts at night line and vigils at Ealing Broadway giving her pretty much the only reasons to get up and leave the house each day.

Alice and Kit eventually get on board to help out with the search, and I absolutely loved their secret road trip to search for Jim. Their chapters provided some much needed light relief, and some real laugh-out-loud moments.

The ending brought tears to my eyes, and though it wasn’t completely unexpected, it was certainly totally fitting and, I thought, absolutely perfect.

With thanks to Century for gifting me a digital copy to review.

Loss and hope are the key themes in this novel from Abbie Greaves, author of The Silent Treatment. Whilst it was a good book, it didn't have that 'astounding' feeling that her previous publication has. The storyline was interesting and the characters well written but it wasn't unique enough.

What a really lovely easy read, a great story with great charecters you can't help but love, all came together to a fab conclusion, loved it

This made me feel SO much! Abbie Greaves is back with a heartwarming tale proving how love always lives on :)

I enjoyed this less than the previous novel I read by the author, The Silent Treatment, although it is very similar in style and pacing. A slow burn novel, this builds up very, very slowly indeed and takes a long time to get anywhere. The Silent Treatment was also slow, but I was far more invested in the story in honesty and so didn't mind quite so much. This novel flips between the present and the past, charting both Mary's current predicament as she keeps her life on hold in the hope that her true love will return to her and her relationship with Jim, it's ups and downs, flash fire infatuation and realisation that Jim may have more issues than Mary is able to deal with.

Out of the two threads, I was only invested in one of them. I had little interest in the initial love story of Mary and Jim and found myself skipping ahead to the present day, as Mary stands outside a train station every evening holding a sign begging Jim to come home. The mystery and build up to what actually occurred the day Jim disappeared was well realised, but the romance angle of the past just didn't work for me. And unlike The Silent Treatment, this only really touched on the mental health aspects despite much of the present day narrative being set in a 24 hour phone helpline.

I think this really needed to pick one of the two narratives instead of trying to do both at the same time. If it had been billed as the initial romance, then I wouldn't have bothered to pick it up as I rarely if ever read romance/chick lit. The mystery element really intrigued me and would have made a fantastic tale on its own and I'd have loved to see far more of the mental health aspect. I think it finishes well and I liked how the author draws out the issue of male mental health more; it's just a pity that this wasn't a more driving force throughout the novel as a whole.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title. It won't stop me reading more of Greaves work in the future, but I was hoping for the raw emotive power of The Silent Treatment... and I just didn't get that here.

Mary O'Connor spent the happiest six years of her life with Jim Whitnell. She'd never known a love like theirs, and Jim always vowed he would go to the ends of the earth for her. Then, one day, James simply disappears and every day for the next 7 years, Mary performs a daily vigil at Ealing Station, holding up a sign bearing the words, 'Come Home Jim'. Then, along comes Alice, who through her growing friendship with Mary feels compelled to find Jim and uncover the truth behind his disappearance. This book will warm your heart as it did mine. The characters are all fabulous and the story is beautifully written.

My review is on Goodreads, and has been posted to Amazon, pending approval.

I really enjoyed this book. It tells the story of Mary and Jim who meet and fall in love very quickly. Mary leave Ireland to live in London with Jim until one day after many years together Jim disappears. Mary then takes it upon herself to stand in Ealing Broadway station every night with a sign asking Jim to come home. After going viral on social media she is helped by Alice, an aspiring journalist and her friends at a smaritans style call centre to find out what really happened to Jim.
Really enjoyed the story. I felt commited to all the characters and I enjoyed that they were all flawed in their own way but was still rooting for them. This is my seocnd Abbie Greaves I've read and another great read.

I really enjoyed this book and became really invested in most of the characters, all of whom have their own flaws.
I don't think I could call this a romance but what it does do very well is cover the topic of mental health and depression in a very sensitive way, and who these issues affect those around you.
Mary I generally liked as a character though she is very blinkered. Alice I warmed to more and found myself rooting more for her than anyone else.
Although the ending isn't necessarily what you'd expect from the start, I think it is the right one. Thanks to the author and Netgalley for my arc

I never got around to reading Abbie Greaves' debut novel The Silent Treatment despite buying a copy so I was intrigued when a copy of her latest book The Ends of the Earth dropped through my letterbox. Just reading the blurb alone I had so many questions running through my head, in particular what had made Jim disappear and why was Mary still keeping a vigil after all of these years? These and so many more are answered in this emotional read that really struck a chord with me due to the sensitive topics that are explored within this book.

When we first meet Mary she has been swept off her feet by a handsome stranger and before too long she is leaving her family behind in Belfast to start a new life in Ealing with Jim. For many years they lived an idyllic life, or so it seemed, but little do people know what is going on behind closed doors and the struggles that people live with on a day-to-day basis. Jim like so many men hides his emotions, it's a tightrope for them both not knowing whether each new day is going to be a good day or bad one. And then one day Jim disappears without a trace leaving Mary behind to pick up the pieces.

Fast forward seven years and Mary is living a shell of a life, living in a run-down flat, working at a supermarket by day, keeping vigil at Ealing train station every evening before heading to Nightline where she volunteers answering calls from those in need. It's through the helpline that we meet the supporting cast that feature in this novel who are there for Mary but also have their own stories to tell. Ted, the manager of Nightline, Kit, one of the call handlers, and Alice, a journalist who is initially looking for a story to save her job but soon finds herself wanting to help Mary in whatever way she can, whether Mary wants her help or not.

The story alternates between the present day in 2018 and dates in the past which gives us an insight into Mary and Jim's relationship from the day they first met to the last day they saw each other. The love they shared is clear to see but also it shows the effects that depression can have on those both suffering with it and those around them. Mary in particular wishes that their last encounter could have been different and has struggled to come to terms with everything that happened and hasn't been able to move on with her life. It's as if she is in a constant state of denial and refusing to accept that Jim doesn't want to come back.

The road trip that Alice and Kit set off on brought some humour and light relief to the story despite the seriousness of their quest. And we soon discover there's a reason why Alice wants to help Mary get closure, she too has had to deal with the issue of being abandoned, although in different circumstances, but it has had a deep rooted effect on her and affected her relationships with others around her. So is her quest to get answers really for Mary or for herself? Kit was my favourite character even though initially he was just in the background. He was the type of friend we would all want around us but like the others he had his own secret he was hiding.

The Ends of the Earth is a heart-breaking, yet heart-warming, read with self-discovery, mental health, abandonment, friendships and relationships at its core.