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"Life comes full circle in this witty page-turner about rekindled romance, late-life love, and enjoying what time you have left."
Honest, amusing, and uplifting through the grim reality that the Grim Reaper will come for us all, John Uttley’s The End of the Line opens with the death of Jim’s beloved wife. Then comes a swift tone-setting sense of Jim’s fresh start: “A new day had dawned. The air still felt cold with the eerie chill of the night. I opened the door to what had been our home, and to the rest of my life”.
Skip forward a year, and Jim now lives with his older sister Rose as a result of the tragic death of her own husband of sixty years. Into this, and into the comedy of the longstanding bantering dynamics between Jim and Rose (“Being born first had put her in first place. Absolute primogeniture applied”), Jim reconnects with an old flame, recently-widowed Sheila. After meeting up, the pair waste no time in making up for lost time, to her middle-aged children’s initial disapproval. “It didn’t take long for you to get your feet under the table, did it?” scathes her son Tom. Packed with amusing evocations of village life, some of them unexpectedly explosive, more unexpectedly explosive news comes in the wake of the couple taking a cruise...
Throughout, the writing is sharp and free-flowing, full of witty repartee and fine-tuned observations, with themes of loss, love, and navigating life’s seismic shifts explored within an overarching message of seizing fresh chances, all of which makes The End of the Line an entertaining and rewarding read for those who appreciate humorous fiction that ripples with resonant reflections on life (and death).
The End of the Line by John Uttley is available to buy on Amazon here.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
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John Uttley is back in his favoured territory north of the Ribble, in green pastures, and south in cabbage fields.
This time, he’s changed the characters. Young lovers many decades ago, Sheila and Jim meet up again in old age after the death of their spouses. Their marriages had been good ones. Sheila has a large family to prove it. Jim has only haunting memories.
Their mourning is genuine but they both still have a few years left before the Grim Reaper will call. Can they make the most of them together?
They befriend a young pair of lovers whose relationship is doomed to fail. Oldies and youngsters help each other navigate their way through. Much has changed but more has stayed the same.
The End of the Line by John Uttley is available to buy on Amazon here.
The End of the Line features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Family Drama, General Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Fiction
The End of the Line is available in Paperback
The End of the Line was written by John Uttley and published by Lancashire Lines Publishing
