Can Henrietta find out what happened to Annie’s sister—before it’s too late? Haunted by the past, Henrietta throws herself into a new job transcribing other people’s life stories, vowing to stick to the facts and keep emotions at arm’s length. But when she meets the eccentric and terminally ill Annie, she finds herself inextricably drawn in. And when Annie reveals that her sister drowned in unexplained circumstances in 1974, Henrietta’s methodical mind can’t help following the story’s loose ends… Unlike Henrietta, Annie is brimming with confidence—but even she has limits when it comes to opening up. Ever since that terrible night when her sister left a pile of clothes beside the canal and vanished, Annie has been afraid to look too closely into the murky depths of her memories. When her attempts to glide over the past come up against Henrietta’s determination to fill in the gaps, both women find themselves confronting truths they’d thought were buried forever—especially when Henrietta’s digging unearths a surprising emotional connection between them. Could unlocking Annie’s story help Henrietta rewrite the most devastating passages in her own life? And, in return, can she offer Annie a final twist in the tale, before it’s too late?
From the Publisher
Deeply compelling, Tell Me How This Ends is a reminder that, sometimes, confronting our pasts might just be the very thing we need to move forward. Jo Leevers writes with warmth, honesty, and compassion about the human condition, and it is such a privilege to be part of her journey.
Henrietta has a new job: to write the life stories of the dying so that a record of them exists once they’ve passed on. But Henrietta only wants to write the facts, not get pulled in by emotion. When she meets terminally ill, charismatic Annie, it’s hard to stay so removed, especially when Annie reveals that, one night, her sister vanished, leaving only a pile of clothes by the side of a canal. Henrietta can’t help herself from looking into it, but will she be able to find the truth in time?
Jo is the kind of writer that reminds me why I wanted to become an editor. Tell Me How This Ends , her brilliant debut, grabbed me from the second I read that first page and didn’t let me go until the very end.
—Kasim Mohammed, Editor
About the Author
Jo Leevers grew up in London and has spent most of her career working on magazines, most recently writing features about homes and interiors for leading newspapers and magazines. This means she gets to visit people around the country and ask them about all the things in their homes. Some might call this a licence to be nosey… Tell Me How This Ends is her debut. Whether writing fiction or interviewing people for articles, she is fascinated by the life stories that we all carry with us. She has two grown-up children and lives with her husband and their wayward dog, Lottie, in Bristol.