⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read End of Story yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 4.6/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
The Opening
A water leak. A contractor who happens to be her ex’s best friend. A divorce certificate found inside a wall — dated ten years in the future, in both their names. And absolutely no rational explanation for any of it. End of Story is a small town romance wrapped around a genuinely unsettling mystery, and I listened to it in one sitting. A year later I came back and listened to it again.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The Setup
Suzie is a social media manager who works from home. Lars is a contractor — and the best friend of Aaron, Suzie’s ex, who dumped her in front of a room full of people and has been rewriting the story of their breakup ever since. When Suzie inherits her beloved Aunt Suzanne’s home after she passes, she gets a lot more than a house. She gets water damage, a mystery that defies explanation, and apparently a future husband.
The water leak brings Lars to her door. While investigating the source, he finds something inside the wall: a divorce certificate. Ten years from now. In both their names. Lars is furious — he assumes she planted it. Suzie is baffled — she didn’t even know he was coming. They turn the accusation back on each other, and then they actually investigate, and neither of them can find any possible way it could have been placed there. It simply appeared.
The Mystery
The divorce certificate becomes the throughline of the entire book, and it’s handled in a way that genuinely keeps you guessing. They bring in a forensic document examiner who confirms it’s old — but she can’t confirm or deny its legitimacy given the information it contains and the reputation she has to protect. They bring in a psychic. She gives them a little, but doesn’t solve anything. Charlotte, a divorce lawyer Suzie meets at a bar, takes one look at it and declares it a joke from her brother — it shows her on the letterhead as partner, a position she doesn’t currently hold — but concedes that if not for the date, she’d think it was completely real.
Nobody ever figures out where it came from. Nobody ever figures out how it got into the wall. And then, at the end of the book, when Suzie decides she’s done letting it live rent-free in her head and goes to destroy it — it’s gone. Simply gone. No explanation. No rational answer. Just a certificate that appeared, changed the course of two people’s lives, and then vanished.
“Were inevitable.” — Lars
That line. That’s the whole mystery in two words.
Aaron
Before we get to the good stuff, we have to talk about Aaron, because Aaron is a piece of work.
He dumped Suzie publicly and humiliatingly, and has spent the time since maintaining a narrative where she is unreasonable and unhinged. He shows up to Lars’s birthday and introduces his fiancée while telling Suzie there’s no need to make a scene — unprompted, as if she was already mid-scene. At a bar, he corners her, insults her work, her wardrobe, brings up his mother hating her, digs at her relationship with her dad, and mentions his fiancée as many times as possible — all while Suzie keeps her cool completely. Lars watches all of this and something visibly shifts in him. He walks her out when she leaves. And then he kisses her.
Later, at a party, Aaron corners her again — this time to tell her she’s won, that she has him back. She turns him down clearly. He grabs her and kisses her and won’t let her go. She knees him in the groin. He then tells everyone within earshot that she attacked him out of nowhere, leaving out the part where he physically wouldn’t release her. Lars, having heard enough of Aaron over the course of this entire book, punches his best friend.
The bro code concern that had been holding Lars back? Officially no longer a concern.
Lars and Suzie
Their dynamic builds slowly and naturally, rooted in something that already existed — back when they all used to go on group outings together, Suzie and Lars had a habit of sharing and trading meals. Small thing. Telling thing.
Once they’re thrown together over the certificate mystery, the friendship deepens fast. They both know there’s an attraction and they both think it’s a problem. Lars suggests Suzie introduce him to her best friend Cleo as a way to deal with it. Suzie counters that she should spend more time with Lars’s brother Tor. Lars immediately hates that idea. Then Tor and Cleo turn up post-hookup, which takes both of those options firmly off the table.
They plan a sex date. Lars doesn’t show, doesn’t call. Suzie is upset — and then Cleo calls to tell her Lars was hit by a car in a hit-and-run. He asked for Suzie.
She goes, runs to him. He’s high on pain medication, telling the doctor in great detail how much he likes her, that she’s beautiful, that he loves her. It’s genuinely adorable. She takes him home to recover — her setup is the best — and when his family shows up to collect him, Lars tells them Suzie wants him to stay, that he feels better when he’s there. He throws her completely under the bus and stays.
Weeks later, he has essentially moved in. What started as recovery has quietly become something else entirely, and both of them know it.
“I have the worst feeling Lars and I are in a relationship.” — Suzie
It’s a relationship in everything but name, and has been for a while.
The Ending
The day after Lars punches Aaron, Suzie proposes to Lars. He tells her he’ll think about it.
Then days later — just before she goes to get the divorce certificate to destroy it — he hands her a box with a ring inside. That’s his answer. He wants to marry her.
Suzie goes to get the divorce certificate to destroy it — she’s done, she wants it gone — and it isn’t there. She didn’t misplace it. She knows she didn’t misplace it. They search and search. It’s simply gone. They leave it and move on.
Ten years later — the date on the certificate — they have a daughter and a baby boy. Suzie realizes they’ve outgrown Aunt Suzanne’s place. They need somewhere new.
“So, I was thinking — instead of getting divorced today, why don’t we order some takeout to share?” — Suzie
They never found the certificate. They never figured out where it came from. They were very happy.
Best Part of This Book
The mystery of the certificate — where it came from, what it means, whether it was a prediction or a nudge or something else entirely — and the fact that the book never explains it. It simply happened, it disappeared, and they ended up exactly where it said they would. “Were inevitable.” Lars said it first and he wasn’t wrong.
Worst Part of This Book
Aaron. Not in a way that reflects bad writing — he’s written exactly right, which is the problem. He is a specific kind of exhausting person who rewrites reality in real time and then looks at you like you’re crazy for noticing, and every scene he’s in is deeply unpleasant in the way only a very accurately written terrible ex can be.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥 — Warm, present, not the main focus. The slow build romance does the heavy lifting here, not the heat.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Completely satisfied. The ten-year epilogue is the perfect landing for a book built around a ten-year-dated mystery. The takeout line is the best last line.
Would I Reread It?
Yes — already have. Twice now.
The Twist We Didn’t See Coming
The certificate disappearing. They never find it. It appeared from nowhere, changed everything, and left without explanation. Make of that what you will.
Who Is This For
Readers who love slow burn romance with a genuinely compelling mystery underneath it. Anyone who likes their love stories with a little supernatural edge and zero tidy explanations. Kylie Scott fans who loved the small town warmth of Text Appeal and Famous in a Small Town — same energy, slightly more unexplained phenomena.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle .ca | Amazon Kindle .com
🎧 Audiobook
Audible Canada | Audible US | Libro.fm
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🎁 New to Libro.fm? Get 2 free audiobooks
📚 More from the End of Story Series
Book 1 — End of Story | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.6/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — You are here
Book 1.5 — Beginning of the End | Reviewed by LD | See here
Ready for more from LD? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Series: End of Story Book 1 | Genre: Romance, Small Town Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 | Narrator: Andi Arndt