The Last Letter

“The Last Letter is a haunting, heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational love story.“—InTouch Weekly Beckett, If you’re reading this, well, you know the last-letter drill. You made it. I didn’t. Get off the guilt train, because I know if there was any chance you could have saved me, you would have. I need one thing from you: get out of the army and get to Telluride. My little sister Ella’s raising the twins alone. She’s too independent and won’t accept help easily, but she has lost our grandmother, our parents, and now me. It’s too much for anyone to endure. It’s not fair. And here’s the kicker: there’s something else you don’t know that’s tearing her family apart. She’s going to need help. So if I’m gone, that means I can’t be there for Ella. I can’t help them through this. But you can. So I’m begging you, as my best friend, go take care of my sister, my family. Please don’t make her go through it alone. Ryan

The USA TODAY bestseller! Inspired by the brave women of WWII, this is a moving and powerful novel of friendship, love and resilience for fans of My Name is Eva, The Alice Network and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. A story of love not a story of a war...

Final work by internationally acclaimed Australian author Gerald Murnane, reflecting on his career as a writer, and the fifteen books which have led critics to praise him as ‘a genius on the level of Beckett’. A book which will appeal equally to Murnane’s legion of fans, and to those new to his work, attracted by his reputation as a truly original Australian writer. In the first days of spring in his eighty-second year, Gerald Murnane began a project which would round off his career as a writer – he would read all of his books in turn and prepare a report on each. His original intention was to lodge the reports in two of his legendary archives, the Chronological Archive, which documents his life as a whole, and the Literary Archive, which is devoted to everything he has written. But as the reports grew, they themselves took on the form of a book, Last Letter to a Reader. The essays on each of his works travel through the capacious territory Murnane refers to as his mind: they dwell on the circumstances which gave rise to the writing, images, associations, reflections on the theory of fiction, and memories of a deeply personal kind. The final essay is on Last Letter to a Reader itself: it considers the elation and exhilaration which accompany the act of writing, and offers a moving ending to what must surely be his last work as death approaches. ‘Help me, dear one, to endure patiently my going back to my own sort of heaven.’ ‘No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction’ — Sydney Morning Herald ‘The emotional conviction...is so intense, the somber lyricism so moving, the intelligence behind the chiseled sentences so undeniable, that we suspend all disbelief.’ — J.M. Coetzee

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel. They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes. His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Moyes delivers a sophisticated, page-turning double love story spanning 40 years--an unforgettable "Brief Encounter" for modern times.

"[In 1905 Des Moines, Iowa], Katherine Arthur's dying mother arrives on her doorstep, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie's husband Frank it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank. But, it was a society of uncertainty--a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death. ... After years of anger, can Katherine find it in her heart to understand why her mother made the decisions that changed them all? Can she forgive and finally begin to heal before it's too late?"--P. [4] of cover.

"Part of the Legacies of War series, The Last Letter is a family memoir that spans events from the 1930s and Hitler's rise to power, through World War II and the Holocaust, to the present-day United States. Karen Baum Gordon's gripping narrative opens on her father Rudy Baum's attempted suicide in 2002 at the age of eight-six and unfolds in an investigation of generational trauma within her extensive German Jewish family. Gordon grounds her research in eighty-eight letters written mostly by Julie Baum, Rudy's mother and Gordon's grandmother, to Rudy between November 1936 and October 1941. Gordon examines pieces of these worn, handwritten letters and other archival documents in order to recreate the fatal journeys of her grandparents in the camps and ghettos of the Third Reich and trace her father's efforts to save them an ocean away in America. Doing so, Gordon discovers the forgotten fragments of her family's history and a vivid sense of her own Jewish identity"--

The Last Letter is the love story of an Army officer since his school times, who did everything for the respect of his love. One look and John fell in love with Veronica. A love so deep that his life revolved around their promises. From the school classrooms to cafes to the corridors of NDA and across cities, John follows the path of love, yearning for Veronica. His aim is to become an Army Officer and marry Veronica. Veronica loves and supports him but will she wait for him? Do circumstances keep them apart or can love bridge the distance? The passion and ambition that drives him almost ruins him, until he realises the meaning of true love. Forgetting his passion, aim and himself in the struggle to earn respect in his own eyes, he wants to keep his promises but can he? When did he write letters? And even if he wrote letters, why was there a last letter? Let’s find out and go back to his school days………

Told in alternating timelines, THE THINGS WE LEAVE UNFINISHED examines the risks we take for love, the scars too deep to heal, and the endings we can’t bring ourselves to see coming. Twenty-eight-year-old Georgia Stanton has to start over after she gave up almost everything in a brutal divorce—the New York house, the friends, and her pride. Now back home at her late great-grandmother’s estate in Colorado, she finds herself face-to-face with Noah Harrison, the bestselling author of a million books where the cover is always people nearly kissing. He’s just as arrogant in person as in interviews, and she’ll be damned if the good-looking writer of love stories thinks he’s the one to finish her grandmother’s final novel...even if the publisher swears he’s the perfect fit. Noah is at the pinnacle of his career. With book and movie deals galore, there isn’t much the “golden boy” of modern fiction hasn’t accomplished. But he can’t walk away from what might be the best book of the century—the one his idol, Scarlett Stanton, left unfinished. Coming up with a fitting ending for the legendary author is one thing, but dealing with her beautiful, stubborn, cynical great-granddaughter, Georgia, is quite another. But as they read Scarlett’s words in both the manuscript and her box of letters, they start to realize why Scarlett never finished the book—it’s based on her real-life romance with a World War II pilot, and the ending isn’t a happy one. Georgia knows all too well that love never works out, and while the chemistry and connection between her and Noah is undeniable, she’s as determined as ever to learn from her great-grandmother’s mistakes—even if it means destroying Noah’s career.

Fifteen-year-old Amelia struggles to shape her own identity while a chronic illness threatens to tear her world apart.