The Last House on the Street
Fiction
St. Martin's Press
January 11, 2022
Advance reader copy
352
Free from publisher
When Kayla Carter's husband dies in an accident while building their dream house, she knows she has to stay strong for their four-year-old daughter. But the trophy home in Shadow Ridge Estates, a new development in sleepy Round Hill, North Carolina, will always hold tragic memories. But when she is confronted by an odd, older woman telling her not to move in, she almost agrees. It's clear this woman has some kind of connection to the area...and a connection to Kayla herself. Kayla's elderly new neighbor, Ellie Hockley, is more welcoming, but it's clear she, too, has secrets that stretch back almost fifty years. Is Ellie on a quest to right the wrongs of the past? And does the house at the end of the street hold the key? Told in dual time periods, The Last House on the Street is a novel of shocking prejudice and violence, forbidden love, the search for justice, and the tangled vines of two families.
My review:
Diane Chamberlain is a go to author for me. I will read anything she writes because I know it will be well written, well researched, and have characters that I care about. It did not come as a surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed this newest release. This is a dual timeline/ dual perspective story. Ellie's story takes place for the most part in 1965, when she works for a program called SCOPE, which encourages blacks to vote once the voting rights act is signed by LBJ. Kayla is the modern day story of a woman moving to a new home where she feels she may not be wanted. Eventually the two stories combine. I wish that the entire story could have been told from Ellie, as her participation in the SCOPE program was so informative and engrossing! Ellie is one of only a very few white teens working in the program, and you can imagine how much racism rears its ugly head in NC in 1965! While Kayla's story was fine, I did find myself longing to get back to Ellie as the chapters switched back and forth. I had the ending to Kayla's misfortune figured out well before the reveal, but the twist on the truck incident involving Ellie seemingly came out of nowhere, and I was genuinely shocked!
Such a great story about a small part of the civil rights movement, made even more pertinent because of the events with voting rights happening all around us today. Definitely 5 stars for Ellie's story, had to knock off a star for the more tepid story about Kayla. Well worth a read, as always this author never fails to educate as well as entertain with her stories.
