The Last Romantics
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
One fateful summer. Four lives changed, forever.
‘A modern epic … The Last Romantics is a sweeping look at what binds families together’ Glamour
We thought we’d always be there for each other.
We were wrong.
For the Skinners, their lives divide into two parts: before that heady summer – of unsupervised youth, family crisis and unavoidable tragedy – and after. But mainly after.
The events of that childhood summer bound the Skinner siblings together fiercely, but the consequences would never be erased.
After what happened, they thought they could never be pulled apart, but it’s the million little betrayals echoing through the years that threaten to fray their last fragile ties . . .
Spanning five decades and following four unforgettable siblings, The Last Romantics is a sweeping, intimate and compelling portrait of one family – and every family. It is about the responsibilities we bear, how we grow together and apart, but how love will always guide us home.
Reviews
‘A beautifully written story of four siblings' love for one another across their entire lives… Perfectly paced, affecting fiction’ Booklist
‘Clever’ Publishers Weekly
‘There’s so much love and loss in this book that I read it with a box of tissues, laughing with astonishment through the tears. The kind of book you lose yourself in’ Lisa Gabriele, author of The Winters
‘All of the luxuriously spun characters in The Last Romantics, entwined via that impossible web we call family, unfold over their many years with the perfect balance of familiarity and wonder that makes turning their pages such a pleasure’ Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is
‘Intensely moving’ Shanina Piyarali, Shelf Awareness
More praise for Tara Conklin:
‘A wise, stirring and assured debut’ Maria Semple, NYT bestselling author of Where’d You Go Bernadette
‘Assured and arresting … You cannot put it down’ Chicago Tribune
About the author
Tara Conklin has worked as a litigator in the New York and London offices of a corporate law firm but now devotes her time to writing fiction. She received a BA in history from Yale University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Born in St. Croix, she grew up in Massachusetts and now lives with her family in Seattle, Washington.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The accomplished second novel by the author of The House Girl throws a few unexpected twists into the well-worn story of evolving relationships among siblings. In the year 2079, 102-year-old poet Fiona Skinner looks back on a childhood marked by the sudden death of her father and the emotional withdrawal of her mother. During the years that her mother spent almost entirely in her room in their middle-class Connecticut neighborhood a period that Fiona and her three siblings call the Pause the siblings essentially raised each other, with observant, dreamy youngest child Fiona taking note of driven oldest daughter Renee, bubbly Caroline, and sweet, athletic Joe. As the years go on, the increasingly troubled Joe becomes the focus of both the novel and the attention of the other siblings. While Fiona who works at a nonprofit and publishes a blog, sardonically titled The Last Romantic, wryly detailing her sexual experiences with one man after another is the novel's key voice, it expands out to peek into the minds of the others, including the mother who becomes a staunch feminist after emerging from her cocoon. Conklin's plot avoids the predictable, and adds a new mystery each time an old one is solved, resulting in a clever novel.
