Waiting. Always.
The Last Christmas by Liz Fenwick is a very charming dual timeline novel that I absolutely adored.
Readers of the author’s The Secret Shore will remember lead character Meredith Tremayne who features in this book as the ninety-eight-year-old grandmother. She is returning to Cornwall for one last Christmas.
The novel is set in 2012 and 1946, both in December. In 1946 Meredith married Jake, the love of her life. In 2012 Meredith is returning to scatter Jake’s ashes after he had died eight years earlier. Her dearest wish is that her ashes would be scattered with his.
Meredith was a cartographer during World War II, and was crucial to the war effort. However, “when the war ended, they basically told us to hang up our coats and go back to the kitchen.” With war, came choices, after the war, Meredith still pursued her work with the blessing of new husband, Jake.
The pair settled in Massachusetts. It is only in 2012 that Meredith returns ‘home’ to Cornwall with her granddaughter Grace. “My grandmother had been important in the war effort, but no-one in the family ever said anything about it.” Here, in Cornwall, Grace really gets to ‘know’ her grandmother, who in turn, really ‘sees’ Grace.
Grace is dyslexic and has been dubbed ‘stupid’ by her own mother. It is in visiting her grandmother’s family home that Grace really discovers her passion and her gifting. She finally finds her place in life.
War changes people. “Everyone of us who lived through that time carried things which… could sink us. We had to find a way of living with what we had witnessed or experienced.” There were horrors that they could not ‘unsee’. They had to learn to live with them. After the war, “I needed to make every moment count.”
In America, there was a different kind of war, as racism and persecution reared its’ ugly, cruel head. Meredith Tremayne really ‘sees’ people, declaring “People are people no matter their sex, race or religion.”
Meredith Tremayne really loved her husband Jake and longs to be with him. Grace says “Part of me had died when I lost Grandpa and losing Gran as well was too much to contemplate.”
Within the novel we can ’feel’ the love between the couple. It transcends even death. There are some beautiful scenes as Meredith ‘talks’ to her Jake. She sees him in all the familiar places. I found the final scene on Christmas Eve to be very moving and poignant.
Liz Fenwick has perfectly captured the essence of Christmas as she describes Grace preparing Christmas for her grandmother, just as her great grandmother would have done. The love between Grace and her grandmother shines through.
I loved that Grace received the cross necklace off her grandmother that she always wore. “It [the cross] was given to her to remind her of God’s love and her father’s.”
The Last Christmas is a very beautiful book. It is a tale of love; of loss; and of bonds that not even death can destroy. It is also Christmas in a book as I would love to experience it. Love came down at Christmas-time in the form of a baby, and there is so much love in The Last Christmas.
I received a free copy via Rachel’s Random Resources for a blog tour. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.
JULIA WILSON
The Last Christmas
When a final goodbye in Cornwall is only the beginning…
Meredith Tremayne Russell has spent her life mapping the world, first in intelligence during WWII, and later as a professor. But at ninety-eight with time running out, she faces a journey she cannot chart, a return to her old Cornish home to sell it and to scatter her beloved husband’s ashes.
With her is her twenty-five-year-old granddaughter, Grace, a dyslexic who believes she is a failure in a family of academics. For Grace the trip is a welcome escape from her mother’s demands. But when she unlocks her great-grandmother’s abandoned art studio, she finds a legacy of a passionate artist and a French resistance fighter.
As Meredith relives the frozen December of her 1946 wedding, she understands her final mission isn’t to say goodbye to her old home, but to draw one last map—showing Grace how to navigate a life of her own making.
Purchase Links
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HH9QRQYL (ebook)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HH9QRQYL (Amazon US)
https://www.lizfenwick.com/store-1/p/the-last-christmas (paperback)
Author Bio – Liz Fenwick, dubbed ‘the queen of the Cornish contemporary novel’ by The Guardian, is an award-winning author of emotional, immersive, feel-good fiction. Her books are filled with history, mystery and love. She loves stories that pull her into their world like they did when she was young so that’s what she writes. When she’s not writing, she’s procrastinating on Instagram, plot walking, reading and painting. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and two mad cats.
Social Media Links – @liz_fenwick (insta & twitter & threads) @lizfenwickauthor (TikTok)
Giveaway to Win 3 x Paperback copies of The Last Christmas (Open to UK Only)
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