This is a well done domestic drama featuring good characters and a setting that jumps off the page. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of novels about the WWII homefront.

This is a very sad tale, there is romance and love but it all comes at a high price, and thank goodness there is a chink of hope at the very end. It's beautifully written and deals very sensitively with the difficult topic of shell shock and mental health, it's also beautiful in the dramatic Scottish landscapes chosen for the setting.

A Last Goodbye by Dee Yates sweeps you back to the beginning of World War I in a sheep farm in Scotland. Duncan Simpson has raised his daughter, Ellen since her mother died giving birth to her. Duncan is getting along in years, so Tom Fairclough has been hired to assist the shepherd. Ellen is only fifteen when Tom arrives, and she has an openness about her along with a direct manner which appeals to him. Over time they grow closer until an event forces them to marry. This was not the person Tom wished to marry and it is soon apparent in their marriage. Tom’s behavior changes making Ellen grateful when he enlists in the war. POW’s are brought to the area to work on the new rail line and prepare the valley for the new reservoir. Ellen is asked to care for a sick POW, Josef Kessler. Over the long winter, Ellen gets to know Josef and his kind heart. Find out how Ellen’s story plays out in A Last Goodbye.

A Last Goodbye contains good writing and it has a gentle pace. We are taken to a remote sheep farm in Scotland where Ellen has grown up isolated. She is raised by her father after her mother died in childbirth. The peacefulness of the area is disturbed by war and a need for water. Their area is the perfect location for the new reservoir. A Last Goodbye has good characters in Ellen and her father, Duncan. Tom is one of those characters that you will dislike from the very beginning (you love to hate type). I appreciated the addition of Tom’s childhood friend, Clara. She is in college working to become a doctor which was very rare at this time. You can feel the characters emotions pouring out of the pages (love, rage, jealousy, joy, fear). Tom’s jealousy and anger come clearly through along with Ellen’s thoughtfulness, caring and directness. I thought the author did an admirable job at depicting the horrors Tom experienced during the war. The trenches, the bodies, the noise, the injuries and so much more. The story is told mostly from Ellen and Tom’s point-of-views. The ending will have you yearning for more. A Last Goodbye is a poignant story that will have reading late into the night.

Saga fans are going to absolutely love losing themselves in Dee Yates’ enthralling, engrossing and hugely enjoyable historical saga set against the backdrop of the First World War, A Last Goodbye. A book that will tug at your heartstrings and have you reaching for the tissues, A Last Goodbye is a must-read for fans of Dilly Court and Katie Flynn.

Life is quiet and peaceful for Ellen and her father in their remote farm in the hills of Scotland. Untouched by the mills and the hustle and bustle of the neighbouring towns, Ellen and her father’s life is the epitome of rural bliss, however, with her father getting older and unable to manage the rigours of farming, the time has come for them to hire some outside help to take care of the sheep and lend some much needed muscle around the farm. When Tom comes to work for them, Ellen finds herself drawn to the new arrival and romance quickly develops between the two of them. A courtship quickly sees the two of them walking down the aisle, however, once married Ellen quickly realises that the man she married is far removed from the one she had fallen head over heels in love with…

Ellen’s marriage to Tom brings a darkness to the farm that changes all of their lives forever. Tom is brutish and a bully and Ellen begins to rue the day she had ever agreed to marry him. With the gathering clouds of the Great War fast approaching, Ellen whiles away her days and night wishing that her husband would do his duty to King and Country and leave her in peace. But when she gets her wish, little does Ellen realise that the brutality and hardship of war is going to come ever closer to home and shake up her world once more.

When a group of prisoners of war is brought to the Scottish valley to build a reservoir, these men are initially shunned and abused by the locals whom they deem as traitorous breasts who have killed their men and boys. Although Ellen knows that she should give them as wide a berth as possible, she finds herself drawn to a prisoner of war whose kind soul and generous spirit awakens feelings deep within her which she thought long buried.

Will Ellen finally find the happiness that has been missing from her life for so long? Or is she destined to be condemned to a lifetime of misery and anguish at the hands of a brutish bully?

A Last Goodbye was my first Dee Yates novel, but it certainly will not be my last. A powerfully written, highly evocative and meticulously researched historical page-turner that kept me on tenterhooks, A Last Goodbye recreates the First World War with astounding detail and clarity and will make you feel as if you are experiencing the story and not just reading it.

Poignant, captivating and a joy from beginning to end, A Last Goodbye is a must-read for saga fans everywhere!

I was generously given an ARC of this book. Any opinions and thoughts are my own. This is a story about love, friendship, war, wilds of Scotland, and the consequences of actions. 

Ellen has grown up as fairly sheltered as the only daughter of a Scottish sheep farmer named Duncan in the early 1900s. She is a sweet young girl who is close to her Dad, enjoys life on the farm and isn't in a hurry to see what's out in the world. Her mother died giving birth to her and she took over the domestic duties as soon as she was old enough to. Though aware of life on the farm and accustomed to working hard, she's never traveled much further than Glasgow and her closest friend is on a neighboring farm some distance away. At the tender age of sixteen, Ellen has no inkling of what the world is like nor a very good understanding of being on the brink of adulthood and certainly little understanding of what it's like to attract the notice of a guy. 

Tom Fairclough is a young Yorkshire man who has grown up being surrounded by sheep and seeks to gain a better understanding of life as a shepherd. He happens upon a need for help in Scotland so answers the call and immediately falls in love with the countryside near Duncan's area. He is also drawn to Ellen though has set his sights on a childhood friend whom he hopes to one day marry once he's become more settled as a shepherd. 

Life seems to be going well for both of these people from different countries and though the work is hard, it's very satisfying for them and things seem to be slowly falling into place for Tom. As sometimes happens though, life enjoys throwing curveballs into the mix and decides to take a different approach on these two vastly different people. Tom's hopes of his childhood friend Clara returning his affections doesn't turn out at all and the actions he does in a fit of temper will have some serious consequences.

I would like to also mention that I didn't care much for Tom because he may have been okay in the beginning but turned into a bitter, selfish man who just couldn't stop himself from laying a hand on his wife. He's not a person that I think should have been a husband or father at least not where poor Ellen is concerned.

I did really like Ellen who found herself in a difficult situation but did the best with what she had and became a great Mom. I don't agree with some of the things that she did but I'm glad that she soon realized that her happiness didn't depend on her brute of a husband.

I also really liked Josef who became a friend to Ellen when she really needed it and was just one of the sweetest people in the story despite being a German prisoner of war.

Overall I really enjoyed the book though and I'm so glad to have gotten a chance to read it!

A heartrending story of two people in love with someone else but are bound together by necessity and their child. The characters were a little stereotyped ; Tom so bad and Ellen so good and the Captain, whose compassion I felt, hard to believe, especially in those times.
The book was well written, although I agree with others, the pace was slow at times and the descriptions of the countryside dragged on and became somewhat tedious. In contrast, the horrors of the WWI and the trenches were well depicted and frighteningly real. I'm giving 3 stars, as I never really felt engaged and it took me quite a while to read.

I am a bit of a history nerd with a special interest in the First World War and I just love reading saga type books. So you can imagine my excitement when I read the synopsis for this book. It ticked both of the boxes and then some. I really did enjoy reading ‘A Last Goodbye’ but more about that in a bit.
Ellen is one of those characters that I took to and felt a bit sorry for. Her mother died in childbirth and so Ellen never knew her. Since that time it has just been Ellen and her father, who have worked as a tight team. Ellen has had to grow up faster than she should have because she has taken over the traditional female roles in the household in that she does the housework and she cooks her father’s meals. Her life starts to look up when Tom arrives as the new farmhand and moves into the cottage next to Ellen and her father. For Ellen, there is an immediate spark there but it takes a little longer for Tom. I have to be honest and say that my opinions of Tom changed as the book continued. To start with, I liked him and thought that he would be good for Ellen, only to realise that his thoughts were with another woman and that really he was a nasty individual. Things don’t go as he wanted them to with her and so I got the impression he saw Ellen as a bit of a booby prize. His behaviour towards Ellen leaves a lot to be desired. The outbreak of war brings new opportunities. Ellen wakes up and smells the coffee so to speak and she keeps her fingers crossed that Tom is called up to fight. This does happen and Ellen starts to spend a lot of time with a German POW, who she ultimately falls for. Tom is injured and he comes back suffering from shell shock. It might sound harsh but I didn’t feel sorry for Tom one little bit. He was a nasty man before he left Britain’s shores and so I didn’t feel that Tom could blame his behaviour on his mental health problems. I had a relative who suffered with shell shock so I know how debilitating it can be and for my relative I have sympathy, but not for Tom. I could tell that Ellen felt conflicted because she wants to leave Tom because he is a violent thug but at the same time due to the fact that they are married, Ellen feels that she has to stay with her husband. Ellen has fallen in love with a man, who she knows that she can never be with because he was considered to be the enemy and because she feels duty bound to stay with her husband. I certainly didn’t envy her when she makes the decision as to who she decides to be with.
This was one of those books that really did take me on an emotional rollercoaster ride and I needed to reach for the tissues more than once. I think that the problems facing Ellen really got to me because I liked her character and in fact I thought of her as a friend. There were several times when I wanted to jump into the pages of this book and give Tom a few dozen slaps with a wet flip flop for his treatment of Ellen. The characters were so realistically written that it was hard for me to believe that they weren’t real.
The author’s writing style is such that you can’t fail to be drawn into the book from the moment you begin to read. Within a short space of time I found that I became addicted to reading this book. I was so drawn to the storylines that I just had to read on to see what would happen to Ellen and if she would ever escape her brute of a husband. The page numbers and the time flew past in a blur but I hadn’t noticed just how quickly because I was so taken by the story and the characters.
In short, I absolutely loved reading this heart breaking tale, which makes me sound like a sadist doesn’t it? I enjoyed the story, the characters, the period of time that the book is set in, the places where the story takes place and the way in which important issues were dealt with. I would definitely recommend this book to other readers. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a well deserved 5* out of 5*.

A wartime historical fiction novel set on a sheep farm in a remote part of Scotland. this story is Ellen, and her father Duncan are the main characters. during the First World War. We learn about their relationship explores their relationship and the changes the war brings. Also, a reservoir is being built in the area. with the advent of war and the building of a reservoir amongst other parts of the areas’s infrastructure. Life is hard for prisoners of war in the area as well as people left behind.

The characters were interesting as was their way of life. The pace was a little slow now and then.

Thanks to Dee Yates and Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus, for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. and opportunity to take part in the blog tour for this title.

A different perspective on the effect of WW1, which explores the horror of war at the front and the battles fought by those left behind. Told, mainly from Ellen and Tom's points of view the reader sees life on a Scottish sheep farm and in the trenches before and during WW1.

Tom decides to move from Yorkshire to Scotland for personal reasons, his relationship with Ellen happens by chance when his plans go awry, and it proves to be troubled from the start. Tom's youth may excuse some of his actions, but his personality has many dark areas, which lead to violence and withdrawal from his new family, these are described well in this story, and the outcome is not a surprise. The trench scenes from WW1 are descriptive and convey the horror for the young soldiers in vivid detail.

Ellen never knew her mother and so has no female guidance when faced with Tom's interest and questionable behaviour to a such a young girl. She has to grow up quickly and becomes a strong, likeable woman who always puts her family first. The hardship and heartbreak Ellen suffers is poignant reading.

The characters are well-written and realistic and the setting dramatic and unforgiving. The historical element adds depth to this emotional story and puts the characters' actions and interactions in perspective.

The ending is full of hope for Ellen and has an air of inevitability for Tom. Hopefully, Ellen's next chapter will be in a sequel?

I received a copy of this book from Aria via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Review: I would like to thank Aria for letting me review this book I am so glad that I have read this book as it gave me so much more than just a few hours relaxing with a book, it took me right into the very heart of Scotland and back in time and on a journey with our main character Ellen, who I just adored.

We follow Ellen as she grows up and becomes a women during a difficult period in Scotland's history in the time of war. Ellen has a strong bond with her father which is lovely and she falls in love at a young age to their farm hand Tom. Tom is one of those characters that you cannot help but dislike but you can also sympathise with his story too. As the war continues the family can't escape the war at home with POWs camped out on the hillside but a very lovely story unfolds involving them which gives you a whole different understanding of the war from both sides.   

A truly empowering story. I loved it and cannot wait for more from Dee Yates.

A great novel set in the war years enjoyed the different relationship's between father and daughter, daughter and husband and daughter and prisoner of war all of which made it a very interesting read that I think would appeal to most readers a good read b

Set on a sheep farm in a remote part of Scotland, this story is about a young girl, Ellen, and her father, Duncan, during the First World War. It tells how she met her future husband, explores their relationship and how life changes with the advent of war and the building of a reservoir and the necessary infrastructure in the area. It is a tale of the harsh realities of life in those times for those left behind and for some prisoners of war in that area.

This is a story exploring relationships, dreams, expectations and futures. Sometimes your dreams can be nightmares . . . . and at others they can be your hopes fulfilled. This is a very different historical romance, with plenty of angst, turmoil and drama. The local community is well portrayed, too, and there’s more than one romance to read about in this! I suspect this may be given 5* reviews by others but I just didn't quite connect with the characters and found myself wanting to speed up the pace at times. It's a good job we don't all enjoy the same things - give this book a go and you'll probably love it! The ending shows how Ellen has matured and grown during the story and is now willing to take opportunities for love.

I requested and was given a copy of this novel, via NetGalley, with no obligation. This is my honest review of the book after choosing to read it.

A truly lovely story of a young girl living in a remote part of Scotland on a sheep farm with her father. It is a story that spans the first world war when life on the farm changes for ever when her husband joins the millions of other young men fighting in France. The war also affects the people left behind when a group of German prisoners are brought in to work on building a railway and road in preparation for a dam being built that will flood the valley. I loved the book thank you for the ARC