The Last House On The Street by Diane Chamberlain is a multi faceted novel of two young women. Ellie’s story takes place in 1965 and Kayla’s story takes place in 2010. Ellie decides that instead of spending the summer working in her father’s pharmacy, she would volunteer canvasing neighborhoods in the south trying to sign up black folks to vote. This is met with great disdain not only by her family, but also her friends, Ellie is determined that this is where she should be, and after forging the required paperwork, she takes off on this adventure. Kayla, who is a young widow with a small daughter is reluctantly planning to move into a newly built house that she and her husband designed together, which is The Last House On The Street, set back in the woods. It becomes clear half way through the novel how these two women’s lives connect. I thought this was a terrific novel, and the explosive ending will have you thinking about this story long after you turn the last page. Thank You to Net Galley, the Author Diane Chamberlain and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this advanced copy for my unbiased review.

Brief Synopsis: Kayla is a young widow, raising her four-year-old daughter. Her husband recently died in a tragic accident while building their dream home. When a stranger approaches Kayla and warns her that the land her home sits on is haunted, Kayla starts to second guess moving in. In addition, events happen that continue to make Kayla feel unwelcome and on-edge. She is committed to uncovering the secrets from the past, a journey that spans back almost fifty years.

Thoughts: I read a lot of books, but Diane Chamberlain seems to write stories that stick with me. This one was no exception. The storyline for this book was inspired by true events surrounding the 1960s Civil Rights movement. The narrative is told through dual timelines by Ellie in the past and Kayla in the present. The characters felt real and the plot was believable. The writing was fluid, easy to read, and very powerful. I felt many emotions (anger, heartache, sadness, joy, and love) and was submerged into the text. There was some predictability to the narrative, but I don’t think that took anything away from the story.

Thank you to Diane Chamberlain, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for a copy of this book. I have quickly become a Diane Chamberlain fan and will be looking forward to her next release. Historical fiction is normally not my genre of choice, but Diane has a way of melding the topics in a contemporary way. I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a historical fiction read with a contemporary feel.

I love Chamberlain's books - so much rich detail about North Carolina and has a special lens on race. This book was a pleasure to read and full of beautiful imagery. I like the authors new style of adding a mystery in the book. The back and forth between the times is great adds intrigue. I am in awe of how much research goes into her books! A+

I loved the alternating timelines in this book. The history was so fascinating and beautifully written. A lot of the issues surrounding racism and voting rights were prevalent to the world we live in today. There were some very sad moments that really make you think. The story was engaging and I can't wait to read more of her works!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this ARC.

Do you ever really know the heart of your closest friends and family? The Last House on the Street is told with alternating narrators whose stories ultimately combine. Ellie Hockley, lives in Round Hill, North Carolina in 1965. She is in college and wants to work with a civil rights organization for the summer but doesn’t realize the consequences of her work nor how they will affect her friends and family.

In 2010, Kyla Carter has built a beautiful home in the new subdivision of Shadow Ridge Estates in Round Hill. About to move in, she is getting warnings and creepy messages about her new home. Newly widowed, Kyla is worried about not only her safety but the safety of her daughter. How will the past affect the present?

This story was well written and I found myself reading the nearly the entire book in one sitting. It was disturbing to me to read about living conditions, treatment of African Americans and how divided the people all living in the same town were. The author did a fantastic job of giving a realistic description of how civil rights affected everyone in that timeframe. The divisions were definitely clear and my heart went out to characters in both timeframes. I won’t give away any twists and turns but there are some. The story is engaging, gritty and enjoyable. Characters and their stories are well developed and clearly I enjoyed this story. I think you will too, don’t miss this book.

What an amazing book! The characters in this book were rich, and the story was compelling. Diane Chamberlain never disappoints.

It is 2010 and recently widowed Kayla is moving into the house that she designed with her husband and strange things start to happen. Meanwhile, Ellie has returned to the house next door that she left in 1965 when her family could not accept her choice to work for the civil rights movement. This is an great read as the women’s lives become intertwined and secrets come out.

This is a real page turner. I kept wanting to find out what was going to happen next, I didn't want to put it down. The characters were so compelling.

The Last House on the Street is a compelling novel beautifully written in dual time periods. It is the story of Ellie in 1965 in South Carolina as a young adult during the Johnson Presidency and her involvement with the civil rights movement, in particular the voting rights act. It is also the story of Ellie and Kayla in 2010, Elie being then 65 years old and Kayla a young widower mother.

The two timelines are intense in different ways. The 1965 chapters address tough themes: hate crimes, racial prejudice, interracial relationships, bigotry. The scope of the atrocities is hard to comprehend, impossible to ignore. Those chapters are emotionally charged. The 2010 chapters are more in line with a mystery crime novel providing somehow a break and a bit of relief to the earlier timeline. Eventually both stories convert smoothly.

The two generations are magnificently intertwined, the book touches gruesome parts of American History, some accounts in a very graphic way. The characters are so well developed, one feels immediately immersed in the novel. It is a hard to put down book based on a painful and heartbreaking story.

Diane Chamberlain is a brilliant storyteller with a talent for historical fiction and a smooth and sensible style. This is the seventh book I have read by her. 4 1/2 stars rounded to 5.

Thank you #DianeChamberlain, #netgalley, and #stmartispress for providing me an e-ARC and the chance to read and review it.

Omigosh! I predict that this book will make the bestseller list! It grabbed me right from the very first chapter, and became even more involving as it moved along. The subject matter is original, the atmosphere tense, the characters well-developed and relatable, and the writing impeccable. It delves into the deep, dark soul of the South, and, as in “The Help”, the picture isn’t pretty.

The story shifts between two characters and eras. There’s a young widow (present-day) who is moving into a beautiful new home she designed with her now-deceased husband, and a young civil rights activist in the 60s who is drawn into a situation that is obviously beyond her control.

The story swirls with darkness and suspense. You can feel the oppressive heat of the South and picture the kudzu winding around the landscape, choking the life out of it. The story ends with a terrifyingly horrific crescendo and a satisfying denouement. What more can we ask of a good book?

Highly recommend!

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE STREET
BY DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

If you have the chance to read one book in 2022, please consider it to be this latest timely and relevant book beautifully written by Diane Chamberlain. I love all of her books but this one is definitely my favorite. The title is called, "The Last House on the Street," and it has completely ruined me as far as powerful, and socially and politically timely books. It is being marketed as the mystery and thriller and Women's fiction genre and to be quite honest I was glued to the pages from the first immersive chapter until the last. It quite simply is the best novel that I have read and the storytelling so compelling that I can remember this year. It does have a eery feeling in it at times but also contains a very important theme such as how crucial it is if we are going to live in a democracy that everyone has the right to cast a ballot when it is time to vote.

Anybody that watches the news knows that during our most recent Presidential Election that there was a historic number of voting turnout. This isn't a political review about who won the election. I will state that I watched the coverage and it was a fair election and that I believe that there was little if not any voter fraud. I am getting off base here so I will not veer off the main theme of this duel timeline story that takes place in 2010 and 1965 and the novel alternates between timelines with alternating chapters between beginning with Kayla in 2010 who has just lost her husband and is moving into their dream house that they designed together as architects. Kayla is about to move into her new house with her three year old daughter. The book opens as Kayla receives a disturbing visit at work from a woman named Ann Smith who appears to be wearing a vivid red wig, mirrored sunglasses who appears to be approximately sixty-five year's old. Not her typical thirty or forty year old couple who has saved a fortune for building their dream house. Ann Smith has the sort of sloppy self applied acrylic fingernails and her red lipstick is bleeding into the lines that surround her mouth. She says that she wants to build an addition to add to her house. She seems to know that Kayla lost her husband and where she is moving to and advises against moving to such a remote place. She makes more comments making Kayla so uncomfortable that she asks her to leave. This is the first of many unsettling things that make Kayla spooked about moving into the contemporary house with floor to ceiling windows surrounded by woods.

In 1965 in the same area in a small community in North Carolina, Ellie is home from the University of North Carolina during spring break sitting in her childhood home. She comes from a family of four consisting of her mother Patricia and her father who is a Pharmacist and her brother Buddy who is a mechanic. She is looking through Bridal magazines with her best friend Brenda who is getting married because she is pregnant to Ellie's boyfriend Reed's friend Garner. Ellie's father is reading the newspaper and he announces that the local Reverend Greg Filburn, pastor of the local AME church has announced that several hundred white students from the Northern and Western colleges are planning on coming South spending the summer in the Southern states registering Black folks to vote. As it was in their county only thirty-four percent of Black's are currently registered to vote compared to ninety-four percent of the White population. The voting rights Voting Rights bill Act, is soon to be signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The program called SCOPE, which stands for the Summer Community Organization and Political Education project will send more than five-hundred volunteers into seventy-five rural counties with the aim of removing racism from American politics.

Ellie who always looked up to her Aunt Carol who recently died of cancer had lived with Ellie's family and taught Ellie to really feel in her heart as a person when Ellie wrote her article's for the UNC newspaper. Ellie had developed a passion when covering both the Black and White students who put themselves on the line in nonviolent protests. Ellie decides that she wants to join the Summer group SCOPE to try to educate poor, rural Black families about registering to vote. Her parents both forbid her but she decides to forge her father's signature because she is determined to make a difference.

I remember when those three Civil Rights workers were murdered in Mississippi and it is no less dangerous in North Carolina even though it isn't considered the deep South. This is a heartbreaking story that really moved me. I have just merely set up the very beginning of this fantastic and timely novel. I can't say enough high praise for what Diane Chamberlain has produced in her latest offering. It read like an informative and highly emotionally evocative story that grabs your attention and keeps you enthralled. I read a lot of historical fiction and haven't read anything as gut wrenching as this since reading Martha Hall Kelly's, "Lilac Girls." This is a must read for lovers of historical fiction as well as those who love a fast paced mystery and thriller page turner. I found the writing to be of a high caliber and if I could give this one-hundred star's I would. I only very rarely come across a book that has so much to offer and I can pretty much guarantee that the rest of my TBR list is going to pale in comparison. Intimate! Engrossing! Moving! Unforgettable! Original! I highly, highly recommend you pre-ordering it today. I am so sad that it's over as I know I won't find anything as compelling for a long time. I LOVED IT! FAVORITE!

Publication Date: January 11, 2022

Thank you to Net Galley, Diane Chamberlain and St. Martin's for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#TheLastHouseontheStreet #DianeChamberlain #StMartin's #NetGalley

I loved this story. The characters were real and sometimes fun. The spooky parts were spooky. Loved all the characters even the not so well meaning ones!

There are some really heartbreaking moments in this dual timeline novel set in North Carolina. I enjoyed both women and seeing how it came together in the end.

What a timely story! Set against the backdrop of the right to vote act during the Johnson administration, I could not help but feel how some 50 years later we are right back where we started with the voter suppression movement in our country. Told in dual time periods, this wonderful novel explores a young girls experiences registering black voters in rural North Carolina, and then takes that same character and places her in 2010. Diane Chamberlain is known for time travel, and while this is not time travel by definition, the switching back and forth lends that feel to it.

The end is a bit of a surprise, it could have gone in several directions, but I was satisfied. Another winner from Diane Chamberlain.

What an amazing book! First one I have ready by her and I really enjoyed it. It was such an easy read, lots of family drama, plus it went back in time and showed how things were and that there are people who will fight for what is right. Seriously loved how everything came full circle at the end and all the questions were answered! Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!!

Ellie is young and believes she can help a rural community learn, and register for their right to vote in 1965. Ellie then falls in love with her canvassing partner Win. After a horrific encounter in her hometown, Ellie never sees him again. Present day Kayla moves into a home that her and her husband dreamed about and made happen before a tragic accident resulted in his death. The land the home is built on is full of the ghosts from Ellie’s past.

Both women current day are still struggling with grief, loss, and love gone too soon. This book brings to light the things we leave behind aren’t always kept in the past and how it carries in our lives. Fantastic book. This book is a must read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Available January 2022

“The Last House on the Street” is a notable book where two narrators intertwine across different generations. Similar resemblance to beloved “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “The Help”.

A sincere thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me an advance copy (ARC) of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this story and leave my review voluntarily.

I love everything this author writes. The story engaged me from beginning to end, however I did figure out the last twist long before it was revealed. I will definitely be recommending this book once it is published.

The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain did not disappoint, although her novels rarely do! Told in a dual timeline going from 1965 to 2010, Ms. Chamberlain uses this construct to tell the story of the civil rights movement as seen through the eyes of Ellie Hockley, a young, white girl in North Carolina who wants to fight on the front lines as a member of the SCOPE initiative to get blacks registered to vote. This alternates with the views of architect Kayla Carter and her husband who built a beautiful home at the end of the street that the Hockleys live on, but strange things keep happening on the jobsite and once Kayla and her daughter move into the house after her husband's tragic death during construction. Eventually the stories intersect in the most brutal of ways. This is a riveting novel, one I couldn't put down!

Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review. #thelasthouseonthestreet #dianechamberlain #thriller #negalley

Wow.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain. I just know I like her books in general and jumped on the chance to be an early reader of her latest book.

I could not put this book down. And oh, when I told you that my heart broke, that I had to force myself at moments to continue because it would be easier to close my eyes, I speak the truth.

The ending wasn't really a surprise but there was no need for it to be, at least for me.

Recommended. 4.5 stars, rounded up.