4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
I want to express my gratitude to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of the latest compelling book by Diane Chamberlain. I have read several of her previous books with much pleasure. This enthralling story is told in dual timelines and immerses the reader in modern times and takes one back in history to 1965 to the turmoil and strife of the Civil Rights movement. Central to this well-written, atmospheric novel is how some people strive to move on in life after profound loss and tragedy, and how others may retain long-held hatred, secrets, and vengeance.

In 1965, Ellie is attending University with her best friend, Brenda. Brenda has a quiet wedding to the love of her life as she is pregnant, and wants to finish her year. Ellie is studying to be a pharmacist like her father, who has given the family a comfortable lifestyle in a small town in North Carolina. Ellie's boyfriend, Reed, has a promising career in banking, is handsome and popular, and is considered a great marriage prospect. Ellie decides marriage to Reed and working in a pharmacy is not in her immediate future and joins the Civil Rights movement to advise black communities on registering to vote and the advantages this will entail. Her parents and brother react strongly against her decision. She loses Brenda's friendship. She travels through poor, black southern communities, facing hardship but exhilaration that she is doing important work. She makes new friends, falls in love, and experiences shocking prejudice. It ends very badly for her and she leaves the state.

Moving forward by forty-five years, we meet Kayla, a young architect. She and her architect husband designed an ultra-modern dream house that is almost ready to move in. However, her husband died in a tragic fall while inspecting the unfinished house, and Kayla is now a widow with a young daughter. She now regards the beautiful home as ominous and sinister, but it is a monument to her late husband. It sits surrounded by trees on the edge of a dark, eerie forest at the end of a gloomy street. At present, there is only one older house, but a new, contemporary housing development is being constructed. Now, she feels some apprehension about moving in with her small daughter. While working at her office, an odd woman visits, frightening her. The stranger knows the details of Kayla's life and warns her not to move into the new home. The madwoman tells her that she has an obsession to commit murder. Soon some grisly acts of vandalism occurred at the still-empty home. Her kindly father dotes on his granddaughter and he cares for her while Kayla is at her work. He has some reservations about her living there. Many townspeople feel the woods are evil and haunted and she fears may be perilous to her young child.

While visiting a woman at the nearest house and being welcomed as a new friend, she encounters an acquaintance of that woman. This woman addresses Kayla sharply, demanding she tear down the treehouse in the wooded area and abandons plans to have a fence installed. She learns her new friend has moved in temporarily to care for her aging mother and fatally ill brother.

This gripping story involves romance, tragic deaths, prejudice, intrigue, and a decades-old mystery with its shocking conclusion. The storytelling is brilliant. Highly recommended!

Diane Chamberlain has done it again. This time she transports you to North Carolina in the 1960’s during the grassroots civil rights efforts. This story focuses on voting rights. The story goes back and forth between the 60’s and 2010. Ellie Hockley is the main character in the 60’s and Kayla Carter in 2010. Really the story in both times centers around Ellie and events that happened in the 60’s. You can’t help but love Ellie for her spirit, She was just a little early in time or in the wrong place for her beliefs or maybe a little bit of both. Chamberlain does a great job depicting what it was like in the 60’s in the Deep South for a young white female, black families and young black men. The prejudices that they faced was just mind blowing. I had to shake my head several times when a few characters tried to make the case that North Carolina was not the Deep South. What??? Seriously. Overall a fantastic book that has a little mystery and great characters. Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Publishing for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,

I love historical fiction, and I love Diane Chamberlain books, so The Last House on the Street really hit a home run for me. This story about Ellie and Win and the Civil rights movement of the 60's grabbed me and held on from the first page all the way to the last. In fact, I read it all in one sitting! I am so thankful to #Netgalley #StMartinsPress and of course, #DianeChamberlain for the opportunity to read and review this amazing book.

Wonderful book! I love Diane Chamberlain! Her books are thought provoking and insightful. #netgalley #thelasthouseonthe street

This book was slow going at first but I am so glad I stuck with it. This book has dual timelines that switches between two main characters, Ellie Hockley and Kayla Carter. Ellie’s part of the story takes place in the 1960’s during the civil rights movement. Kayla’s part of the story takes place in 2010. Kayla’s husband has passed away tragically while building their dream home. Kayla is about to move into the house with her four year old daughter but gets warned by a strange lady steer clear of the property. This is where Kayla and Ellie’s lives intersect. Ellie is Kayla’s new neighbor. Kayla can tell that Ellie has secrets from her past, especially when her Dad’s name is brought up. This book touches on racism, justice, violence and love all in one book. It has a powerful ending, and I highly recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley for the early release of this book.

Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book prior to it’s release.
This back & forth story of Ellie & Kayla tells the story of a new house in an old neighborhood, linked to an old crime. I loved Ellie’s story the best - her summer of discovery of activism and the way it changed her life. As a society we need to remember those times in the 60’s and never let racial inequality be forgotten.

While this was an extremely powerful story, it wasn't my favorite Diane Chamberlain novel. The dual timeline felt a bit unnecessary this time around. Kayla's current day story (while of course tied in to Ellie's prior day story) felt somewhat extraneous and there just to serve as a story to alternate to.

I also was starting to feel like the privileged white girl is a go-to main protagonist for Chamberlain. To be clear, this was a heartbreaking story that definitely had its basis in actual historical events (as unfortunate as that is). However, as I read about Ellie it made me flash back on a few other of Chamberlain's main female protagonists from prior books. I would have liked to see a bit more of a differentiation with the character development.

All that said, the last 15% of this book made me question whether 3 stars was too low, so I feel like the book did redeem itself more towards the end.

She still remains my favorite author and I can't wait to see what she writes next!

I really liked this book. I enjoyed how the storyline switched back and forth between the past and present. As always, Diane Chamberlain does it again!

Another good read by Diane Chamberlain.
There’s a bit of a mystery surrounding the beautifully designed and built house at the end of the street. This book walks you through the present with Kayla, the new homeowner, and through the past with Ellie, who lived in the small southern town in the 60s. This book is about the civil rights movement and how it’s impact on the south affects the same area in 2010.
As with her other books, this plot is tightly wound and the words flow seamlessly, making it a simple joy to read. The characters are true to their roles.
My only nitpick is that the timing is weird. Rainie is only three, but she acts older. So much happens in a very short span of time in both the present and past, but it seems like it should be longer.
BUT, I still recommend the book. I was given a prepub copy in exchange for my honest review, which I gladly give.

The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain is a story that weaves actual history with injustice and adds a mystery along with a thriller. A current story about architects Kayla and Jackson Carter is building their dream home in Shadow Ridge Estates, Round Hill, North Carolina, with glimpses of the past of what has taken place on their property. The original landowners, the Hockley's, were the only house on the street until the property was divided into new homes.

This novel gripped my heart from the very beginning and kept hold until the last word was read. Ms. Chambrelain added actual events and history to make this story even more personal and interesting than adding a mystery and thriller; the whole time, I'm wondering how this story will come together.

Wow! This was certainly a page turner! This was a well written book. There’s two stories going on and they merge as one towards the end of the book. Both stories were mesmerizing and I was surprised by the ending. It was a good mystery. I enjoyed this book!
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

Thank you #netgalley for providing me with an ARC.

Yet another wonderful story from Diane Chamberlain. What a touching delivery of mixed genre in one book!

I have to say that I enjoy the dual timeline for this book because it completely takes me to two different places in time and be so immersed in each time period. The dual time periods also show how so very different the main character is from her past life and her present. The intensity and passion versus an almost nonchalant, aloof woman. I wish I could have a glimpse of what Ellie's life is like in California.

Diane Chamberlain's art in interweaving characters and places is superb. I particularly love how she introduces a character in one specific setting to have an impact to the main character's passion, if I may say - that of John the seminarian and a glimpse of Jackson. This book has kept me guessing what the significance of Kayla's property was to Brenda until Byron's interest in it came up. The part of mystery I did not expect! The uncovering of the mystery was laid out really well. Wow!

I was heartbroken find out more about Ellie's true love story. It was gut-wrenching how the story unfolded. I could not imagine. I could not. My heart hurt for their forbidden love. It was not fair that both of them seemed like they have too much and everything to lose. What a painful part of history.

The author has such a tremendous way of showing such rawness of emotions from characters, whether it be an immense emotion or a slight one.

I felt like the book could be much longer because there is so much story there, like Brenda showing up at Ellie's office and everything about her that followed and the hows and whys of Jackson. This would definitely make a good book discussion. #thelasthouseonthestreet #dianechamerlain

Diane Chamberlain is unique, fantastic storyteller, directing us to marvelous journeys at different eras : she’s the queen of historical fictions and I honestly enjoy to read her well constructed characters written with emotional depth, broadening my horizon by learning about different historical facts occurred in different states.

This book divided into two time zones: 1965 and 2010 and introducing us marvelous two characters: Ellie Hockley and Kayla Carter.

Their stories intercepted at the trophy home in Shadow Ridge Estates , located in Round Hill, North Carolina, a haunted place holding tragic memories.

Kayla and her husband Jackson are both architects, have been designing their dream house for 7 years. But now her husband lost his life while he was building the house and she has to stay strong for her four years old daughter Raine even though she misses him a lot, suffering from grief and she has second thoughts to move to new house which will mean she will start fresh by letting her husband go. Her emotional wounds are still too fresh. They are still bleeding.

But she stays strong and as she takes her first step to the new development along with her daughter and 65 years old father, she gets impressed by the place. It looks amazing , a beautiful place, on four wooded acres, largest lot in Shadow Ridge Estates, surrounded by woods. But some many tragic things happened in the woods that merge two time lines and stories of Kayla and Ellie.

When we go back to 1965, we learn more about Ellie: the lovely neighbor of Kayla, we realize more about how those tragedies occurred, what kind of political, social circumstances created those incidents.

Ellie is twenty, enrolled to 5 years long Pharmacology program, coming home for spring break. She reunites with her best friend Brenda who is expecting and planning to marry with her love of her life Garner.

Ellie is also dating with Garner’s best friend Reed Miller for 4 years. He is handsome, trustworthy, caring 22 years old man, working at the bank, planning to be manager in near future. The four friends are inseparable. But as Ellie witnesses changes of socio-political atmosphere and its effects on their small town, she realizes she doesn’t want to live the life that’s planned for her!

She wants to be part of a program SCOPE for removing racism from American politics by assigning 500 volunteers at the seventy five rural counties. She’s part of conservative family and as a white girl advocating voting rights of colored people can attract the attention of several white supremacist groups including Ku Klux Klan members in NC who are targeting African Americans.

Two time zones are fascinatingly well constructed. Tension is palpable! The big mystery of the story hasn’t been revealed till the end. The sensitive issues including racism, interracial relationship, activism, grief are realistically and objectively approached!

The both story lines picked my interest and make me up all night till my eyes hurt. It was remarkable, unputdownable, powerful, sentimental, thought provoking masterpiece I highly recommend to bookworms which earned my five blazing, intense, heartfelt, family, friendship, inequality stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

I devour anything that Diane Chamberlain writes and The Last House on the Street was yet another book that instantly sucked me in and had me invested in both stories almost immediately from the first page.

I don't want to give away any of the story so I'll just say that it was yet another story where I learned so much about history that wasn't as long ago as I thought it SHOULD be. We've come a long way since the 1960s but we still have a long way to go still for equality. Bravo to those who worked in programs like SCOPE to help move this country forward.

If you enjoy Diane's works you will be gripped by this novel as well. I don't want to say enjoy because this book isn't one to enjoy but to grow we need to be uncomfortable reading stories like these (even fictional).

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I loved the dual timelines in this book that came together for an explosive ending. Ellie is a 20 yr old from a small town called Round Hill, North Carolina in 1965. She is dating her high school sweetheart and in college. She is set to take over her father's pharmacy after college and live the life her parents envision for her. That is until a civil rights group comes to the next town over with a project to register Black voters. Ellie feels drawn to this cause and against her family's wishes she joins the group and it changes her life forever.
In 2010 we meet young widow Kayla who lives Round Hill with her small daughter. She is just moving into the home she and her late husband designed. It is a beautiful home set against the woods. She receives a visitor who warns her about her new home and the woods behind it. Is there any truth that they are haunted ?
Ellie returns to her family home to care for her brother and mother. That is when she meets Kayla and we find out how their paths are connected. I read this book in two days. My favorite story line was Ellie's. You could just feel what it was like to be in the middle of the 1960's civil rights movement.
Thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book for review.

This is my favorite read so far this year! I fell in love with Ellie’s character. Her courage and tenacity was inspiring. It was a timely reminder of a period in our history that is painful but necessary to remember. I’m so grateful for the freedom fighters like Ellie that helped change our country for the better. The mystery and intrigue surrounding the woods kept me turning pages until the final horror was revealed. This is a story that will stick with me for some time.

This is one powerful story!!
I always know when starting a Diane Chamberlain novel, I am in for a crazy, controversial, heartfelt journey!
"The Last House on the Street" did not disappoint!
It is truly an unforgettable plot thatI I am still thinking about.
It has suspense,mystery, family, and friendship and is woven beautifully between dual timelines in 1968 and alternating with 2010 in North Carolina.

I can simply say: "You will love it and will not imagine the ending! It is mind blowing and fantastic"!
Ten stars!
Thank you to #StMartin'sPress for this ARC!

Actual rating 3.5 stars

A decent read, not overly memorable. Enjoyable enough. I liked Ellie, but found Kayla’s bit of the story pretty unnecessary. I feel like it would have worked fine if it had been set entirely in ‘65.

Not my favorite Chamberlain story, but still good. I don’t regret reading it. As always, I’m looking forward to her next novel.

There was an instant ease I fell into while reading “The Last House on the Street”. It’s a page turner told in duel time lines. (1965 and 2010).
Both storylines are emotionally powerful and intimate….and blend beautifully together.
Themes cover racial prejudice, interracial relationships, forbidden love, resentments, small town community, love, loss, death, activism, social justice, family, friendships, heartbreak, warmth, and humor. It’s the type of novel that keeps you reading well past midnight.

The dramatic tensions and mystery kept growing to the very end. Its a story that could have ended several different ways…(readers ‘will’ think about this long after the final page). I respect the ‘ending-choice’ that Diane Chamberlain made. It was a wise choice….but it was still a little fun for me to explore alternate endings.

When Ellie Hockley grew up in North Carolina, a Southerner from Round Hill; Derby County, her Aunt Carol, a bold, blunt, activist, left a great impression on her.
Aunt Carol was the only person in the family who seemed to understand Ellie. Or, as Aunt Carol told Ellie, one time, Ellie was the only person who seemed to understand ‘Aunt Carol’”.

The year was 1965. Ellie was twenty years of age. She was home from the University of North Carolina for spring break. Ellie was in a five year pharmacology program. She still had two years more to go.
Everyone was sitting in the living room. Daddy was reading the newspaper. Ellie’s older brother, Buddy,(mechanical genius), was tinkering with some small mechanical part from a car. Mama sat between Ellie and Brenda, (Ellie’s longtime best friend and dorm mate; practically a second daughter to Mama), admiring wedding dresses in a magazine.
Brenda, pregnant, would soon be marrying the love of her life: Garner Cleveland.
Garner’s best friend was Reed Miller.
Reed Miller had been Ellie’s boyfriend for the past four years. Reed was crazy about Ellie…..(wonderful, well-respected, smart, twenty-two year old, successful, handsome man).
Reed graduated early and was working a desk job at a bank. He was going to be the bank manager one day.
Ellie & Reed, and Brenda & Garner spent years double dating.
During this spring break…..Ellie had a ‘moment’….she could suddenly see ‘her’ future …. and it wasn’t at all what she wanted.
Her Aunt Carol, once an army nurse, and a champion of civil rights, was no longer alive…but Ellie wanted to follow more in her Aunt’s ‘fight-for-justice’ footsteps. Ellie had no interest in marriage.

Usually during summer breaks - home from college, Elli worked at the local pharmacy owned by her father. But this summer hundreds of white students from Northern and Western colleges were spending their summer in the Southern states registering Negroes to vote.
The students would canvass door to door, (live with assigned families in the area), and do all they could to get folks registered to vote. The program was called SCOPE, (Summer Community Organization and Political Education project).
Five hundred volunteers were being sent into seventy-five rural counties with the aim of removing racism from American politics.
It was exactly the type of program that Aunt Carol would’ve signed up for to help.
Most white families from lily white Round Hill, didn’t like the idea of crazy white kids from New York, or wherever descending on Derby County.
Nobody in Ellie’s family was an advocate for justice. Neither was Brenda, or Garner. Reed admired Ellie’s humanity - but he didn’t want to be away from Ellie an entire summer.
Being a white Southern girl, wanting to help Black folks vote was not an every day occurrence — it could also be dangerous. Ellie would need to be watchful.
North Carolina had more Ku Klux Klan members than all other states put together. White supremacist terrorist hate groups primarily targeted African-Americans. However, “The thing the Klan hates more than a Negro man is a white person who tries to ‘help’ a Negro”.
Ellie’s, parents, Buddy, Brenda, Reed, ….even Reverend Greg Filbern, from Darville, pastor of a Negro Church,(AME church in Turner’s Bend), in Derby County, on other side of town from Round Hill, tried to discourage Ellie in joining SCOPE.
Ellie joins anyway - determined to make a difference….to be on the right side of human rights.


In the year 2010….
Kayla Carter, an architect, had been designing a dream home for seven years — along with her husband Jackson, who was also an architect.
Jackson died from an accident while building their new home.
Kayla had many reservations about moving forward- moving into the house without her husband. She was still grieving. But she had a three year old daughter: Rainie, to think about….and her father, who lived near by. Kayla and Rainie would move into that large home. Kayla would have her sixty-five year old fit and healthy father nearby. And Rainie would grow up with a Grandfather in her life

The house was spectacular. Large. A contemporary home on four wooded acres.
It had floor to ceiling windows and was considered the best and largest of the lot in the new development (in Shadow Ridge Estates), surrounded by gorgeous thick greenery of trees.
Those woods were filled with Kudzu back in 1965. Children played in those woods. They thought they heard strange noises coming from the Kudzu plants. Those vines are treehuggers—bad for the ecosystems…
it was easy to imagine how kids thought the area was haunted.
Memories don’t die easily ….and even people still living in the area in 2010, thought the area might be haunted. Some tragic history lived in those woods….history that Kayla was unfamiliar with.

These two stories emerge…..
We meet a wonderful extended cast of characters in both time periods.
Diverse students - interesting families - in 1965 - horrific prejudice -
and some very emotional heartache.

We meet interesting neighbors - puzzling neighbors - Kayla was bumping up against mystery and history that she had no prior knowledge of in 2010. Secrets, rather withheld information, doesn’t rise to the surface easily….but when it does….it’s quite emotional.

Wonderful novel. I’ve come to admire and love Diane Chamberlain more and more each time I read her books. I could be friends with this woman. She’s wonderful. She is a best-selling author, having published thirty novels in more than twenty languages.
I say that’s a woman to admire.
Diane Chamberlain is a great gift to many readers for many years!!
Funny, I think the last time I read one of her books… I was going to be a retired reviewer. I failed - I’m still hanging around.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press (a wonderful publishing company with a staff with hearts bigger than the whole wide world),
and a special thanks to Diane Chamberlain.

There are many characters and their interaction and their role in this compelling story is so real it was easy to get lost in the story and forget it is a story. It begins in 2010, but goes back and forth to the mid-1960s when there was much racial tension and a movement for civil rights that Martin Luther King Jr. was heavily involved in.
In 2010, Kayla, a recent widower, is planning to move into the new house that she and her husband designed together. Both were architects. A woman with flaming red hair and sunglasses she refuses to remove visits Kaya at her office and warns her about moving into the new house. She also has way too much information about Kayla, her family, and the history of the neighborhood the new house is in.
In 1965, Ellie, home from college for the summer, with plans to work in the drug store owned by her father, hears that several hundred white students from colleges in the north and west are coming to the south to encourage Negroes to vote and to help them register. Lyndon B. Johnson, the President, is about to sign the Voting Rights bill Act into law. Currently a literacy test is required when registering to vote and this new law will eliminate that. This movement really appeals to Ellie and she want to join the other college students in this important endeavor. Her parents, and friends, along with her long-time boyfriend, Reed, are all very against her doing this. She feels very strongly, however, and joins anyway. This is a very volatile, as well as violent time in our history. Being from the south and white, Ellie, inadvertently ends up amid some dangerous situations.
Despite the warming, Kayla goes ahead and moves into the new house with her young daughter Rainie with the help of her father, Reed, who is also a widow and often helps her with Rainie. The only other house on the street is the old house that is Ellie’s family home. Ellie left town 45 years ago and never came back, however, her mother and brother are both ill, so she is back to care for them. Kayla, just up the street, where other new houses are being built is experiencing unusual, and scary situations and has involved the police.
There are many interesting developments and twists to this intriguing, and in some cases, heart-stopping story. I found it difficult to put down, and yet occasionally I had to lay it aside and take a deep breath before continuing. Diane Chamberlain is certainly a master storyteller.