Leah Payne lives a simple and mostly carefree life with her logger father in coastal woods of North Carolina. Leah loves nature, with the forest being her literal backyard. She feels most herself when outdoors lying in the grass or mucking about exploring. She attends a small country school with Jack, whose father owns the land she lives on. Despite the gap in their financial circumstances, the two are friends. Leah never knew her mother as she died in childbirth, but her father has done his best to raise his daughter the way his wife would have wanted. Leah and her father are a tight-knit duo and when a tragic accident takes him from her she is devastated.

Much to Leah’s dismay Jack’s family won’t take her in, and instead finds a willing family. As she is driven across the state to her new home, she dreams of fitting in with the new siblings she is told she is joining. But, life hands her another blow as she ends up finding herself working as a helpmate for the well-to-do family instead being welcomed to join them. Leah’s new life is not for the faint of heart, and she fights to retain her identity in this world that is so different from her own upbringing.

Leah’s coming of age story is a tragic one, but one that should be read as she deals with poverty, grief, and a fight for autonomy over her own life. She possesses such a positive outlook on life despite everything she has dealt with in her short years. This is a fantastic addition to the Southern fiction genre. If you were a fan of Where the Crawdads Sing or The Girl in the Stilt House, this book needs to be added to your TBR pile! My only complaint is that the book wasn’t longer.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and of course Meagan Church for the advanced copy of the book. The Last Carolina Girl is devastating read, but so engrossing. Look for it on bookshelves March 7th!

This book was not what I expected. I picked it up because the author is a North Carolina author and I like to read stories about my home state. I kind of expected something light from the title, but this book was nothing like that.

Leah's story is heart-breaking and traumatic. She lost her mother when she was born. Her Dad died when she was fourteen. They had been living at Holden Beach. When Leah was left on her own she was take to live with a family in Matthews, North Carolina. She thought she would be part of the family, but that was not the case. The events that happened to Leah were tragic and scarred her for life.

This is a coming of age story, but it also explores a dark spot in American history that should never have happened. I can't imagine how the women would feel when it happened to them. Leah was strong and courageous throughout. She tried her best to maintain her sense of self, and I admired that about her.

Thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on March 7, 2023.

1935-Rural NC beach... country girl...seclusion...
When her father passes away, Leah is an orphan. The family in 'the big house' must decide what to do.
Sent to live with another family, she thinks all will go well. However this family is full of secrets.

This book is full of descriptions of the natural world and backwoods life. It is also a depiction of a time in our US history you may not know anything about.
Be sure you read the authors note!!

Thank you to netgalley for the eARC!

Beautiful story set in 1935. Leah is wrenched from her home and the only family she knows after a tragedy strikes her family. When another family agrees to take her in she is optimistic that she will once again have the family that she craves.

This is a gripping story that I read in one sitting.

Thank you Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the opportunity to read and review this book.

WOW!!! Thanks to NetGalley for the privilege of reading an ARC of this book. To say it's the best book I've read in 2023 sounds trite given that it is only the 8th of January. But I truly believe that by the end of 20223 that book will stand out to resonate its beauty.

Set in 1935 North Carolina nature waxes poetic. It's inspirational and otherworldly - spiritual if you will. A young spirit-minder girl is orphaned and sent to live with a family really looking for a "helpmate" rather than another child.

The book discusses the topic of eugenics that led the way to the extreme use by the Nazi party in the 1930's and 1940's. However it wasn't until the 21st century that eugenics was outlawed in the US.

Some may say that parts of the book resonate with "Where the Crawdads Sings. The Last Carolina Girl goes above AND beyond.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Leah loves running wild with nature while her dad works as a lumberjack at her coastal Carolina town. When an accident takes her father, she goes to live with a family of strangers. Thinking she will have a new family, she is dismayed to find she will be only their helper.

This was a great coming of age story where you feel for the main character so much. Sometimes reading about innocent characters going through a hard time is a difficult read, and this certainly was. It was very frustrating to read at time. Especially knowing that it was set against a true environment and horrible time in our past. It’s not a happy story but it’s an important one.

“Sometimes tears are the only words worth sharing.”

The Last Carolina Girl comes out 2/28.

The year is 1935 and Leah lives in NC close to the coast with her dad. She loves all the freedom she has in the outdoors and then tragedy strikes for the second time in her short life.

Leah goes to live with a family close to Charlotte, NC. She believes she is going there to be a part of family but she becomes a helpmate. What secrets does this family hold?? How will Leah get out of this house and return home??

Readers of Southern Fiction will love this debut!! It is well researched and well written!! Have the tissues ready!!

I received an early digital copy.

The book focuses on the story of Leah a young girl who becomes an orphan as the book progress. She becomes a foster child and although the majority of the family is kind to her the mother is not kind, which seemed a bit of a cliche. In some ways, the book felt like a riff on Cinderella; however, adding eugenics into the story helped to give the book some depth.

I found this story to be so engaging and well told about a dark spot in history. It is just one of those books like Crwdads and Secret life of bees that you just love . Exquisite writing and characters.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review book

I absolutely loved this book. It turned out to be a whirlwind of emotions. You can't help but laugh and cry along with Leah as she breezees through different phases of her life. She's the kind of character you connect to instantly and the author has done a wonderful job in writing her. It's commendable that the author managed to take a part of history so dark and turn it into a story so incredible. This is a kind of story which stays with you a long time after you finished reading and I'm glad I picked it up.

I loved this book. I connected to Leah almost immediately, and couldn’t stop reading until I had finished her story. Being a part of history that is not recognized as much, I appreciated being able to learn about the things that happened to her in such a heartbreaking way. I found the story realistic and relatable, and enjoyed the character development throughout. The addition of Maeve was so pure and really helped make the story come to life for me - though that’s probably because I strongly believe that animals have healing powers. I would have liked to see a bit more tied up at the end - I understand that our narrator ceased contact with the family, but we never even knew if she was aware of the admiration Michael had for her, or what became of the sisters. We also don’t get to know what happened to Maeve even after Leah arrives back home - we know she was there, and I suppose it’s assumed that she lives with Leah until she passes, but it would have tied up her storyline nicely if there was a sentence in the epilogue about her. Loved the descriptions in the book, and the care the author took with writing about feelings and emotions through Leah. Definitely in the same vein as Where the Crawdads Sing, but stands on its own, in a genre that needs representation of this time period and the events that happened. Loved it.

Beautifully-written, heartbreaking historical fiction that reminded me a lot of Before We Were Yours, and that's high praise indeed.

3.5 rounded up. I don't read a lot of stories about state eugenics and the laws and boards enacted for them. There's little I know about this dark history. I like stories that shine a light on ugly parts of history because it helps us learn from it and, hopefully, keep us from repeating it.

Leah was a very sad character. Left alone with her father for years, they live in a small shack on the grounds of the home he helps maintain. Leah goes to school and has friends and, while life is still a struggle, she loves her home and her father and the family they tend land for. But after a tragedy, Leah is sent away to another home, one not as accepting or loving as her first one.

This story had many shocking parts. It's a fast read, maybe a little short, but it definitely packed a punch. I never quite knew where the story was going so each twist was a new shock for me. I loved the notes at the end from the author with statistics and the sad information that we learned nothing and are still forcing this on many. So glad I gave this one a try, I really liked this one!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

"History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” - Mark Twain

This one was a heartbreaking read. Poor Leah can't catch a break - she has seizures, her mom died at birth, and then her dad dies when she's only 14 years old. Nothing that follows goes well for the poor girl. There's definitely a deep appreciate for nature here, but it doesn't shine through each page the way it did in Where the Crawdads Sing.

Overall, I really wanted this book to be longer. It was hard to read for Leah's sake but I felt like the plot skipped through too quickly. We don't get a deep character development of any character except Leah, we barely get a resolution to her story at the end of the book, and I generally felt like a bunch of chapters were missing. There was so much potential in this story to see how Leah could overcome these unfortunate events and truly become her own person.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to review this book ahead of publication. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Wow, what a heartbreaking, powerful story of a young girl. Leah spent her first 14 yrs. living with her Daddy. Poor but happy. After a logging accident where her dad dies she is sent to a "foster home".
She thinks she's going to be part of a family. Unfortunately she is to be a "helpmate" for the "mother". Not able to continue in school. Leah turns out to be a true survivor and what she had to go thru was heartbreaking. Grief,loss,and the eugenics movement .After reading this story you really need to admire Leah for all she endured. Thank you to Net Galley, the Publishers and Author,Meagan Church for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I would recommend this story to any who enjoy historicals

This book was a deeply emotional and confronting read, dealing with the rise of the eugenics in the early 20th century in the American South, and how it affected generations of Americans. Told through the eyes of Leah Payne, we are introduced to a girl who has experienced more than her fair share of loss and grief, crippled by poverty and her family circumstances. This is not a true story, but it's a well-researched imagining of the life and times of a girl in 1935 Carolina who experienced firsthand the fledgling eugenics movement of the 1930s, which led to inspiring Hitler & Mengele in their "Final Solution."

The last Carolina girl was an incredible story. It was truly heartbreaking. Leah went through so much at such a young age. Her mother dies during childbirth then it’s just Leah and her father. They are very poor but they are very close. Leahs family lived on the coast of North Carolina. After he father dies in a horrible accident. She’s put into foster care and sent to live with a family near the Charlotte area of North Carolina.

I felt so bad for Leah for having gone through so much. Losing her whole family has got to be one of the worst experiences anyone could ever go through. I would definitely recommend this book.

Lee although extremely poor loves her Pa. He raised her all alone after her mother passed away in childbirth but right after her 14th birthday an accident forced her to go live with a foster family far away from the ocean that she loved. She was an orphan now since her dad passed away as well and in the 1920s you either went lived with family or went into an institution locally for Lee she got the third choice and that was to be a helpmate to a foster family. But the trageduse that would be visited only we’re not over yet someone is keeping secrets and has more pain in store for little Lee. I loved this book it was written in the era of eugenics which is a terrible embarrassment to America in the prototype for Hitler’s cleansing of the races. And although this is a fictional tale it is an O2 real account of what happened to innocent girls back then I truly enjoyed this book loved the authors notes and can honestly say this is a five star read. Finally a book based on a true story that blow-by-blow covers the whole story. I received this from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The Last Carolina Girl by Meagan Church is a powerful story of how the life of a young girl can change in an instant. This story will remain in the reader's mind and heart for a while after you finish the book. It broke my heart! Leah is a strong survivor, and I was so relieved at the ending. I have already been telling friends to watch for the release of this book!
Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for the opportunity to read this book.
Publication Date: March 7, 2023

This is the heartbreaking story of 14 year old Leah. Her mother dies when she is born and she only has her father. She loves the ocean and the surrounding area. When a tragedy strikes she has to move to a new home with secrets and hidden dangers. The book is historical fiction about a shameful time in our nation's history

This is an emotional story that will have you rooting for Leah. Their are secrets she does not know that will have a profound effect on her life. The reader will definitely get involved in the story. I definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to #netgalley, #MeganChurch, and #Sourcebooks for a copy of this book.