As a reader, I have been on quite a journey with this author and her character Maggie Hope, sometimes known as Paige Kelly. This title is the last and eleventh in the series that began with Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. Over the course of the novels, Maggie has taken on new jobs, new relationships, new challenges and also has experienced risks and loss. She feels like a friend to me and I will miss her. (or maybe I will just begin again with book one and keep going).

In many of these titles, real people intersect with the fictional ones in the story. This time, Coco Chanel is just one of those real people along with her German lover. Anyone who watched the Apple series on Chanel and Dior will recognize the way that she is portrayed here. How will her life intersect with Maggie’s this time? The two have history from an earlier book.

Maggie is tasked with going to Spain by none other than Kim Philby. People who know their history may have some idea about what this might mean. Maggie is told to assassinate a prominent German scientist to prevent his work on atomic bombs going forward. Will she do what is expected of her?

Just one person Maggie meets along the way is a famous bullfighter. There are people from the embassy and a rich and full cast of characters here.

In addition, there are developments in Maggie’s personal life in this story. No spoilers so no more to be said.

All in all, the author has ended the series in a most satisfying way. Nonetheless, I am sorry to say good-bye.

I recommend this title highly but note that readers may want to enjoy some of the earlier title first.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for this title. All opinions are my own.

I love the era this was set in. It is packed with action and emotion. Maggie is on a mission, and she isn't sure if she will come back from it. She also has been asked to assassinate a man and she has her doubts that she can do it. First, she has to ascertain whether the man is building an atomic bomb. If he is, she will have to sacrifice the one for the many. She really wants to do the right thing. She meets many people who may or may not be a spy and she isn't sure who she can trust. There are just too many spies running around Madrid. Can she carry out her mission and come home unaffected? She isn't so sure.

A fitting end for the Maggie Hope series. I’ve been a huge fan of Susan Elia MacNeal and Maggie Hope since the debut novel Mr Churchill’s Secretary and although I’m sad that this is the last book for Maggie, I applaud MacNeal for staying true to her and giving her (and us readers) one last daring adventure, this time taking us to Portugal and Spain. Throughout the series, I’ve learned so much history, as MacNeal has interwoven her meticulous research into the plots twists, characters, and the settings where it all takes place. Maggie is a heroine for the ages, imbued with exceptional intelligence, bravery, and a steady moral compass. I can’t wait to see what MacNeal comes up with next. (And I would love a TV series based on these books!)

My only disappointment is that this is the last one. I had really hoped to be able to follow Maggie and crew to the end of the war. That being said, this book was a crazy, thrilling ride, right from the beginning. I loved the inclusion of Maggie's past interests, that we haven't been able to see since book one: her love of maths, of science, how rationally she likes to be able to operate and think. While that ability has served her well throughout the series, it was always because of a need to survive. Now we see that, but also just her love of science and maths as a field of study, and her ability to connect with others over that.

I've adored Maggie for so long, been pulling for her and John, loved seeing their friends and delving into their whole story. And while I'm sad to see them go, rereads will always happen, and I'm excited to see where the author goes from here. For now, Maggie has been given a resounding send off, in a way that doesn't feel forced or unnatural, but rather is a way for the reader to have closure, while still imagining the future, and how Maggie and Co. will celebrate V-E Day when it finally comes

Maggie is sent on a mission to meet Coco Chanel and possibly kill a German physicist. Double spies, A handsome bull fighter and lots of intrigue fill out this story. This is a book one cannot put down. There is non-stop action and filled with surprises in almost every chapter, the reader is fully drawn into the hopes for peace at the end of the war. I highly recommend that you pick this up when you have time to read it from cover to cover.
I was given an ARC of this book in return for a review.

"I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

I've been reading this series since the very beginning and sad to see it end. MacNeal has taken us through the ups and downs that Maggie has faced during the war, making the reader invested in her journey. This time we're in 1944 with Maggie as she ventures to Madrid as peace is on the horizon. I loved seeing a lot of the characters we've seen in other books pop up again and a more in-depth look at Coco Chanel. The mystery and adventure is there, but the focus is on Maggie in this story as she reflects on her journey during WWII. There were a few loose ends so maybe its not the final final, but for now, its a great endcap to a delightful series that I looked forward to every year.

In the final novel of the series, Maggie Hope travels to neutral Madrid to meet with fashion designer Coco Chanel in an attempt to broker peace between Britain and Germany. Maggie is also tasked with assassinating physicist Werner Heisenberg and prevent him from working on a Nazi-controlled fission bomb. Maggie is willing to meet with Chanel even though she doesn’t believe anything will come of it, but the assassination assignment has her shaken. When Maggie’s partner is murdered shortly after their arrival, Maggie must face the risks of the undercover assignment alone. She doesn’t know who to trust and danger lurks everywhere.

THE LAST HOPE is a very exciting—and final—addition to the Maggie Hope series. Maggie has come a long way since she got her start as Prime Minister Churchill’s secretary at the beginning of World War II. Maggie has grown a lot as a character throughout the series and that continues up through the end of THE LAST HOPE. I’m sorry to see Maggie’s story end.

Maggie Hope started out in Churchill’s typing pool, but her attention to detail and math skills have eventually elevated her as a British agent. Set in WWII, her latest assignment is to travel to Spain, and assassinate the German scientist Werner Heisenberg, the physicist who is thought to be working on the atomic bomb. Maggie tells her superior that she must determine if he has the bomb, or how close they are to having it ready - she will not kill him otherwise. In her time in Spain, she meets up again with the famous Coco Channel. Channel is well-known not only for her fashion, but also for being a Nazi sympathizer. As people around her meet untimely deaths, Maggie questions who to trust, and must dredge up all her training and trust instincts to stay alive. The details of the spy network was amazing with agents and double agents, it was quite the web of deceit. I appreciate how thorough the author was in her research; reading the author’s notes was enlightening. Although this is the first in the series I read, it worked well as a stand-alone book. I enjoyed it, and hope to read the others in the series at some point. If you enjoy WWII books with focus on espionage, you will enjoy this book!

I recently watched the movie about Robert Oppenheimer and find I am interested in reading THE LAST HOPE before I set eyes on the first page. World War II is nearing its end, and Himmler and others meet at a castle to consider ways to save Germany now that Hitler appears to be weakening. Maggie Hope, once Winston Churchill’s secretary for whom she made use of her coding skills, is enlisted by MI-6 to help with the war effort. An adventure ensues that includes the likes of Coco Channel. What happens to Maggie Hope and Coco Chanel?

While initially I hope to find out more about Germany’s exploration of the atomic bomb, I am drawn to Maggie. She is an interesting character and a wonderful protagonist. As the plot thickens, I am fully engaged in the story and must keep reading. I understand that this book, number 11, is the final book in the Maggie Hope series and wish I had read the books in order, but I feel confident that I will still enjoy reading the first ten books. Thank you, Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley, for the chance to read and review an advance reader copy of THE LAST HOPE.

Hats off to The New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today-bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal for the outstanding finale to her phenomenal Maggie Hope mystery series with The Last Hope.

When I read the last page, my head was buzzing. I was dying to talk to someone else who read the 11th and final novel in the series, due out on May 21. How I wished I could talk about everything I loved about The Last Hope without loading this review with spoilers. I even fist bumped the air when I read a reference to my favorite minor supporting character, making sure she had survived the war thus far.

This installment comes full circle for Maggie from when we first met her in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, the premiere book of the series, as a British-born, Boston-raised young mathematician, who after returning to London to sell her grandmother’s home lands a job working as a typist in the prime minister’s office in 1940. That’s where the adventures of one of my favorite heroine’s begin - second only to Nancy Drew.

With her courage, perseverance and keen intellect, readers have enjoyed seeing Maggie keep buggering on through tragedy, solving murders, foiling assassination attempts, and in her role as a special agent with the British Special Operations Executive (SEO), protecting princesses, coming to the aid of Eleanor Roosevelt, parachuting into Nazi-occupied territory, diffusing bombs, ferreting out a Nazi cell in Hollywood, all the while peeling back layers to family secrets that never seem to end.

While this final novel and the entire Maggie Hope/Mr. Churchill’s Secretary series is a work of fiction, its characters and situations were based on or inspired by real people and events. The Last Hope finds Maggie, having climbed the ranks to Major, in 1944 Spain and Portugal on a dual mission ordered by British intelligence officer Kim Philby, (whom we know today was a spy for the Soviet Union), to assassinate the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was instrumental in the Nazi nuclear program.

Maggie was also tasked to pass a letter from Coco Chanel, who saved her life in The Paris Spy, to Winston Churchill, as part of the perfumer/designer/Nazi spy’s mission from Heinrich Himmler and Walter Schellenberg to use her connections with Churchill to broker a separate peace between England and Germany.

Thank you Susan Elia MacNeal for giving us Maggie Hope, for all of your heart and research that has gone into The Last Hope and the entire series, whose topics could sometimes be rather heavy to write about. While I'm disappointed this is the last of the series, I still hold out hope that someday we'll see Maggie again, perhaps with John as the Sterling Spies?

I’ve learned more about life in WWII Europe and the UK from this series than I ever did in school. As I’ve written in previous reviews, I believe MacNeal’s work should be required reading, not only to give context to the world we live in today but to more importantly show how unsung bravery can make all the difference.

Be sure to read the Historical Notes chapter at the end of the book for the incredible true details the author drew from for the book. Hats off indeed.

I highly recommend The Last Hope for fans of historical mysteries, suspense, female heroines and WWII era fiction. While I received this advanced reader copy of The Last Hope from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine – Bantam, courtesy of NetGalley, I’ve also pre-ordered my hard copy so that I can add it to my Maggie Hope collection.

Another good story in the Maggie Hope series! Maggie Hope began in the office pool during WWWII in London. She has worked her way up to be a British special agent. In this book she crosses paths again with Coco Chanel. This mission is a particularly difficult one for Maggie. Not only is it dangerous, but presents a moral dilemma for her. Apart from the actual story I found the information given about Coco Chanel to be very interesting also. I did not know that she was a German spy. I have only read 1 or 2 books in the series and now wish I had followed Maggie from the beginning. That said it was not necessary to read any previous books in the series to enjoy Maggie's last adventure.
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in return for my honest review.

The Last Hope is the final installment in the Maggie Hope series which follows main character, Maggie Hope through World War two. As all the rest of the series it is packed with adventure and suspense, and we watch Maggie's character grow and develop. I found this book especially interesting because Maggie travels to Spain on a spying mission so I enjoyed a look at what that country was like during the war. On the downside I was disappointed that we didn't get to finish out the war with Maggie. The series ends before the war does. Still this is a good read for anyone who like World War two historical fiction.

Thoroughly enjoyed this latest Maggie Hope novel. The combination of history and plot twists keeps you turning the pages.

I've read all of the Maggie Hope World War 2 era historical mysteries and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I'm sorry to see the series end with this book. This final installment may well be the best of the bunch.

Here, Maggie is sent to Madrid to meet fashion designer Coco Chanel and bring home a peace proposal and also to meet Werner Heisenberg, the physicist behind the German atomic bomb program, to see whether the bomb is nearing completion.

Besides the plot, the book offers plenty of interesting insights into life in a "neutral" country during the war.

A real page-turner and, at times gut wrenching book. One I would highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for the ARC of this book, the final chapter on the Maggie Hope series.

This series appears to have been well-researched and held to the truth, at the same time making it thoroughly enjoyable. Throughout the course of the series Maggie Hope grew into a strong and adept agent working for Britain, as well as a mature woman.

Interesting series!

I love this entire series. The thought that this is the last one, makes me a little bit sad. But I am almost tempted to start over from the beginning and read all of them in a row. This is the 11th and claims to be the final. I do hate when these end, but I also hate when they go on for too long and the characters ruin out of their magic juice.

We knew from the last book (or maybe the one before) that Coco Chanel was going to reappear at some point, and she is back in this one. I love what the author does with these historical characters. She has a way of sliding in nuances that the characters might not pick up on but that any reader with a decent knowledge of history will pick up on basically as a dig (looking at you Kim Philby). She also has fictional characters as the main focus and inserts real people into the story in a masterful way.

I am excited to see where the author will go next and what path she will take now that Maggie has reached the end of her story line.

I definitely recommend this entire series.

There are so many feelings to sort through with this last Maggie Hope book. She looks back herself and notes how her perceptions have changed from black or white to gray from the start of the war to the start of 1944. This final chapter is exciting and tragic with personal sacrifice and joy.

"All will be revealed in this no-holds-barred finale of the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated Maggie Hope series as the intrepid spy teams up with fashion designer - and possible double agent - Coco Chanel to bring down the physicist behind Nazi Germany's nuclear program.

Maggie Hope has come a long way since she was Mr. Churchill's secretary. In the face of tremendous danger, she's learned espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. But things are different now that she has so much to lose, including the possibility of a family with John Sterling, the man who's long held her heart.

British Intelligence has ordered Maggie to assassinate Werner Heisenberg, the physicist who may deliver a world-ending fission bomb for Germany. She's shaken. An assassination is unlike anything she has ever done. How can the Allies even be sure Nazi Germany has a bomb? Determined to gather more information, Maggie travels to Madrid, where Heisenberg is visiting for a lecture.

At the same time, couturier Coco Chanel, a spy in her own right with ambiguous loyalties, has requested a mysterious meeting with the British ambassador in Madrid - and has requested Maggie join them. As the two play a dangerous game of cat and mouse, Maggie tries to get a better understanding of Heisenberg, but is faced with betrayal and a threat more terrifying than losing her own life.

Maggie desperately wants to find her happily-ever-after, but as the war reaches a fever pitch, the stakes keep rising. Now, more than ever, the choices she makes will reverberate around the globe, touching everyone she loves - with fateful implications for the future of the free world."

You just KNOW Susan Elia MacNeal has been holding on to this perfect title for the last book in her series.

The Last Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal is the eleventh and final book in the Maggie Hope historical mystery series. Maggie Hope has had numerous jobs including secretary to Winston Churchill, a defuser of bombs that were dropped in London by the Germans, but had not exploded, and currently, a spy. In this one Maggie is sent to Madrid, Spain, with a few stops along the way. She has two parts to this mission. The first part is to meet with fashion designer and possible double agent Coco Chanel. The second task is to assassinate a German physicist, Werner Heisenberg. Meanwhile there are events and revelations occurring in Maggie’s personal life. The events occur in 1944.

The characterization is well done. Maggie is a mathematics major, enjoys recognizing patterns, word games, and puzzles. She’s also been trained as a spy, is a skilled marksman, and has a complicated personal and family life. Her internal conflicts felt realistic and appropriate.
The writing is well-done, the plot is engaging and thought-provoking, as well as heart-wrenching during at least one scene. It was interesting to get insight into the somewhat neutral countries and life within them. Several strong themes run through this novel including the horrors of war, betrayals, spies, collaboration, assassinations, double agents, blackmail, guilt, propaganda, and much more.

Overall, this novel is entertaining and moving. It’s a strong and impactful tale with plenty of action and suspense. I feel like this series is best read in series order. The back-story will enhance a reader’s enjoyment and understanding as the series progresses. Readers who enjoy historical mysteries and espionage novels will likely enjoy this book.

Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine – Bantam and Susan Elia MacNeal provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via Net Galley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for May 21 2024.