Name: The Last Goodbye
ISBN: 9780063036383

Fiona Lucas

Poignant, hopeful, and full of emotional power, an unforgettable story in the vein of P.S. I Love You about two people learning to love again after great loss, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Josie Silver. How can you move on if you can't let go? Spencer was the love of Anna's life: her husband, her best friend, her rock. She thought their love would last forever. But three years ago, Spencer was tragically killed in an accident and Anna's world was shattered. How can she ever move on, when she's lost her soulmate? On New Year's Eve Anna calls Spencer's phone number, just to hear his old voicemail greeting. But to her shock, someone answers... Brody has inherited Spencer's old number and is the first person who truly understands what Anna's going through. As her and Brody's phone calls become lengthier and more frequent, they begin opening up to each other--and slowly rediscover how to smile, how to laugh, even how to hope. But Brody hasn't been entirely honest with Anna. Will his secret threaten everything, just as it seems she might find the courage to love again?

The Last Goodbye

An unforgettable story about learning to love again and living life to its fullest, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Josie Silver. "A poignant and uplifting read about loss, love and learning to put yourself back together again after facing the unimaginable." —Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Next Year Lost love. A second chance. A hidden secret. Spencer was the love of Anna’s life: her husband, her best friend, her rock. She thought their love would last forever. But three years ago, Spencer was tragically killed in an accident and Anna’s world was shattered. How can she ever move on, when she’s lost her soulmate? On New Year’s Eve Anna calls Spencer’s phone number, just to hear his old voicemail greeting. But to her shock, someone answers… Brody has inherited Spencer’s old number and is the first person who truly understands what Anna’s going through. As her and Brody’s phone calls become lengthier and more frequent, they begin opening up to each other—and slowly rediscover how to smile, how to laugh, even how to hope. But Brody hasn’t been entirely honest with Anna. Will his secret threaten everything, just as it seems she might find the courage to love again?

A Novel

Shirley Jones 

A lovely story of love, loss and finding yourself again.

Caitlyn Hagen

** spoiler alert **
           So..... I finished it 🥲

Here are my thoughts,

First off there are some trigger warnings for this book, one of them is a big twist for Brody's story arch. I will put them at the end of my review. 

First I went into this book blind, I knew the premise but nothing else. This book isn't a Rom-com. It's a story of two broken people fixing themselves and in that finding eachother

I loved this book! It checked a lot of different boxes for me and was a hit of a dollar coasters

It starts with Anna, who lost her husband, Spencer to a Drunk driver 3 years prior to the start of the book and she is.... Not doing well when we meet her. On New Year's Eve she is having a tough night and calls her husband's phone to listen to his voice mail but whoops that number has been reassigned. 

This is how we meet Brody. A grunting, scruffy author turned hermit dealing with his own loss and his agoraphobia. 

This book deals in grief and guilt and anger and how to move forward through all of it. 

I really liked Anna and Brody's relationship. It felt genuine and it was a SLOW BURN. I got to chapter like 57 and was so frustrated they weren't meeting yet that I almost threw my book, which was the point but still.

You also see them, mostly Anna deal with not only her grief but also the grief of her mother-in-law Gayle and them two of them need to work on some boundaries. I liked this storyline. 

This book is heartwarming and heartbreaking. Devestating and hopeful. I loved every minute. 

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 TW: Spouse Loss, Child Loss, Drunk Drivers.

Etel Yamilette Conde Gonzalez

I'm crying it was beautiful ♥️ it was significant and it made me realize how hard it is to fall In love after something tragic. We're all messed up but finding someone who truly gets you is amazing.

Katrina White

The Last Goodbye is a book about grief, fear, and eventually healing. I read the book with cover that has a more romance look to it (a couple sitting on a bench). However, I think the cover that shows up on Goodreads (with the cage and the bird flying free with a heart in its mouth) is more in line with the themes of this story. 

Anna lost her husband about 3 years ago. She still has her husband's phone service on and decides to call and listen to his voice message when someone actually picks up the phone. That someone is Brody, they actually continue to talk and build a friendship over the course of a year. Brody is dealing with a loss and a mental illness as a result of that loss he suffers (which he keeps to himself even as their burgeoning relationship becomes love).

The Last Goodbye takes a deep look at grief and the many different ways it presents. This book also looks at the way fear can affect our lives and keep us from real healing. Anna and Brody have to learn that friendship and family can also pull us out of the depths of that grief. 

This story had a lot of the hallmarks of a romance (ie. the meet cute, the conflict, and even meeting up on New Year's Eve). But it goes beyond all of that and takes the time to build a deep relationship with the main couple. A relationship built on friendship, mutual understanding, and trust. 

I give this story four stars because while it was building the relationship it did drag just a little bit. And I also believe that it was unnecessary to make Brody's inability to communicate his feelings or desire to talk about his past seem so sinister. All in all it was a beautiful story about love lost and found again. 

I listened to it on audio book and I found the narrator to be good. The listening experience might have been heightened by two narrators because it does look at the story from both Brody and Anna's perspective but Antonia Beamish did a good job with both characters. 

Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Jenn

*I would like to thank the author for the ARC copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Anna is grieving the loss of her husband. On New Years Eve she calls his phone number, only to have someone else answer. On the other end of the line is Brody, a man who is also grieving a loss, as well as struggling with his mental health. Both Anna and Brody are lost. Neither of them feel as though anyone they've talked to before this New Years Eve phone call has been able to truly understand the pain and grief they feel. As their phone calls become more frequent, the pair find themselves helping each other overcome hurdles that they truly felt they would never be able to overcome. Along the way, will they also find love? 

I was wonderfully surprised by this book. I went into it expecting a typical fast paced romance between strangers. What I found in this book was SO MUCH more. Fiona Lucas portrays just how important it is to talk about your grief, and how vital it is to have someone who understands what you might be going through. Sometimes this person is your best friend or family, but maybe, just maybe, it could be a stranger on the other end of a phone call. In this novel, grief brings two people together to overcome the biggest challenges they've had to face, and through their relationship, they overcome fear and mental illness as well. This book had me tearing up multiple times, as the characters were just so real and authentic. I cannot wait for other people to have the opportunity to read The Last Goodbye!