From the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Everything series comes a new novel of love, lies, and deceit.
Lifestyle journalist Ella Skye remembers every celebrity she interviewed, every politician she charmed between the sheets, and every socialite who eyed her with envy. The chance meeting with her husband, Damien; their rapid free fall into love; and their low-key, intimate wedding are all locked in her memory. But what she can’t remember is the tragic car accident that ripped her unborn child from her. Ella can’t even recall being pregnant.
Hoping to find the memories of a lost pregnancy that’s left her husband devastated and their home empty, Ella begins delving into her past when she’s assigned an exclusive story about Nathan Donovan, a retired celebrity adventurer who seems to know more about her than she does him. To unravel the mystery of her selective memory loss, Ella follows Nathan from the snowcapped Sierra Nevada to the frozen slopes of southeast Alaska. There she discovers the people she trusts most aren’t the only ones keeping secrets from her—she’s hiding them from herself. Ella quickly learns that some truths are best left forgotten.
Sunny Shelly’s Review: 3 Stars
It was great… until it wasn’t.
Last Summer is a gripping tale of a woman with selective amnesia and the path she takes to recover her missing memories. And at the crux of it all is what happened last summer.
Ella wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident that caused her to miscarriage her son, with no memory of having been pregnant. There is a distance between Ella and her husband, Damien, and she can’t figure out why. He won’t tell her what led to the fight they had the night before her accident, or anything about her pregnancy. He’s devastated by the loss of their son, but Ella can’t figure out why since he didn’t want children.
When Ella gets called on assignment to take another crack at a celeb profile on adventurer Nathan, she jumps at the chance since she spent last summer with him. Why doesn’t she remember any of it? Who is Nathan to her? Why is he so familiar to her? Is Ella better off not remembering what happened last summer?
The story of these three characters was so interesting and unlike anything I’ve read before. Was Ella in love with Nathan? Did Damien know? As the story unfolded, I felt the pain of all three characters. Nathan’s grief over the death of his son and the guilt he carried. Ella for betraying her husband. Damien for losing his wife. Nathan for losing Ella a second time. I found it all fascinating.
So why three stars?? The last 15% was brutal. What was that ending? This story was completely gripping and had me enthralled…. up until the last few chapters. Then I kind of felt a bit disgusted by Ella and Damien’s actions and manipulations and the ending did not sit well with me at all.
Last Summer is definitely an entertaining read, but I can’t say that I was satisfied by the way the story wrapped up. I received an advanced copy via the publisher and NetGalley and voluntarily left a review.
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