Contemporary fiction
The Last Love Note
Early Release
This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.
Quick take
Let those tears flow! You will be quickly won over by this widowed single mom learning to let love back into her heart.
Good to know
Romance
Emotional
Inspirational
Mama drama
Synopsis
Kate is a bit of a mess. Two years after losing her young husband Cameron, she’s grieving, solo parenting, working like mad at her university fundraising job, always dropping the balls—and yet clinging to her sense of humor.
Lurching from one comedic crisis to the next, she also navigates an overbearing mom and a Tinder-obsessed best friend who’s determined to matchmake Kate with her hot new neighbor.
When an in-flight problem leaves Kate and her boss, Hugh, stranded for a weekend on the east coast of Australia, she finally has a chance, away from her son, to really process her grief and see what’s right in front of her. Can she let go of the love of her life and risk her heart a second time?
When it becomes clear that Hugh is hiding a secret, Kate turns to the trail of scribbled notes she once used to hold her life together. The first note captured her heart. Will the last note set it free?
Content warning
This book contains scenes that depict miscarriage.
Free sample
Get an early look from the first pages of The Last Love Note.
The Last Love Note
PROLOGUE
Two years ago
My phone erupts into Darth Vader’s “Imperial March.” I scoop Charlie off the polished concrete floor and lower him into the shopping cart, shove AirPods into my ears, and brace myself.
“Mum?”
The custom ringtone was Cam’s idea. An attempt to cheer me up, after one of Mum’s cyclonic visits. She means well, and I love her dearly. But there’d been some bumps as we morphed into mother and grandmother. Cam thought the ringtone would give me a laugh the next time she called, and it did.
Then he went and got sick. And now I can’t bring myself to undo his joke.
I can’t undo anything. I’m still paying his phone bill, just to hear his voicemail. A copy of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is still facedown and spread-eagled on the bedside table, partially read. I can’t even declutter all the sticky notes he left strewn all over the house and through my car and in my handbag. Even his handwriting brings me to my knees...
“I’m at the supermarket,” I announce once I finally have Mum’s attention. She has a habit of calling me just before she’s actually available to speak—usually while she’s finishing a conversation with someone else. Cam called it “conversational limbo.”
I reach for his favorite soap. Inhale it. Pass it to Charlie in the cart. He sniffs it too.
“The supermarket?” Mum repeats, as if she’s flabbergasted. Everything I do, no matter how mundane, seems to come as a shock to my mum. Always has.
Why I love it
Anne Healy
BOTM Editorial Team
Grief is a fickle thing. Often described as coming in waves, after you lose someone, you never know when it will hit. If one thing can keep you sane throughout it all, it’s the feeling that you aren’t alone. The Last Love Note is an ode to clinging to hope and humor through pain, and of finding love again after it’s been lost.
We meet our protagonist Kate two years after she lost her husband, struggling to cope with work, single parenting, and her grief. While she is surrounded by people who love her, including a well-meaning but suffocating mother and a best friend determined to get her back out into the dating world, Kate feels like she’s constantly coming up short. After a series of mishaps leaves Kate and her boss stranded on a work trip, they are forced to share more time together than they had bargained for. As she works through her feelings away from her family, Kate discovers that she might just be strong enough to move on after all.
Emma Grey beautifully captures how time becomes something amorphous and nonlinear to those in mourning. Kate’s rocky journey to new love is filled with heartbreak and vulnerability (and plenty of jokes). If you are looking for a book that will have you feeling every single one of your feelings and leave you full of hope, The Last Love Note is the perfect read for you.
Member ratings (3,132)
Heather E.
Albion , NY
I don’t know if I’ve words for what this book did to my heart. Maybe because I myself was widowed as a mama in my 30’s. I walked not only my grief, but all my triumphs and healing again. Beautiful. ❤️
Shreya K.
Fishers , IN
This book was an ode to love through the lens of pain and suffering but also through hope of finding life and love after pain. To know that it’s story of the author puts a face to human resilience.❤️
Amanda B.
Greenville, SC
Beautiful job describing grief and love. I cried. I laughed. This is one of my favorites BOTMs this year. I knew early on the author was writing ‘what she knows.’ Great works can come from great pain
David T.
Ephrata, PA
“…love outlives death.” Losing a loved one can cloud your focus and change your trajectory. Soak it all in and allow yourself to succumb to the learning and allow others to help you. What a story!
Milena C.
Milton, NY
What a beautiful story. It made me cry several times. Such raw emotion of loss & love. My heart aches for Kate and all caregivers who witness someone lose themselves. I’m so glad she found her part b.