The last love note

🌅 BOOK REVIEW 🌅

Synopsis: 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.
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 ball--and yet clinging to her sense of humor.

Review: A wonderful insight into grief, solo parenting, resilience and love, this descriptive and medium paced novel was a heartbreaking yet wholesome read. I initially thought it was going to be a “P.S. I love you” copycat but was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn’t, the story even addressed this! I liked that the story was reflective, mysterious and unpredictable. I found the ending a bit anticlimactic, but overall it was a great book to read.

3.5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

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4.5 stars- thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this as an ARC. I loved this book. It tugged at my heartstrings. In The Last Love Note, Emma Grey crafts a poignant and heartwarming tale of love, loss, and the journey towards healing. At its core, the novel revolves around Kate, a woman grappling with the aftermath of losing her beloved husband Cameron. Two years later, she finds herself mired in the chaos of solo parenting, navigating the challenges of grief, and struggling to keep her life from spiraling out of control.
Kate's journey is punctuated by comedic mishaps and absurd situations, offering moments of levity amidst the weight of her grief. From her overbearing mother to her well-meaning but misguided best friend, each character adds depth and humor to the story.
Central to the story is Kate's unexpected bond with her boss, Hugh, whose own hidden struggles mirror her own. As they find themselves stranded together on the east coast of Australia, Kate is forced to confront her grief head-on, while also grappling with the possibility of opening her heart to love once more.
Kate grapples with the lingering pain of losing Cameron while also rediscovering the capacity for love within herself. The trail of scribbled notes left by Cameron serves as a poignant reminder of their shared love and the importance of cherishing every moment, even in the face of tragedy. I loved the way the author had the last love note delivered. This book made me cry and made me grateful, once again, for moments shared with my loved ones.

This book drew me in quickly. I was delightfully surprised with the quality of the writthe story. Great character development, and poignant story telling. I could easily see the scenery, and characters in my mind's eye. It was funny, compelling and heart wrenching. I am not generally a fan or romance but this defied that label. It is a book I can recommend enthusiastically to a wide variety of readers at different stages in their lives. That is a rare gem.

Thanks for making me laugh, Thanks for making me cry.
Thanks for the brilliant way you write, Thanks for your shining light.

Thanks for a story that sets all the emotions off. This book was a joy to read and for anyone looking for their next read I highly recommend adding this to your TBR.

This beautiful story of love and living through grief had me laughing and crying throughout. Kate is still working through the loss of her husband Cameron at a young age, while also navigating life as a solo parent, job responsibilities, and her friends’ and family’s attempts to set her up. When things go awry during a work trip away, she’s stranded on the coast of Australia with her boss Hugh, finally getting the chance away to confront her grief and see what she’s been missing. The story alternates between present day as well as back in time to the progression of Cameron’s diagnosis and decline.
I was stunned by this novel and anyone who has gone through loss, whether a spouse, parent, child, pet, etc, will definitely connect to some of the feelings expressed in here.
Thank you to Zibby Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Last Love Note is a touching, moving portrayal of how one woman finds a way to embrace her life after losing her husband at a very young age just two years prior, leaving her with a young son and so many uncertainties for the future. Kate has some help from friends, and her friend and boss, Hugh, and along the way she finds that she is learning to live and love again. This book will make you cry, laugh, and remember how it feels to fall in love, even in the midst of such great sorrow.

The author covered grief and loss so well in this story that you feel so deeply for Kate and her son. Kate’s ability to accept her loss and begin to live again was written beautifully. Keep the tissues nearby as you read this story.

The emotion in this book was so heart wrenchingly real that if it affected me in a major way. It will rip your heart out, but don’t worry, it will put it back together again.

In this story, you’re watching a woman deal with the reality that her husband and love of her life is suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s. The journey that this author takes you through in the emotions that main character experiences not only for herself, but for their young son, makes it very difficult not for you to put yourself in that same position.

Finding the will to move on and experience life after something as tragic as that must not be easy, but the transformation that she goes through amid the grief, it’s just absolutely incredible. You’re pulling for her in every way. As you watch her try and piece her life back together, you also get to see how patient others are in her journey back. Watching her try to love another through the guilt was just such an incredible story. I highly recommend it. Thank you to Zibby Books and NetGalley for this copy to read and review!

Thank you Zibby and Netgalley for an arc of " The Last Love Note" by Emma Grey. Kate is a recently widowed mother to a five year old son, and struggling to balance life after the death of her not even forty year old husband. She has a job she loves, but feels like she can never truly give it her all since she is still trying to navigate through the murky waters of her loss. She feels like she isn't doing anything right, and often puts her own feelings aside to be there for her son. When she is diverted on a work trip with her boss, who has been her rock for the last few years, the story becomes pretty predictable, but you root for them. Hugh is the kindest boss ever, and puts work and his own feelings aside to make sure Kate is continually happy. Again. the story is VERY predictable, but it shows that there can be light again after the darkest days.

The Last Love Note
Author Emma Grey
Available now!

Thank you, @zibbybooks and @netgalley, for my #gifted copy of this beautiful book! I loved it so much that I also chose it to be one of my BOTM picks. I read and loved this one in 2023.

Wow, and I didn't expect to love this one as much as I did... While it's not my typical genre, I did read more romcom's than ever in 2023. The Last Love Note doesn't fit into that category, however, despite is title. Rather, it's a heartbreaking yet hilarious and witty contemporary romance and women's fiction novel that's also a stunning debut!

You may never stop loving the one you lost. But you can still find love again.~

Kate is seriously struggling to stay afloat. Her young husband and love of her life sadly passed away two years ago. She is now a widowed mom raising their five- year- old son alone, who is just trying to keep it all together at work, with her friendships, and in her own head. Thankfully, she has a hysterical sense of humor and can both laugh and cry at her own blunders and has a pretty incredible support system. Her mom, although a big overbearing, is loving and know what her daughter needs; her best friend provides her with comedy relief and helps and encourages her to move forward; and her boss, Hugh, knows her better than she knows herself and is always there for her without question.

An unexpected weekend away on the beaches of Australia, after a flight delay, Kate and Hugh are stranded together for a work fundraiser. Here, Kate can finally let it all go without her son witnessing - and she can truly grieve her husband's death. She kept sticky notes that her husband wrote in his final days and is beginning to piece them together, but she can't completely understand them until she figures out the secret that Hugh has been keeping from her.

Oh, my heart. I teared up several time while reading about Kate's love story with Cameron and their son, her heartbreaking grieving process, her amazing support system, and how she might find love again someday. While consumed with loss, it's always incredible to see the abundance of love that remains, and while broken down and hopeless, it;s powerful to experience resilience and grace. I just loved this moving story.

Having just suffered a personal loss, The Last Love Note hit on a different level. Kate may not have been my favorite character, but the way Emma Grey writes about grief and life continuing in spite of that grief was so raw and powerful. I was consumed by this novel and needed to have these words in this moment.

The Last Love Note is just a beautifully written book! That being said I didn't know anything about it when I started reading it and I was really surprised. To be honest at times it was really hard to read and other times it had me laughing out loud. Kate becomes a widow at a young age but still has to function because she has a young son depending on her. The person she leans on most is her boss Hugh who seems to be available to help whenever she calls. It's hard to know where to draw the line between her professional and personal life. But no one should have to go through something like this so young. A great story about dealing with and overcoming grief. Highly recommend!

A beautiful and heartbreaking story of losing the love of your life and rebuilding your life without your best friend. This story is filled with emotions and I dare you to not shed a tear at the closing line. However, I can’t say I loved the writing style. The out of order plot line actually took away from the emotional impact at times and the beginning few scenes had me utterly confused. But the messages are so important that I do highly recommend

This was a good one. It captured my attention from page one, and even with a beginning storyline that I initially thought was too dramatic, the story ties itself into a neat bow pretty quickly.

In "The Last Love Note," Kate grapples with the aftermath of losing her young husband Cameron, attempting to balance solo parenting, a demanding job, and the comedic chaos of life. Navigating an overbearing mother, a matchmaking best friend, and a mysterious secret hidden by her boss, Hugh, Kate finds herself stranded on Australia's east coast with him after an in-flight problem. This unexpected weekend away provides a space for Kate to confront her grief and consider the possibility of opening her heart to love once more.

The novel seamlessly weaves moments of humor and heartbreak, as Kate's journey becomes a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of love. As Kate follows a trail of scribbled notes from her past, readers are taken on a poignant exploration of self-discovery, healing, and the enduring nature of love in the face of loss. "The Last Love Note" is a touching narrative that will elicit laughter, tears, and a reaffirmation of faith in the capacity of the human heart to love again.

Kate is a young widow raising her young son on her own and barely holding the pieces of her life together through her grief. When she becomes unexpectedly stranded during a work trip with her boss, Kate finds herself in a place to let go of some of her grief and really grieve for herself as well as giving her the space to look forward. As the book unfolds, we fall in love with Kate and Cam (her husband), we grieve with Kate for Cam and the life they envisioned and we cheer Kate on as she finds her way to her second chapter.

I was not expecting this book to hit me as hard as it did. As a wife and a mother this book struck a cord with me and brought up emotions that had me putting down this book and crying in my husband’s arms. I don’t know how to put into words how much this book made me thankful for the life I currently have but also the reality check that it can change in an instant. There’s just something about books that break your heart and then put it back together again.



Thank you @zibbybooks and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

“That’s the problem with grief. It’s not packed tidily in a box that you can bring out in appropriate, private moments and sort through. It’s threaded inconveniently through everything.”

“He kisses me on the forehead, which is always somehow so much more beautiful than kissing me anywhere else.” MY FAV‼️

Kate and Cameron have it all until life cruelly hands them a terminal diagnosis for Cam.

Wow this was one powerful and emotional ride. The writing was so raw and real I felt like I was grieving right alongside Kate. And after reading the authors note I now understand why. 🥺

If you have ever lost someone and it is a loss so profound that you feel it viscerally, you may want to read this book. It is beautiful in its emotion and its truth and the message of perseverance shines through, despite the darkness. Just…wow. Highly highly recommend.

“I’ve learned that love outlives death. It holds steady through despair. It won’t fade, even as time elapses and distance increases and your world shifts.”

Thank you to Netgalley, Zibby Books, and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Love Note by Emma Grey is one of the best books that I read this year. I cannot really describe it as a romance; it's more of a love story. Multiple love stories. Love stories that are deep and pull at your heart strings. But, more than that even, this book is about grief. All-consuming grief. It's written by someone who knows, who has been there, who has gone through it, and, as readers, we are taken to the depths of grief with the narrator, feeling her feelings in ways that other books seemingly on grief just don't bring one to feeling. But lest you think this book is too sad, it is also so very hopeful, too. Hopeful that there is a life beyond grief, a life beyond one's worst possible moments. And there are some very funny parts of this book, too, especially the opening scene at the narrator's home with her young son and best friend. The supporting characters are very well-developed, especially the narrator's mom and her boss/friend, and no words seemed wasted in the writing of this exquisite novel. I absolutely adored it!

This book made me feel so many feelings. When I first started it, I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen. The story unfolded in such a beautifully moving way, and the characters were so dynamic and fun to read about. There were twists along the way that I didn't see coming, and I was glad for it. At times I thought that I could easily predict what was going to happen, and it wasn't really that I was totally wrong, it's just that there was more to it than I had imagined. I also enjoyed reading about Australia, and about the traveling that happens in the book. I would highly recommend this book to people. I think it's a beautiful book about love and grief, and about how people can grow and change and how we keep people with us even after they're gone. Thank you to NetGalley and Zibby Books for this ARC!

The Last Love Note was a full five star read for me - it was an intense- sad and hopeful and bright, beautiful book that truly made me feel, I actually had to stop reading in between and get back a couple of hours later because the book was overwhelming in the emotions evoked at least for me.
It is a story of grief, hope and rebuilding after intense loss but at first there is a story of intense loss, not glossed over, not just a background to build on.
Kate Whittaker looses her husband Cam quickly over the course of just two years first in increments to early onset dementia then to his inevitable death. Through the beauty of Emma Grey's masterful writing the reader gets to experience this devastating blow alongside Kate, the joy and work of young parenthood leading into the devastation of being a caregiver not just for a young child but also for a partner who was supposed to be there and later a grieving widow with a young child - do many hopes and dreams shattered. Kate has a wonderful cast of supporting characters - her best friends Grace, her mother and her boss Hugh, even work colleagues and they want to make sure she will be ok at some point and she will be but the first order order of business is just survival. Beautiful, raw and honest and last but not least romantic and hopeful!
Beautifully written - this book broke my heart and put it back together, it really did make me feel all the feels, it's special !