The Last Daughter of York was told via two storylines - the past and the present. It was about the era of Edward IV and Richard III - and I’m a great fan of Richard III, although this book features more about Francis Lovell, Richard’s confidant, and his wife Anne. It cleverly weaves in a mystery of the present. I thoroughly enjoyed this book - mystery, history, and a touch of romance. I will read another Nicola Cornick.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC

I wanted to love this. I really liked the historical parts. Anne was compelling; she felt both like a genuine historical persona but also acted in understandable and relatable ways. However, most of the Serena plotline fell flat for me and I wasn't captivated by the contemporary mystery. I love speculative fiction most of the time but the fantasy elements of the plot didn't work for me and the villain was both obvious and poorly drawn,

The mystery of the Princes in the Tower has inspired many myths and theories for centuries. It has captured readers’ and historians’ attention that numerous books have focused on this topic and solved the mystery. But what if the mystery of the princes extended to the modern-day and caused another disappearance? Serena Warren’s twin sister Caitlin went missing years ago. When Caitlin’s body is discovered in a tomb that has been untouched since the 18th century, Serena must recover her memories to discover the truth. How does the story of Caitlin’s disappearance and death connect with the famed Princes in the Tower? These mysteries are explored in Nicola Cornick’s latest gripping historical fiction novel, “The Last Daughter of York.”

I want to thank Graydon House and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this novel. When I read the description of this title, I was intrigued by the concept. Having dual timelines, with one story being in the past and one in the present day, can be tricky to maintain balance, so I wanted to see how well Cornick can combine Wars of the Roses history with a modern-day story.

Cornick begins her novel with the tale of the Mistletoe Bride, the mysterious woman who stole a mystical artifact and faded into the dark on her wedding night. We then jumped ahead to Serena Warren’s story as she tries to live her life while being haunted by the memories of her twin sister Caitlin, who disappeared without a trace. Serena is the only one who knows what might have happened to Caitlin, but she has cognitive amnesia, which prevents her from remembering the night her sister vanished. Serena starts to search for the truth when Caitlin’s remains are discovered in a tomb from 1708.

A while later, we jump back to the middle of the Wars of the Roses, where we get to know Anne Lovell, the young wife of Francis Lovell. Anne is only five years old when she is married to Francis Lovell. Their relationship develops from an arranged marriage to friends, and finally, to deeply in love. Francis is best friends with Richard Duke of Gloucester, who would become King Richard III. When Richard’s brother King Edward IV unexpectedly passed away in 1483, Elizabeth Woodville turned to Francis and Anne to protect her youngest son, Richard of York. When Richard III died two years later, Francis and Anne had to do everything in their power to protect Richard of York.

I found both stories engaging, but when they combined, I found them thrilling. The stories that Cornick was able to craft are stunning, and the characters are so believable. I loved both female protagonists, Anne Lovell and Serena Warren, as they were strong and determined to figure out the truth and protect the ones they loved. The romantic elements of this novel are enough to make you swoon. The ending was so satisfying, and Cornick kept me guessing until the bitter end on who Caitlin’s killer was, which when it was revealed made perfect sense.

Overall, I loved this book. Before I started it, I did have reservations about the dual timelines, but Cornick does it masterfully. It is a smashing story that combines the past and the present with mysteries and romance. This was the first book that I have read by Nicola Cornick, but it will not be my last. If you love historical fiction and contemporary fiction, you will adore “The Last Daughter of York” by Nicola Cornick.

There was much that kept me reading The Last Daughter by Nicola York. I liked her descriptions, especially of the landscape and of weather. I appreciated how she teased out the mysteries: enough so that I was never quite confident I knew the answers until the end.

However, I can't overlook the issues with the dual narratives. The decision to write two separate timelines and characters is a brave one: they both have to work well. My issue here is that one timeline had a compelling plot and mystery...the other ambled along. The ambling plotline, though, had crackling characters who leapt off the page, while the other, well, just didn't. So I constantly wanted to be reading the other narrative but for different reasons and so never felt satisfied.

I will likely pick up another Cornick book if I were to find one in the wild. When it was well done, The Last Daughter of York was immersive and lush. If done consistently, it would be unputdownable.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade/Graydon House for the ebook ARC. All thoughts are mine alone.

I absolutely loved it! Told as a dual story line, it was positively fascinating. Mystery mixed with history, it doesn't get better than this. This was the first book I've read by this author but will definitely not be my last. Highly recommend! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an e-arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Last Daughter of York is a highly interesting, entertaining while secretly educating you read. I love historical fiction centered around mysteries especially if they revolve around ancient royal bloodlines as this book does.
The story has duel timelines, both of which grabbed my interest right from the start and didn’t let up until the last page. I knew they would probably intersect at some point and although I was looking for the possible connections the whole time I was reading the book, the final pages still managed to surprise me in ways.
The modern day timeline involves Serena who is dealing with the disappearance of her twin when they were teenagers. Her sisters possible remains being found unleashes a series of events that bring around ancient mysteries, lost loves, and suppressed memories from the past.
The ancient timeline starts with a tale of a wedding night gone terribly wrong and the mysterious relic at the center of it all. Woven throughout this time line are educational details so expertly entwined in the story that you don’t even realize you are getting a history lesson. Among the story of Anne and the love of her life, Frances, the reader is taken on an incredible journey of one families survival against the odds and not without a little magic.
I would recommend this to any reader who likes a good love story, a book with interesting historical facts without feeling like you are reading a history book , and anyone who enjoys the possible idea of time travel and the magical aspect it may bring.

Four and a half stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭒
The Last Daughter of York by Nicola Cornick is an exciting, romantic historical fiction book using dual timelines and set in the Tudor period in England, as well as modern times. I flew through the pages and found both timelines equally exciting and mysterious.

The modern timeline starts with Serena as she learns that the body of her twin sister, who mysteriously disappeared eleven years ago has been found. She rushes back to England to find out more about her twin’s death. Serena has suffered dissociative amnesia, and can’t remember a thing from the day her twin disappeared when they were both seventeen years old. But when she arrives in Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire, she learns about some very disturbing circumstances regarding her twin’s body.

The historical timeline starts in 1465 when Anne is married to Francis Lovell when she is only five years old. Anne and Francis grow up as friends and eventually, their marriage becomes a love match. Francis becomes Richard III’s Lord Chamberlain and confidante and is very loyal to the king. As the Tudors threaten and eventually take the crown, Anne and Francis are entrusted with Richard III’s son, who becomes a threat to the Tudors.

I loved both of these timelines, and couldn’t figure out how they were related until the very end. There is mystery and romance in both timelines and the action kept me turning these pages until the very end. I have not read much about this time period in England, but I found the book very interesting and it’s clear the author did a huge amount of research. Although the book is fiction, it is based on real events. The book also has a paranormal element that I found fascinating and really added to the mystery.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves an exciting historical fiction book with a twist of paranormal and romance. I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Do yourself a favor if you are going to read this book. Make sure you do not have anything to do because you will not want to put this book down.

I am a sucker for anything Plantagenet, and loved this unique story written around the lost prince (Duke of York) - no, King Richard did not kill the 2 boys in the tower, jfyi. Anyways, Nicola is a wonderful writer and is always able to whisk me back into the historical area she pens, in this case, the beginning of the Tudor rule with King Henry VII. The contemporary story is good too, and is tied nicely together with the historical component. I really liked this one, and recommend Nicola to all who love Philippa Gregory or can't get enough of Tudor ro Medieval England.

in some ways this book was a little hard to follow but once getting fully into the book, what a novel! I loved the characters, the supernatural, the ties to historical events. Very well done!

I enjoy time travel books and stories about York and Tudor English history. So, this book entertained me. It's an easy read and the mysteries a little challenging. I recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. This was a lovely, engaging, well done novel. It takes a mystery for the ages, the disappearance of the young princes in the Tower and blends fantasy, history, mystery and intrigue to weave an appealing novel. Selena is struggling to understand how her long-lost twin sister Cailtin ended up interred in a grave that hasn't been disturbed or opened in over 300 years, found 11 years after Caitlin's initial disappearance during a summer holiday. Cornick weaves the two timelines together to masterfully blend the two stories in time together. For fans of Kate Morton or Susanna Kearsley, this is a surefire delight!

I enjoy historical fiction, especially Tudor England, so this title was right up my alley! The juxtaposition of a modern woman searching for answers in the disappearance of her sister many years ago with the life of a young woman during the turbulant years of the 16th century was well-crafted and the 2 stories blended together quite well. I had small quibbles with the logic of the magic, but overall an enjoyable read. Recommended for fans of The Lost Apothecary.

The Last Daughter is an unusual, intriguing novel featuring time travel, magical artifacts and an interesting defense of Anne Lovell.  It’s well-written, well-researched, engrossing and incredibly original - but the magical world-building is somewhat weak.

The plot is split between two different storylines which eventually intertwine in the last half of the novel. The first half of the story follows twenty-seven-year-old Serena Warren, whose twin sister Caitlin disappeared when they were seventeen.  Serena was no help to the authorities at the time, because she completely blocked out the incident.  She’s on vacation with her Aunt Polly – enigmatic keeper of the family secrets - when she receives the call that her sister’s remains have finally been found – and is stunned to learn that they have been located in a church vault that hasn’t been opened in centuries –the church vault at Minister Lovell, home to Francis and Anne Lovell, where the twins had stayed with their grandparents years ago.

The second half follows Anne Lovell through her betrothal at the age of five to her loving but fiery marriage to Francis Lovell, Richard III’s Lord Chamberlain.  Richard entrusted the Lovells with protecting his surviving nephew Richard of York from the machinations of Henry Tudor, and Anne continues to protect the boy (who, it seems, did not die in the Tower with his older brother) after Richard’s death on Bosworth Field and the ascension of Henry Tudor to the throne. In reality, Francis disappeared from the historical record after the Yorkist cause was lost; Anne, too, fell into the ethers of time.  In the fiction of the book, Anne is in possession of a family heirloom, a lodestone which imbues the user with magical properties.  What happens to her, Caitlin, Richard and Francis will be revealed soon enough.

Unique, strange and eternally interesting are the best ways to describe The Last Daughter of York; I have never encountered a plot like it, not even in all of the many time-travel romances I’ve read. The bare-bones realism of the lives Anne and Serena live centuries apart contrasts with the ghosts and magic which pop into the narrative; and while the balance between the book’s two extremes can be uneasy, ultimately it works.

I liked Anne, who has spirit and determination and is stubborn and unbiddable.  I liked traumatized Serena, who must recover her true self in order to come to grips with Caitlin’s death and get on with the business of living.  This book connects into Cornick’s The Forgotten Sister (Serena and Cornick’s previous heroine, Lizzie, are friends).

The logic of the Lodestone and how it passed along from character to character didn’t make sense to me and the rushed explain-it-all ending really doesn’t work.  But The Last Daughter of York is so beautiful and memorable and fascinatingly unique, the innovation alone makes it worthwhile and possible to overlook those particular issues.

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What drew me to the book description was the link to Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, a perennial interest of mine. But that is just one element in this novel, which blends historical fiction with elements of fantasy. For that reason, it’s hard to summarize without giving away crucial details. Suffice it to say that three threads intertwine: a thirteenth-century bride who steals the Lovell Lodestar, a treasure entrusted to the Lovell family, and disappears; a twenty-first-century woman, Serena, mourning the loss of her twin eleven years before the book begins and trying desperately to recover her memories of the night when that tragedy happened; and Lady Anne Neville, who marries Sir Francis Lovell in 1465, when she is five years old (he is only eight), and remains loyally at his side as the reign of Edward IV flowers, ends, and gives way to the rule of his eldest son, then his brother, and last the usurper Henry VII.

At first, the three threads appear to be quite separate, but as the story progresses, they intertwine ever more tightly until all becomes clear at the end.

Serena Warren has never been able to get past the disappearance of her twin sister, Caitlin. Trying to piece together the bits and pieces she remembers, Serena discovers the disappearance of her sister is closely tied to the disappearance of one of the infamous princes in the tower, Richard Duke of York.

Nicola Cornick spins a tale that will take the reader from present day England to the fifteenth century where a great King has unexpectedly has died, and the future of the throne is England is up for grabs. Magical amulets, time travel, war and betrayal will keep the reader hooked from page one.

I enjoyed reading The Last Daughter of York. The author did take some liberties with some historical details, such as Edward V dying from the plague. But, this entertaining read does not disappoint. Whether you are a history buff, or you simply love time travel reads, you won't be able to put this novel down. The Last Daughter of York is a must read!

Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I dove into this book not knowing any of the plot other than a dual timeline, one in the present and one during the War of the Roses. As a history and historical fiction fan, I enjoyed it a lot. Usually one of the timelines in a dual-timeline novel is a lot more interesting/entertaining than the other, but I enjoyed both equally. I recommend to those who enjoy historical fiction with a side of fantasy.

I am a library paraprofessional and received an advance copy from #NetGalley. Opinions are my own.

I like this book. Yes, there were inconsistencies and incongruences but it is fiction, right? All in all, an enjoyable and thought-provoking read!

Admittedly, my knowledge of Richard III starts and ends with Shakespeare, but that was more than enough to be intrigued by this story that, like some of the author's previous works, connects a present mystery with a historical mystery. It took a long time to figure out how the author was going to pull off an ending given some of the impossible seeming threads of the story, but it works out quite cleverly. I think the only detriment of this story is that I found both Serena and Anne Lovell's perspectives interesting and would have read even more- this book felt shorter than it was!

This was another enjoyable book by a talented author. She has proven once again with this book that she has a true talent for writing dual timeline stories. The ones in this book were both well written and fit together nicely and the transitions between time periods were effortless and smooth.

The storyline in the present is an intriguing mystery, while the storyline in the past features a main character who is normally only on the fringes, if that, of the story of the War of the Roses. The author had to dig deep to find her, and did a wonderful job bringing her to life. Either story on their own is appealing; together, they make a delightful book.

My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.