While I have really enjoyed Chamberlain's previous works, this one was just ok for me. I felt the story was too forced and predictable. I guessed the ending from the premise of the book and honestly it was just too "easy" in that way. I wish there was more suspense with the "haunted" woods, but unfortunately it just wasn't there. The dual timelines almost seemed disjointed in this one as well. The current day timeline lacked purpose and wasn't well flushed out. And the historic timeline was too basic. Just not for me I guess.

Audio: The audio was well done and I really enjoyed the narrators.

The Last House on the Street audiobook is beautifully narrated by Susan Bennett, but the book suffers from being a dual timeline novel. I think I’m just tired of dual timelines! In this case, the earlier timeline, set in 1965 in North Carolina (near Greenville) was overwhelmingly my favorite. This part of the story takes you deep into the summer of 1965, during the struggle for civil rights, shortly before the Voting Rights Act was signed by then-president Lyndon Baines Johnson. You see the poverty, discrimination and violence suffered by the black population mainly through the eyes of a young, white volunteer in the SCOPE project (which I hadn’t specifically known about), Eleanor, known as Ellie. The other timeline is in the same location in 2010 and the situation cannot hold a candle to the earlier story, but it serves to tie up some loose ends and solve a mystery from 1965. Because of the 2010 sections, you find out that Ellie left the area that summer and hadn’t been back for the intervening 45 years. Because you knew this, there was less tension in the earlier story than there might have been.

This is the first book I’ve read by Diane Chamberlain and I liked it enough to check out some of her other books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

The dual timeline in this book was confusing to start but as you continue to read you learn more and more about why these seemingly unconnected stories are intertwined with one another. The timeline set in 1965 is a more historical genre that has great social themes. This story follows a young girl as she fights for what she believes in by helping with racial justice. I felt more connected emotionally with this story. You feel for the character and get so engrossed in her life. She deals with the threats from family members because they disagree with her choice, and we get to see her as she slowly gets more comfortable with her situation and in her own skin as the story progresses.

The second timeline is more contemporary and mystery genre. A young woman and her daughter move into a home that she and her husband designed and build together before his tragic death. His death is not the only mystery surrounding this family. Strange things keep happening to Kayla and she starts to fear for her and her daughter’s life.

I love how strong the characters were in this story. You feel their emotions and grow to know them like they were real people. And even though this isn’t necessarily a face-paced mind-bending novel, I liked the slower-paced because it focused more on the characters’ lives and getting to enjoy knowing their story. It also allows you to slowly learn things that have been kept from you. Both timelines are slowly leading up to a point where the two stories reach their ultimate connections.

It was a noteworthy read, with a lot to get your mind thinking. I love all the different elements it had because that is what ultimately keeps me engaged in a book. The writing was well worded and soothing while also presenting the optimal tone for the scene.

I enjoyed the narration for this book as well. The narrator had a great voice that made it easy to listen to and follow along with. There weren’t a lot of different emotions, even when the story called for it but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. It was a fairly universal tone, but I have no complaints with the audio version of this book.

A thrilling mystery that toggles between two time periods (1960s and 2010s) in the USA. The strong female protagonist overcomes different challenges in these two worlds. Well-narrated with voices and detailed scenes bring the anguish for the main character to life.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this arc.

What an emotional and powerful story about two women linked by tragedy. I could not stop listening to this audiobook. This is the first book I read written by Chamberlain and I am impressed with her skills of storytelling. She writes about a historical event, the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and adds mystery to this great book set in North Carolina.

The story is told in dual timelines. In 2010, Kayla Carter is a successful architect who designed with her husband Jackson, also an architect, their dream home in the small community of Round Hill, near Greenville, NC. But Jackson does not live to see the house finished. He was killed into an accident during the house’s construction. Kayla is apprehensive about moving to the house where her husband died but, after all, that was their dream home, the place they wished to see their daughter grow up.

In 1965, there is Ellie Hockley, a student from The School of Pharmacy at UNC in Chapel Hill impassioned by the Civil Rights Movement, wanted to do something else with her life, something that could help people, her community, make herself useful, and also atone mistakes of her past. So she decides to join SCOPE, an organization that placed predominantly white college students in predominantly black rural and urban areas in Southern states to help lead voter registration drives. Ellie undergoes a huge transformation while participating in this organization dedicated to registering black voters. A transformation that would change her whole life.

The two storylines merge beautifully when Kayla and Ellie meet in 2010. The storytelling puts you in a roller coaster, making you feel a whole range of feelings from amusement to anger, or from enthusiasm to sadness. The characters are well developed and the historical parts were very interesting and informative. With a beautiful prose, this novel explores themes such as race, racism, white supremacy, voting rights, civil rights, interracial relationship, determination, family, friendship, love, and grief.

I listened to the audiobook which is greatly narrated by Susan Bennett. She took me to a journey I will not soon forget. The Last House on the Street is a must-read for anyone who enjoys historical fiction, and is interested about the Civil Rights Movement or the 1960s. It is powerful, sentimental, remarkable, thought-provoking, unputdownable, and, in this case, binge listening.

I just listened to The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain, and I have to just say how great this book was. This is a book I absolutely hated to see end!!

2010: Kayla Carter and her young daughter are getting ready to move into their new home in Round Hill, N.C. Right off the bat she is threatened by a woman not to move into this home.. What’s wrong with the house? First off, Kayla’s husband had a fatal accident in this home, but Kayla still feels the need to move it. It was their dream house designed by the two of them. Kayla does move in and many mysterious things begin to happen. Her daughter goes missing, dead squirrels in a tree, noises in the woods, etc. As a reader, the mystery is building.

1965: Ellie also lives in Round Hill. She is a young 20 year old woman who was raised to be the perfect southern woman. However, she doesn’t agree with the southern ways of treating the black population. Ellie joins a group of people to help register the black people to vote. In her own county, people are not at all happy with this movement. Lives are threatened and crosses are burned. Ellie however wants social justice to continue so she moves on until she falls in love with a black man and the community is in an uproar. How far will Round Hill go to stop the movement and Ellie’s love?

Ellie and Kayla’s lives intertwine in this great book. Mystery, history and social justice all in one book with a great narrator.

This book will be released on January 11, 2022. Want a great listen or a great read preorder now.

Thank you very much NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this opportunity.

I’m a huge fan of the author and while this isn’t a favorite of mine I did grow to love this one the more I read it. I became particular invested around the 50% mark. I will say that I preferred Ellie’s storyline in 1965 and while they came together I thought Kaylas sections were a tad underwhelming.

This is a heavy one friends and leaves me deeply saddened by the social injustices of the past and still today.

"The Last House On The Street" by Diane Chamberlain gets my vote for the most powerful and moving audiobook of 2021!

In 2010 Kayla and her husband Jackson are building their dream home. Jackson is killed in an accident, leaving Kayla and her young daughter to live in the new house alone. Tension elevates as Kayla is approached by a extremely creepy lady that basically makes death threats and informs Kayla she should not live in the new house. The police make a report, but with no evidence they are not helpful.

As time goes on Kayla meets her new neighbor Ellie Hockley. At first the two neighbors hit it off and enjoy each others company. Suddenly, Ellie changes and is a little cold after Kayla mentions her father's name in conversation. It seems Ellie and Kayla's dad share a past with secrets that Ellie is unable to forgive.

This audiobook emotionally brought me to my knees. The story is incredibly gripping! Diane Chamberlain's writing is amazing and the narration by Susan Bennett is phenomenal!

Standing Ovation Diane Chamberlain!
5 Huge ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"The Last House On The Street" audiobook will be published January 11, 2022

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review..

What a fantastic novel about how lasting the pervasive and poisonous effects of racism are in modern families. I enjoyed the fast-paced writing, beautiful character development, compelling story-telling, and provocative themes and highly recommend this book for book groups or anyone who likes a good story.

The story is told from alternating points of view: one set in current times, a young widow with a small child moving into a home she and her late husband designed in a Southern forest clearing, and the other, set in the 1960s, a young idealistic girl who joins the Freedom Riders to try to bring integration and voting rights to her small town in North Carolina. Their stories eventually join together when we learn that the young civil-rights volunteer is from a family that owned the land on which the modern woman is building her new home.

The story moves briskly along, and I don't want to give anything away about how it develops. Just trust me and read this. It's excellent.

I am grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of the audio version of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I highly recommend this book. This is a beautiful story. I can't express how much I enjoyed it. The narrator makes it come to life and kept me engaged. I will be thinking about this book as I go to sleep for a while.

I have enjoyed several books by Diane Chamberlain and this is my favorite!!

This is a dual timeline book..,1965 and 2010. Many of the characters appear in both timelines which I thought made the story very interesting.

In 1965, Ellie joins SCOPE which was an organization that had white people going into black neighborhoods to encourage black people to vote. She is doing this in NC where she liver and she makes some decisions that will impact her life and many others too.

2010 Kayla and her husband are both architects and they are building their dream house. A tragic accident leaves Kayla a widow and she must find the way to move on with her life because of their 4 year old daughter. She moved into the house and strange things begin to happen and secrets that have been buried being to come to the surface.

This book is about family, secrets, forbidden love, sacrifices, racial injustice and so much more! I highly recommend.

I received an early audio copy for my honest review.

Diane Chamberlain is one of my favorite authors, so I was extremely excited for the release of this title. I went in knowing very little about this story -- and even if I had read the entire provided synopsis, Chamberlain's books ALWAYS take me on a journey I never see coming.

The Last House on the Street is a dual timeline and dual point-of-view story, alternating from Kayla in modern day, and Ellie in the 1960's, both in North Carolina. You are on your toes for awhile wondering how these stories relate or intertwine, and you slowly get payoffs and clues as the book continues.

This book dives into American History, specifically civil rights (or lack thereof) in the mid-1960s. The spotlight on racial injustices combined with the suspense of the novel makes this a book that should be on your book club list!

I enjoyed this title via audiobook, which featured great narration.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Diane is in my top 5 of go-to authors, and there's a reason for that...it's quite simple, really - She's proven herself over and over again that she's an outstanding storyteller! Everything she's written, I've read, and everything she puts out fresh I devour on it's release day! So guys, I am SO SO happy and excited I got a chance to preview a few of her works here on netgalley, it's been such a treat!! We are sooo lucky she enjoys being an author still, I can't wait for what she has in store for us next.

The Last House on the Street is a book that will pull at the heartstrings. It's a dual timeline/dual pov novel that has intriguing mystery, edge of your seat suspense, and lots of important American history. I loved the character building scenes with Ellie and Win, they're so special to the lesson in this story. I'm rating this 5 stars because even though I predicted/detected the villain fairly early, I enjoyed every word, every page, and every thing about this important book. I even shed a few tears! 5 gold stars

Thanks netgalley for giving me the audiobook so that I can share my thoughts and opinions with y'all 🧡

Wow! What a moving story,I learned so much. I never heard of the SCOPE Project, being a young child during 1965 news was not my thing. The story is of Ellie who against everyone say in her small town of Round Hill, NC joined the civil rights movement as a member of SCOPE. The more Ellie learned of mission of getting the black people to register to vote by canvassing with them, living with them. The more she is determined to continue the work. Her canvassing partner Win, is the quiet, serious type, but determined to get his people to register.
A friendship develops between the two, but the boundaries for more are not to be crossed.
Fast forward to 2010, Kayla recently widowed is moving into her dream house she and her husband had designed and built. She has misgivings about the move, yes it’s beautiful, but so many memories of her husband are tied into the house. He had during the construction died in it, stepping on screws on the stairs and falling to his death. But there seems to be more strange happening in the surrounding woods behind her home. Warnings for her not to be there.
The characters are wonderful, realistic, the story is a sad time in history that everyone should know about. This book will leave you heartbroken, a very emotional ride.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. I am voluntarily posting an honest review after reading an Advance Reader Copy of this story. #NetGalley #TheLastHouseontheStreet

I wasn’t able to finish this book. The redundancy of “should I sell” and “I can’t possibly sell our dream” was boring, irritating, and repetitive to the point of deleting this book without finishing.

Well, Diane Chamberlein does it again with another heartbreaking and engaging historical fiction. This story of two women in two timelines surrounding the Scope Project in the 1960s, working to get the black vote. The story tells two narratives, Ellie’s in the 60s and Kayla’s in 2010. Kayla’s moved into the home that her recently deceased husband was building for their family, and it turns out there is quite the shushed mystery surrounding the home. And even the street. It was a beautifully spun mystery and story that kept me going, as Chamberlein always does. I especially liked the storyline of the Scope Project, which was something I had—unsurprisingly—never heard of. Plus, the narration was so well done. I always look forward to Chamberlein’s book, and this one certainly delivered.

Listening to Susan Bennett read this book to me was like the secret sauce that takes that special dish from really good to amazing. As many other reviewers have noted, there are two timelines for most of the book: 1965 and 2010. Without a doubt, the most action and character development occurs in 1965. But, the tension in 2010 centers around the unanswered questions from 1965. The way Diane Chamberlain brought the plot full circle worked for me so I gave it 5 stars. There are some very difficult scenes in this book, but I appreciate the raw honesty that exposes the evils of racism past and present. It is a difficult mirror to gaze upon. May God give us wisdom to see ourselves as we are and make the necessary changes to love our neighbors as we ought.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! The dual perspectives were interesting and I was somewhat surprised by the ending (who was actually driving the truck). It's 4.5 stars instead of 5 only because it was so terribly sad. I'm glad Kayla got a somewhat happy ending but while poor Ellie got closure, I still found the final scene featuring her brutal and lonely. Overall, though, this book not only teaches about an important part of the Civil Rights movement, but it is well-written and intriguing.

I typically enjoy stories that bounce back and forth between two time periods, and The Last House on the Street is no different. Although the title might lead you to think this book is a thriller of some kind, it is actually a story of love and injustice and prejudice. We don’t always know the history of the land we choose to build on, and this book shows how knowing that history can be painful. When Kayla and her family start building a home on the end of Hockley Street in North Carolina, she is met with a tragedy and resistance from some of the folks who live in town, including her father. Concurrently, we learn about Ellie Hockley and her belief in equal voting rights for black people in 1965, even though her state has more KKK members than any other state. While I was wary of the “white savior” aspect of Ellie’s character, Chamberlain told her story in a way that showed how Ellie truly believed in what she worked for. As the truth of what happened on the land where Kayla’s home is being built comes out, we learn that you may not know the people closest to you as well as you think. An interesting, thought-provoking book.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and felt the narrator did an excellent job.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I partially read this book and mostly listened to this on audio.

The character development and emotion of the book is outstanding. The narrator really did a good job in portraying the characters. I particularly enjoyed how suspenseful her voice sounded near the end of the book. I was riveted and couldn’t stop listening by that point.

That being said my only criticism is that this story was pretty predictable of the old south during the civil rights movement. It’s been done so many times in books and movies. I enjoyed the book and the writing, but have already learned and read a lot on this subject.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this audio and book.