The Last Letter {The Last Letter Series} by Kathleen Shoop Book Tour, Review, & Giveaway

A Father’s Deceit

A Husband’s Betrayal

A Loved One’s Death

A Mother’s Choice

A Daughter’s Resentment

A Time to Forgive

For every daughter who thinks she knows her mother’s story…

Katherine wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t found the last letter…

Katherine Arthur’s dying mother arrives on her doorstep, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie’s husband Frank it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank. But, it was a society of uncertainty — a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death.

Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures on the prairie to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, Katherine has found the truth — she has discovered the last letter. After years of anger, can Katherine find it in her heart to understand why her mother made the decisions that changed them all? Can she forgive and finally begin to heal before it’s too late?

 

Have you ever wondered what the worst of the worst could be for families that braved prairie life back in the 1800’s? Kathleen Shoop describes just that in a horrifying very real way. There were many things to be afraid of back then, drought, debilitating snowstorms, crop failure, etc, etc. But what happens when the fear of  being under your own roof is the worst of them all? What if you were the one desperately trying to hide these horrible secrets from everyone, including other in the home-just to try to keep them protected? And then what happens when these events have come to a point that they need to be told?

That is exactly what you will encounter in The Last Letter. This novel will pull at your heart-strings and probably bring you to tears. You will feel as if you all you want to do is stop all the bad that happens. The characters are so strong, they will leave a very big impact on you-you will remember them for some time. You will also begin to realize what we take for granted and make you grateful.

By the end of the book, you will be left wanting to continue the story. You will want to fill in the few blanks left behind. This book is amazing in so many ways, and I have already recommended it to most of my personal friends. I even lent out my own copy, that is how much I liked this book.

 

About the Author

A Language Arts Coach with a Ph.D. in Reading Education, Kathleen lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Kathleen’s debut novel, The Last Letter was garnered multiple awards in 2011.  Her second novel, After the Fog (Silver IPPY), was a category finalist in the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Her third novel, Love and Other Subjects, earned a Silver medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and received an Honorable Mention from the San Francisco Book Festival. Recently, Kathleen has released the her first romance novella, Home Again (Book One). Book Two, a novel-length work in the Endless Love series called Return to Love, will be released in May, 2014.

Books Two and Three in the historical fiction series that started with The Last Letter are nearly complete and should be released by fall, 2014.

Kathleen has been featured in USA Today and the Writer’s Guide to 2013. Her work has appeared in The Tribune-Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and Pittsburgh Parent magazine. She lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.