Audiobook13 hours
The Last Summer
Written by Judith Kinghorn
Narrated by Jane Wymark
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Clarissa is almost seventeen when the spell of her childhood is broken.
It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer-and the end of
an era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filled
with the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for a
weekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from university
and staying with his mother, the housekeeper, she is dazzled. Tom is
handsome and enigmatic; he is also an outsider. Ambitious, clever, his
sights set on a career in law, Tom is an acute observer, and a man who
knows what he wants. For now, that is Clarissa. As Tom and Clarissa's
friendship deepens, the wider landscape of political life around them is
changing, and another story unfolds: they are not the only people in
love. Soon the world-and all that they know-is rocked by a war that
changes their lives forever.
It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer-and the end of
an era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filled
with the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for a
weekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from university
and staying with his mother, the housekeeper, she is dazzled. Tom is
handsome and enigmatic; he is also an outsider. Ambitious, clever, his
sights set on a career in law, Tom is an acute observer, and a man who
knows what he wants. For now, that is Clarissa. As Tom and Clarissa's
friendship deepens, the wider landscape of political life around them is
changing, and another story unfolds: they are not the only people in
love. Soon the world-and all that they know-is rocked by a war that
changes their lives forever.
Related to The Last Summer
Related audiobooks
The Mistress of Normandy: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHighlander Undone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Echoes of Abandon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Once and Future Duchess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Sister's Bridegroom Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Duchess Diaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Dukes Say I Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unmasked Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winter Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Plan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Wicked Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let Me Be the One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Highness and the Highlander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Desire for the Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caught: A Historical Romance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Scandalous Adventures of the Sister of the Bride Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Borrowed Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trapped at the Altar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary of an Accidental Wallflower: The Seduction Diaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sleepless in Scotland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Victoria & Albert: A Royal Love Affair Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Well Favored Gentleman with short story, "Under the Kilt" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn American in Scotland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The China Bride Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Heroes' Welcome: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
General Fiction For You
A Court of Mist and Fury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Omens: A Full Cast Production Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Frost and Starlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Three-Body Problem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Wings and Ruin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Return of the King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neverwhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Two Towers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Darker Shade of Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Last Summer
Rating: 4.453125 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
32 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good book. Enjoyed story line and ending. It did drag a little in places, but overall was a good story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5'I watched you, and I'd never seen anything or anyone as beautiful.'This novel takes us into the world of Clarissa Granville, a young woman approaching her seventeenth birthday, living a happy and privileged existence with her family at their wonderful country house, Deyning Park. The house itself, and the landscape around Deyning are vividly described, the lush gardens, the expansive grounds, the lake. We meet Clarissa at the start of the summer of 1914, enjoying lovely summer days with her three brothers and the rest of her family and friends. She is introduced to handsome, clever Tom Cuthbert, who is the son of the housekeeper at Deyning. He is recently returned from University, and is back staying with his mother. Tom is invited to a party at the main house and there Clarissa meets and is spellbound by him, and he by her. Their time together during that summer ignites a love and burning need for each other that will be with them forever. Then the world begins to change, and the impending war will alter all their lives permanently. The author has crafted a mesmerizing love story, and totally captured a time and an age now gone forever. And she has portrayed in period detail the times as they were, and then how the war changed everything, shattered lives, destroyed families, and changed society. The generation who lost so many brothers, cousins, friends; irreplacable. There is such deep sadness and loss.'The intoxication of youth, snuffed out, extinguished in a matter of months, left in its place only a numbing sobriety. Far too many young souls had alread been sacrificed, too many lives shattered. And to those of us left standing, impotent, on the sideline, with splintered hearts and broken dreams, light had all but vanished from our lives.' Judith Kinghorn captures the way the world has changed for Clarissa's mother, accustomed to the fineries of life at Deyning, then experiencing how life alters and she is forced to adapt to new circumstances. For others, the world offers new opportunities.The luxurious life and situation Clarissa is born into dictates the route her life is expected to take. There is little chance for her to take any decisions of her own. 'None of us, no matter our situation or circumstances, could pick up the pieces of life as it had once been, before the war. We had all been changed, and our lives as we'd known them had gone, and gone for ever.'But in the years after the War, things begin to change. It seems it may be possible, as society changes and the constraints of tradition and history are being broken, for a woman such as her to shed her background and become independent, to work, to live freely; something she could never have contemplated before: 'Had I ever been free? I'd never, not once, had any say in my life, in my destiny. It had all been decided long ago, by my parents, and then by Mama...I'd always been owned, but never by me.'There is another love story hidden within the pages, with short extracts from letters scattered throughout the main narrative; another love story, which is revealed at the end of the novel. I didn't know this story would take such a strong hold on my heart.I genuinely loved this book. It is an absolutely wonderful romantic novel. It gripped me completely from start to finish, it wrung my heart out. Clarissa is a wonderful first-person narrative voice, we are with her as she grows up and close by her side as she makes her way through life, making mistakes, gaining experience, learning about herself, and Tom is a marvellous romantic leading man, who finds, after the horrors of war, that a changing society offers new advantages to someone like him, but will he ever be good enough to be accepted by Clarissa's Mama? I thought about the characters. I became wrapped up in the love story of Clarissa and Tom. Theirs is an all-consuming love. Neither of them could ever love anyone else. For them, in their hearts and souls, there is only each other. They implore each other, 'don't let me go. Never let me go.' But they seem destined never to be together. The time and place is wrong, or the circumstances. I had to know how this would end. The passion and the pain of separation of these two people seemed to live beyond the words on the page, to have jumped from the page and become real to me; I cared deeply as to the outcome. Tom is so handsome, I could picture him. 'He shone. For there was a light that emanated from him, his soul, his substance.' This idea of him as a brilliant light that disarms Clarissa, a potency strong enough to overwhelm her. 'For there was something about him - his face - that dazzled me, quite literally dazzled me: as though he were a light much too bright to gaze upon directly. And in that light I was naked; every sensation amplified; each thought audible. I think I fell quite in love with him too myself whilst reading!I read the penultimate chapter through tears. I was bereft on finishing this story. It reminded me that we have to grasp happiness where and when we can.A beautifully written and utterly lovely romantic novel that is certainly amongst my favourite reads this year so far.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book has be completely enthralled, I couldn't put it down! I'm a huge fan of historical fiction so it's no surprise that I enjoyed a novel set in WWI London, but it was also such an idyllic coming of age story. It evoked so many emotions both romantic and heart-breaking.
While Clarissa's character remained aloof that to me, I identified with her so well that when she cried I cried and by the end I was desperate for her to have some semblance of a happy ending. It was a transformative read and seriously one of my new favorite books. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is such a beautiful, understated piece of writing and a pleasure to read.Clarissa is 17 years old, living at her family's country house, Deyning Park, during 'the last summer', being the summer of 1914 just before the First World War broke out. She meets Tom, their housekeeper's son, and falls in love with him, but of course her status means that their love is thwarted. This is not a book about war, although it looms large over the story. This is a book completely about the torments of love and loss. It's told in the first person by Clarissa and it works perfectly that way. I think it wouldn't have been nearly so good told in the third person because it would simply be a recounting of events rather than somebody giving an account of their feelings.I enjoyed this book immensely and I found myself engrossed in it. Highly recommended and I'm looking forward to reading Judith Kinghorn's next novel.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clarissa Granville is a naïve dreamy girl who has lived an idyllic and isolated childhood at Deyning Park, the family’s estate in the English countryside. “The Last Summer” begins in 1914 when she is sixteen years old and falling in love with Tom Cuthbert, the housekeeper’s son. An innocent summer of romance and parties ends with the beginning of World War One, when Tom and Clarissa’s brothers ship out to the battlefields. The narrative unfolds over the next sixteen years - from the horrors of war and the crumbling of England’s class structure to a country recovering from war and a changed society with independent women. First and foremost, though, this is Clarissa and Tom’s story. The intoxicating days of first love. The reality that they cannot be together because of their different backgrounds. The miscommunications and the misunderstandings. The choices that lead them in different directions and the force of destiny that keeps bringing them together again.“The Last Summer” is one of those odd books that floats in that grey area between literature and genre fiction. It’s well written, but really it’s a simple book with a rather predictable plot and conventional characters. There’s something compelling about that simplicity, though...something unexpectedly captivating about a happy-ever-after love story. I have to confess that the time I spent with Clarissa and Tom was an unexpected delight.