At the beginning of Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics, I really thought it was onto something. However, the latter portions really lost me and caused me to turn the final page feeling tired, apathetic and slightly betrayed.

This is a stunning, exciting drama, which draws the reader in and leads them through a long period in time. I enjoyed following the journey along its twists and turns and wanted this thrilling book to be longer.

What a terrific read. The death of the father and the collapse of the mother makes the three sisters and one brother bond until their mom comes out of her funk which they refer to as "the Pause". It is a story of family relationships and the struggle everyone has in their quest for love whether it be from a family member or a partner. It was so real in all the struggles each character had and made you question some of the decisions that the sisters and brothers made as they grew up and forge into lives of their own.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Told with an unerring eye for the complexities of the human condition, Tara Conkin's portrayal of the dynamics of one family through the ages is nothing less than masterful. Beautifully composed, mesmerizingly told, this is an epic family saga that shines like a precious gem amongst a cluttered literary landscape. Indeed, if I had to isolate one aspect of the book that stood out, it would be Conkin's uncanny understanding of the human heart. Make no mistake, however, this is no saccharine tale of uncomplicated family love rippling through the ages, no, it is something more complicated and subtle in its representation of the particular and peculiar configuration of emotions that ultimately stem from one source: love. Conklin's tour de force, dynastic tale, forces us to confront the whole gamut of emotions that often derives from one precipitating, life-changing event. It is the realisation, distilled in novelistic form, that these emotions, these events, of a past long gone, echo through the ages and reside, often unconsciously, in the DNA of subsequent generations. Beautiful, complex and absorbing.

Tara Conkin has written a family saga based on the premise of what is love., and done it very well. By way of flashbacks that never seem like flashbacks as the story flows backwards and forwards without any loss of interest set in a future date with an underlying tension which is not fully explained it tells the story of one girl’s journey through life as part of a family looking for the meaning of love. A good read which holds your interest right till the end.

My fault but reading a book about depression and grief isn't something I can bare to read right now. I did read quite a bit but the themes are just too much.

A family loose their father and have to move. The mother than falls into a depression and it's up to the children to keep things afloat and the effects of this will have repercussions for years to come. The blurb to me doesn't reflect the story inside at all and the love aspect for me wasn't there.

Thank you Netgalley for this free copy to review.

This is a story about 4 siblings and the effect losing their father has on them. This is an ok literary read. I enjoyed it but I’ve read similar books that tell the same story in a better way.