About THE LAST LETTER:
Beckett,
If you’re reading this, well, you know the “last-letter” drill. You made it. I didn’t. Get off the guilt train, because I know if there were any chance you could have saved me, you would have.
I need one thing from you: Get out of the army and get to Telluride.
My little sister Ella’s raising the twins alone. She’s too independent and won’t accept help easily, but she has lost our grandmother, our parents, and now me. It’s too much for anyone to endure. It’s not fair.
And here’s the kicker: there’s something else you don’t know that’s tearing her family apart. She’s going to need help.
So if I’m gone, that means I can’t be there for Ella. I can’t help them through this. But you can. So I’m begging you, as my best friend, go take care of my sister, my family.
Please don’t make her go through it alone.
Ryan
Review by Trinette Dungee
A woman who's lost almost everyone she loves, Ella MacKenzie is fighting and doing everything she can to not lose another. She fell in love with a stranger over letters and now with her brother gone, she’s more than likely lost him too. He doesn’t show up on her doorstep like he promised but the man who does show up threatens to steal her heart. As much as she doesn’t want to be attracted to Beckett Gentry she finds herself being pulled more and more towards him. He’s everything she could want and need and her children are also falling for him just as hard; but Ella’s been burned before by the right words by the wrong guy and the men in her life never seem to keep their promises.
“We’re three months into this, and I’m half in love with you without ever having been in the same room.”
Ella fights an internal battle of holding out hope that the man she fell in love with via letters just might show up and letting herself have feelings for the man that did actually show up.
Every soldier has that letter, the last letter to be delivered should he not return home and Beckett Gentry just received his best friend’s last letter.
“Beck, If you’re reading this, blah, blah. You know the last-letter drill. You made it. I didn’t. Get off the guilt train, because I know you, and if there were any chance you could have saved me, you would have. If there were any way you could have changed the outcome, you would have. So whatever deep, dark hole of guilt you’re wallowing in, stop. I need one thing from you: Get your ass to Telluride. I know your ETS date is right with mine. Take it. Ella’s all alone. Not in the alone way that she has been, but really, truly alone. Our grandmother, our parents, and now me. It’s too much to ask her to endure. It’s not fair. But here’s the kicker: Maisie is sick. She’s only six, Beck, and my niece might die...... I can’t be there for her. I can’t help Ella through this, or play soccer with my nephew, or hold my niece. But you can. So I’m begging you, as my best friend, go take care of my sister, my family. Do whatever you can to save my little Maisie.”
A man who’s never had anyone to love finds himself head over heels for a woman and her children. Beckett promised him best friend, Ryan, that he’d look out for his sister. Ella is stubborn and determined to not let herself trust another man who can very easily leave her alone but Beckett finds himself drawn to her not just by the promise to Ryan but the desire to be everything that Ella and her kids need. With Ella carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and caring for a sick child she needs someone to help carry the load and he’s not going to let her push him away. Unfortunately, Beckett has secrets that could not only have Ella push him away but destroy everything he’s come to know and love.
Okay, that’s all you get and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of this book. This is one of those books where you can’t say too much because you’ll give away too much. It’s one where you want the reader to not know what’s coming, be it good or bad.
This isn’t just a romance novel where the girl meets the guy and they fall in love and at the end everything is wrapped up at the end in a nice pretty bow. Nope, this is a love story, and we all know, love is not nice and neat and perfect. It’s hard and challenging and messy and downright heartbreaking, but with the right person it’s a fight worth fighting for.
This book was an emotional rollercoaster. There was laughter, tears, uncertainty, shock…you name it, this book gave it to you.
The connections with the characters came immediately, although I didn’t think I was going to like Ella at first because she was just uber independent but that “I can do it all” attitude just sucked me in. The connection wasn’t just with Beckett and Ella. The twins, Maisie and Colt, tugged at your heart and made you smile.
“He stopped midfield, and I had to backtrack a couple of steps. “Colt, what’s wrong?” He looked up at me, blocking the sun with a hand, and then glanced around to the other parents walking back to their cars. “Is this what it feels like?” he whispered so quietly that I leaned down. “What it feels like?” I asked. “Having a dad?” He tilted his head slightly. Words fled at the same rate every emotion assaulted me. His question flayed me open, leaving me raw and exposed in a way I’d never felt before. I crouched to his level and said the only thing that came to mind. “You know, I’m not sure. I never had a dad.” His eyes widened. “Me, either.” I’m here now.”
Seriously, how does that not tug at your heart?!
Beckett was the dad he never thought he would or could ever be.
Even before Ella admittedly allowed Beckett into her heart, they were a team. They fell into this sort of parenting roll with her twins that just seem natural and seamless. When Ella faces the unthinkable, Beckett is there by her side experiencing it too.
Rebecca Yarros has a way of making the emotions jump right off the page. Her writing sucks you in from the start. When the characters are happy, you’re happy. When they cry, you cry. When they are at a loss, you find yourself thinking of ways to help them through their darkest hours. The writing is so tight that for me, I could picture the movie reel in my head the entire time I was reading. I could picture the trees, the sky, even the facial expressions. I could hear the characters' voices in my head with emotion. I suggest you set aside at least two days because once you start this book, you won’t want to put it down until you are done; and once you’re done, you’re going to need another day to pull yourself together.
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"I cannot imagine a world without this story." – Hypable
"A stunning, emotional romance." - Jill Shalvis, NYT Bestselling Author
Excerpt:
“Ella.” It was a plea to speak, to not speak. Hell, I didn’t know anymore.
“You don’t see me like that. I totally get it.” She reached for the TV remote.
“How exactly do I see you? Please, enlighten me.” I leaned forward, stealing the remote. She’d opened this box and had better well dish it.
She huffed in annoyance. “You see me as a mom. As Colt and Maisie’s mom. And of course you do, because that’s what I am. A mom with two kids.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. Her motherhood—that selfless devotion she had to her kids—was one of her most attractive attributes.
She rolled her eyes with a little sigh, and the metaphorical light bulb went off in my head.
“You don’t think I want you.”
She shot me a look that confirmed my guess and blushed the same crimson of her couch. “You know, you’re right. It’s late.” She faked a yawn. “Suuuuuuper late.”
“I want you.” Damn, it felt so good to say the words.
“Yeah, okay.” She gave me a goofy look and a thumbs-up. “Please don’t make me feel any more idiotic than I do right now.”
Yeah, enough of this bullshit.
I pounced in one smooth motion, taking her back to the couch, sliding over her as I gathered her wrists in one hand above her head and settled between her open thighs.
Home.
“Holy shit, you move fast.” There was no fear or rejection in her eyes, just surprise.
“Not in every arena,” I promised.
Her lips parted.
“Ella. I want you.”
“Beckett…you don’t have to.”
Yeah, that soft little sigh she did was going to be my undoing.
I let go of her wrists, letting my fingers trail down her arm until I had one hand weaving my fingers into the hair at the base of her scalp and the other at the curve in her waist.
“Feel this?” Then I slid forward, letting my dick stroke along the seam in her pajama pants hard enough for her to gasp at the contact. I couldn’t remember ever wanting to shred a piece of fabric so much in my life. “I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you.”
I moved again, and her eyes slid shut as she let loose the sweetest moan.
My dick throbbed, knowing everything I’d fantasized about for the better part of the last eight months was one decision away.
“Beckett.” Her hands found my biceps, her nails digging in.
“Don’t ever think that I don’t want you, because if things were different, I would have already been inside you. I would know exactly how you feel, and what you sound like, look like, when you come. I’ve thought about it at least a hundred different ways, and believe me, I’ve got a great imagination.”
She rocked her hips against me, and I locked my jaw to keep from giving her exactly what her body was asking for. “Ella, you have to stop.”
“Why?” she asked, her lips dangerously close to mine. “What do you mean if things were different?” Her eyes flew wide. “Is this because I have kids?”
“What? No. Of course not. It’s because you’re Ryan’s little sister.” Before I could do any more damage, I got the hell off her and sat back on my side of the couch.
“Because…I’m Ryan’s little sister,” she repeated, scooting so she sat upright, facing me. “And you think he’d, what? Haunt you?”
Three things: The letter. The cancer. The lie.
I repeated those in my head until I was certain I could look at her and not drag her back under me.
“Beckett?”
“When I was growing up, if I wanted something, I took it. Immediately. I had sex at fourteen with a girl in my foster home of the moment. I opened Christmas presents early if I was lucky enough to get one, and it was usually from my social worker or some charity.”
“I don’t understand.” She wrapped her arms around her knees again.
“I took it immediately because I knew if I didn’t, chances were I wouldn’t get it. It was a now-or-never kind of thing—there weren’t second chances.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t touch you, can’t talk about it, because I’m afraid I’ll act on it.”
“And why does that matter if I want you to?”
“Because I won’t get a second chance. And I’m crap with people, with relationships. I’ve never had one that lasted more than a month. Never loved a woman I’ve slept with. And chances are I’d do something to screw this up, because it’s not just my dick that wants you, Ella.”
That O popped right back onto her face, and I closed my eyes to keep from lunging across the distance and kissing her. Knowing she’d let me—that she wanted it—sent my need from a bullet to a nuclear missile.
“And when I’d screw it up, because it would happen, trust me, it would hurt Colt and Maisie, too. You’d be on your own again, because there’s no chance you’d let me hang around and help you out like Ryan asked.”
“And there it is.”
“There it is. You’re Ryan’s little sister.”
“There were only five years between us. Not so little, you know.” She reached for the remote.
“I’m well aware.”
“So if Ryan were still alive…” She shot one last look at me.
I let everything slip for a millisecond, letting her see it all in my eyes, how badly I wanted her, and not just for her body. “Everything would be different.”
“Everything?”
“Everything but the way I feel about you, which he probably would have killed me for. Where does that leave us?”
“You mean besides me being a dried-up spinster and you being honor-bound to a ghost?”
“Something like that.”
She rolled her head along the back of the couch, muttering something that sounded like a curse word under her breath. Then she sat up straight and powered on the TV with a click of her thumb. “That leaves us choosing a movie on demand. Because I’m not letting you walk out that door right now.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope. You walk out now, you might get all weird about this and not come back. Honor is a fabulous thing, but sometimes pride can be a lot stronger, especially when you convince yourself it’s for the good of the other person.”
Damn, the woman knew me.
“So movie it is,” I agreed. “Just…stay on your side of the couch.”
“I wasn’t the one who crossed the center line,” she teased with a smile that got me hard all over again.
Movie chosen, we sat and watched, both of us stealing sideways glances. There was that saying…the horse out of the barn. Yeah, the horse was out of the barn, and it wasn’t going back in. Not no way. Not no how.
That horse was running amok and screwing with my carefully constructed control.
But I didn’t complain when she moved over. Or when she pressed against my side. Nope. I lifted my arm and savored the feel of her curves, her trust. Still didn’t complain when she lay down in my arms. Hell no, I held on and memorized every second.
"This story gripped me from start to finish. The Last Letter is poignant, heartfelt and utterly consuming. I loved it!" - Mia Sheridan, NYT Bestselling Author
"Hands down, the best book I've read all year." - Fic Wishes
About Rebecca Yarros:Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and a lover of all things coffee, chocolate, and Paleo. She is the author of the Flight & Glory series, including Full Measures, the award-winning Eyes Turned Skyward, Beyond What is Given, and Hallowed Ground. She loves military heroes, and has been blissfully married to hers for sixteen years.
When she's not writing, she's tying hockey skates for her four sons, sneaking in some guitar time, or watching brat-pack movies with her two daughters. She lives in Colorado with the hottest Apache pilot ever, their rambunctious gaggle of kids, an English bulldog who is more stubborn than sweet, and a bunny named General Fluffy Pants who torments the aforementioned bulldog. Having adopted their youngest daughter from the foster system, and Rebecca is passionate about helping others do the same.
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