Book: The Last House On The Street

 Book: The Last House On The Street

Author: Diane Chamberlain

Pages: 352

This is my 44th read of the year

This is the story of two women-Ellie Hockley and Kayla Carter.  The timeline shifts from 1965 to 2010 as the two women's stories are woven together until their paths meet.  Ellie - a young woman in the 1960s who is trying to find her place in the world   She decides she wants to spend the summer canvasing for civil rights in North Carolina and help black citizens register to vote.  Against her family's wishes she joins Scope and finds quite quickly that a white girl from the south is going to be in danger at every turn when it comes to the task of working with black citizens.  She puts herself - and everyone around her - in danger but refuses to give up something she cares deeply about.  She falls for a fellow volunteer and soon discovers how her neighbors and friends in North Carolina truly feel about this movement.

Kayla in 2010 has just recently lost her husband to a tragic accident.  She and her husband designed and built their new house and Kayla is unsure about moving into it without him.  Her dad encourages her to do this for her young daughter and use it as a way to move forward.  When Kayla moves in, strange things start to happen and someone is trying to frighten her into moving away.  She eventually meets Ellie who has returned to this small town to help care for her ailing mother and brother and together they discover the truth of what has haunted this small town in North Carolina for so many years.

This was a pretty good book.  No real surprises were revealed at the end - it was pretty easy to figure out what happened and who caused it.  But it was still a good read.  I liked Ellie and Kayla and you felt the hate that surrounded them from the people who wanted to block people from registering to vote.  Chamberlains books are easy reads and cozy mysteries, and I will probably keep reading her novels in the future.

Stars: 4