The Last Goodbye: The most heartbreaking and unforgettable romance novel you’ll read in 2023

The books main story is about grief. What it is and how people grieve. For me I guess that's what I liked about this book.

Now I am lucky to know the author as she is married to my cousin, so I so my best to support her by buying and reading her books. I'm so glad Andy posted a link. This is an emotional ride and after the year we have just survived it has highs and lows. The characters are well developed but there is room to be cross with them for the decisions they make, but only because we think we know better. The idea of an app to put people in touch with someone who knows is an idea that could extend into other areas. I think we all need a Brody, someone to listen without judging but with understanding. A voice in the darkest void for you to cling too. Well done Fi, I loved it x

A wonderful read.I thought that some of the reviews where a bit harsh, some said, They felt as though they where on the outside looking in… well have you lost someone so close to you it physically hurts to move? I have. This book describes it perfectly.Anna is in a haze of loss and grief and pain, a pain I remember all too well. Where the world is still moving and you think to yourself why is everything still normal? don’t, they feel it too?Everything is moving but your still stuck, stuck in the memories and the past.One night Anna is so desperate to hear her loved once voice, she calls his old phone, expecting, his voice at the end of it. His old recorded voicemail.But instead someone picks up…….. Anna for a moment thinks its him; but no, she flings the phone and thinks she owes that person who picked up an apology, after all she woke him up at midnight, the least she can do is apologise and swear never to call again.Only, Brody he understands, he gets it.Brody a children’s writer had also lost someone important to him, he suffers with his loss and grief, this book delves into mental health and doesn’t spare anything.I get it, I felt the anxiety the fear, I remember that place so well.I do think this book should have a warning up because if you’re not ready or new to grief it’s not the right book or at least not the right time to read it.Yes. it’s slow in parts but it gives you a sense of time, of how long it takes to heal.I lost myself in this book it’s so beautiful to read. Raw and powerful. I want more Gabbi can we have more Gabbi please. I felt like she had more to tell?I would love an epilogue of Brody and Anna’s life together….. (I’m just nosy)if you read this book have a box of tissue at the ready and remember real people do experience loss like this…..

Fiona Lucas (aka Fiona Harper) has always been a brilliant writer, but she goes up a notch with this gut-wrenching tale of loss and redemption as she follows our heroine Anna on an emotional, deeply moving and eventually uplifting journey from the depths of grief. When we first meet Anna it's two years after the sudden death of her beloved husband Spencer in an accident and she's still unable to 'move on', in fact she's hiding under a duvet to avoid answering the door to her best friend Gabi who is just one of many people who can't understand why Anna is still stuck down the bottom of the pit of her grief. But it doesn't take long for us to understand. Because we feel with Anna the despair she feels, but also the fog in which she exists. In a weird way the only person she can really connect with is her supremely passive aggressive mother-in-law Gayle - Spencer's mum - who is struggling too, and taking it out on Anna... Then after one particularly awful New Year's Eve, Anna does something she's promised herself she won't do again, she rings Spencer's mobile phone number just to hear his voice mail, and to 'speak' into the void he has left behind... But this time, someone answers!! That someone turns out to be reclusive artist Brody, who, we soon discover has acquired Spencer's old phone number, and is himself stuck in a pit of grief from which he cannot emerge... What happens next is a journey for them both, sometimes mundane, sometimes cataclysmic as they edge each other towards a better place and discover so much about themselves and their loss along the way. I adored this book, I stayed up late one night to finish it, because I HAD TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!! It is of course beautifully written - because that's Fiona's MO - but beneath that beautiful prose is an exceptionally well observed and at times devastating tale of deep emotional truth. All in all this book is a stunner. BTW: everyone should have a best friend like Gabi... And am I the only one who wanted to punch Gayle??

As a widower, Anna knows she's supposed to move on, but with the mother-in-law from hell, she'll struggle. Ask Anna how long it was since Spencer died and she'll tell you to the minute. His shirts still hang in her wardrobe, and she'll ring his phone to hear his voice. Only one day, the contract expires on the phone and the voice she hears wasn't Spencer's. It was Brody's.Anna is not so much broken as kept from healing. This book had me mentally screaming at Anna to throw the fortnightly dinner in her mother-in-law's face. Brody... well, he's definitely broken. But he's willing to mend.You know from the blurb how this book is going to go, but following the two as they lean on each other, knowingly or otherwise, is sometimes heart-wrenching and at others uplifting. Fiona Lucas has a succinct way with words to convey deep emotion in only the needed words, keeping the book moving along nicely.If you want your heart broken a smidgin, then put back together - this is a book to do that.

After nearly 3 years, Anna is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her husband, Spencer. Gripped by loneliness and desire to connect with him, she calls his old mobile phone number, however, instead of his answer-phone message somebody answers her.This story is about loss, grief and trying to learn to live again.This story gripped me from the start and I couldn't put it down, so much so I read it in 2 days.I really connected with both the main characters and I feel both of their stories were handled with sensitivity.For the most part, I don't feel the book is a romance, apart from near the end. That suited me fine but I could see that if some picked it up as a romance it might not fit their tastes.I felt the story and the characters were very well developed and demonstrated the many different facets of grief.I enjoyed the ending, but I could understand how some might feel it is too open-ended and be frustrated that this is when the two main characters finally meet.Personally, I liked that we were left to imagine how the relationship might have developed and that the focus of the story very much stayed on moving on with grief.I'd like to emphasise this story is never about leaving grief behind but on learning to live again with it, which I found more believable and understanding of the topic.I loved this book - it made me cry, it made me smile, it definitely hit me right in the feels.I would highly recommend this book to others but not to those who are purely wanting a romance novel.