The Last Page Café by Kate Storey ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

Sometimes the last page is just the beginning…

I didn’t discover Kate Storey until late last year but I enjoyed her first two books so much that I couldn’t wait to read her new book and she didn’t disappoint me. (Read my reviews of her first two books The Memory Library and The Forgotten Book Club.)  I really enjoy reading books about books and books that take place in bookstores and I like books about book clubs that bond together to help out members of the club so this book was a real winner for me.

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September 2026; Avon; 978-0008830021
ebook, print (352 pages); women's fiction

Erin is fifty-four years old and owns the bookstore café that her parents started.  It’s a café in a small town in England where people can pick up any book and read it while they eat their café food.  It’s a comfortable place to read a book, and Erin’s life is very predictable and comfortable.  In fact, she avoids change and wants life to stay exactly the same.  

A book club meets there every week and (as strange as this sounds), they always read the last page of a book before they decide if the club will read the book.  Erin feels like it’s the best way to know if a book is worth reading.  When someone new shows up at the book club and scoffs at the decision to read the last page first, he starts a change in the club.  

Even though Erin is attracted to Adam, she doesn’t like him suggesting changes to HER book club.  After some discussion, the members of the club decide that they will look at their own lives and write the last chapter of their own story that shows what changes they want to make in their lives to find total happiness.  It makes the members look at their lives and find what makes them unhappy, and write down what they could change to find total happiness.  

Erin, of course, is totally against this writing assignment, but the rest of the group is quite interested in following through with it.  When Erin’s only son returns from college, her life begins to change, and when she finds out that the café is in deep financial trouble, she decides that she needs to write the last chapter of her story to decide what will make her happy and what she needs to change in her life to find happiness.  Will Erin be able to learn to accept and embrace change, and will it be enough to save her bookstore café?  

I really enjoyed the characters in this book and the ways their lives changed during the book.  Once they started thinking about their futures, they all made significant changes, and with the help of the other members of the group – who were like family to each of them, they were able to take steps toward a more fulfilling future.  I also enjoyed the slow-burning romance between Erin and Adam and how they were able to overcome their pasts and look towards a future together.

This is a heartwarming novel about friends and the surprising ways that books can change our lives.  There are lots of good books mentioned in this novel, and more than one of them was added to my ‘to be read’ list.

While the paperback edition doesn't come out until September, you can read the ebook today!

Buy The Last Page Café at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.

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