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    The Last September
    The Last September
    The Last September
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Last September

    Written by Nina de Gramont

    Narrated by Rebecca Mitchell

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The suspenseful tale of love and murder, by an acclaimed writer at the top of her game, offers a taut psychological mystery whose answers lie hidden until the final pages.

    Brett had been in love with Charlie from the first day she laid eyes on him in college. When Charlie is brutally murdered, Brett is devastated. But, if she is honest with herself, their marriage had been hanging by a thread for some time, especially after Charlie had an affair. The recent reappearance in their lives of his unstable younger brother, Eli, further strained their relationship until Brett, ever steadfast in her devotion to Charlie, began to question her own commitment in the days leading up to his death. Though all clues point to Eli, who's been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years, any number of people might have been driven to slit the throat of Charlie Moss-the handsome, charismatic man who unwittingly damaged almost every life he touched.

    Now, looking back on their lives together, Brett is determined to understand how such a tragedy could have happened-and whether she was somehow complicit. Set against the lush yet  desolate autumn beauty of Cape Cod, The Last September is a riveting emotional puzzle. Award-winning author Nina de Gramont takes readers inside the psyche of a woman facing down the meaning of love and loyalty in a mesmerizing novel that is as moving as it is unpredictable. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateSep 15, 2015
    ISBN9781622318780
    The Last September
    Author

    Nina de Gramont

    Nina de Gramont is a professor of Creative Writing at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She is the author of THE LAST SEPTEMBER (Algonquin 2015) as well as several Young Adult novels.

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    Reviews for The Last September

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      I received an ARC of Nina de Gramont's fictional novel, The Last September compliments of Algonquin Books via LibraryThing's Member Giveaway and appreciated the opportunity.The novel is part psychological thriller, part romance; a journey that includes love, tragedy, betrayal, mental illness, murder... with a level of mystery and suspense that kept me craving more. It was a quick read, a page turner right to the very end. The tale toyed with my emotions, the raw truth about lost love and incomprehensible grief on many levels. I had love-hate relationships with many of the characters, my sympathy growing thin at times... The setting in Cape Cod added a layer of peace and yearning against the loss and despair. This is my first exposure to the author's writings and declare myself as a new fan. I provided a 4/5 star rating with a positive recommendation for anyone seeking a book that tugs at your heart strings and keeps you guessing.
    • 4/5
      Book Description:Set against the desolate autumn beauty of Cape Cod, The Last September is a riveting emotional puzzle that takes readers inside the psyche of a woman facing the meaning of love and loyalty.Brett has been in love with Charlie ever since he took her skiing on a lovely Colorado night fourteen years ago. And now, living in a seaside cottage on Cape Cod with their young daughter, it looks as if they have settled into the life they desired. However, Brett and Charlie’s marriage has been tenuous for quite some time. When Charlie’s unstable younger brother plans to move in with them, the tension simmering under the surface of their marriage boils over.But what happened to Charlie next was unfathomable. Charlie was the golden boy so charismatic that he charmed everyone who crossed his path; who never shied away from a challenge; who saw life as one big adventure; who could always rescue his troubled brother, no matter how unpredictable the situation.So who is to blame for the tragic turn of events? And why does Brett feel responsible?My Review:This is the first book by this author that I have read but it will not be my last. I found the book very well written and hard to put down. It is a tangled web of love, forgiveness, obsession, friendship and mental illness by flawed human beings. The author approaches these themes with compassion and understanding and a lot of poetry by Emily Dickinson throughout. The ending was very surprising and one I did not see coming. I look forward to reading another book by Nina de Gramont and highly recommend this book to those who love a compassionate story with a bit of mystery.
    • 3/5
      When I read this book I wasn’t a huge reader of thriller or psychological thrillers so maybe that’s why this book was just ok for me. I loved Nina’s writing and I flew through this book pretty quickly but it just fell flat to me. Since reading I have started to love thrillers/mysteries and wonder if my thoughts and opinions would be different now a few years later so I may need to re-read at some point.
    • 3/5
      An easy read, where you are set up to believe you know who the murderer is, yet what the ending is, is kinda obvious. . you already know the WHO done it. But like i said, the story of the delusional happy wife / confused widow is a fairly fast light book. Not a thinker but a good summer read. 3.5 STARS
    • 4/5
      The story flowed and, once it caught up to the opening pages, I couldn't put it down. I thought the characters were well developed and believable.
    • 3/5
      I received an ARC through LibraryThing.
      ---
      This was quite the interesting read. A sad love story that was doomed to fail as the lives of Charlie and Brett was slowly revealed to us through the coming chapters.

      This is definitely not a total mystery novel where we are totally focused on who the killer is, well more like when the killer will be caught even though it wasn't the initial suspect in question

      Eli, Charlie and Brett. The trio. It all started off with Brett and Eli, who were best friends but things quickly changed when Eli was sent away due to his medical condition (schizophrenia), but not before Charlie and Brett met.

      Quite honestly, from the get go you can feel that Charlie is completely unattainable and the relationship he had with Brett was never going to last, especially beyond the support stage of dealing with the loss of his mother and taking care of Eli. But how could Brett or anyone not be drawn to the magnetic and charismatic Charlie? Like a moth to the flame, there's no resisting that allure.

      This story was sad, tragic and interestingly a little uplifting. It was definitely a book that I had a hard time putting down. It's a story that makes you think, beyond the physical appearances and dig deeper into the heart of everyday issues (mental illness, affairs, family, careers and dreams).

      Personally I found Eli very fascinating, so see the changes with him, not just physical but also mental.
    • 5/5
      The Last September begins with a woman, Brett, recounting the story of her husband Charlie's murder. From there it goes back to the beginning of their relationship with each other and with Charlie's brother Eli, and then forward as Brett struggles to figure out how to carry on. This was a really engaging book. The writing pulled me right in and I ended up staying late to read the book in one go. The characters are complicated and believable, and because they are so well-written and believable they stay sympathetic even when they make bad decisions. Although the book is written from Brett's point of view, you understand the perspectives of the other characters and sympathize with them as well. The book is partly a mystery as it deals with Charlie's murder, but it's more a story about the characters and their relationships and how people relate to those they love and what that means. It's a good story and I will be thinking about it for a while. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      This book grabs your attention from the very first page. de Gramont starts right in the middle of the action and then moves back in time to tell us how this came about.Brett loves Charlie beyond all reason. She loves him, she suspects, far more than he loves her. She's loved him from the first moment she met him. But their marriage is unhappy, they're broke and broken. Living in Charlie's father's summer home they're trying to keep their marriage together. Then Charlie's troubled brother Eli comes to visit and Charlie is murdered. I liked the book and felt it was a page turner but I didn't like the ending.
    • 4/5
      The Last September by Nina De Gramont is the story of Brett, Charlie and Eli. It is also a story of love, loss and mental illness. Lives are often torn apart or damaged when one or more members of a family or a group of friends have serious mental disorders. Eli and Brett are college friends and Brett falls in love with Eli’s brother Charlie. In time Eli and Charlie’s relationship grows and new families are established. As time passes and relationships form and break apart, the damages resulting from the mental illness issues of one member of the group takes its toll on them all. The topic explored and written about in this book are real and the fears, losses and emotional ups and down resulting from the illness are well presented. A suicide, or was it a brutal murder takes place and the questions and fears for those left is unimaginable. How can life move forward when it seems the very connections that created the relationships may be the same as what has destroyed them? Without creating a spoiler, I did enjoy the book. It was not as suspenseful as some of the others I have read dealing with the topics of mental illness, friendship and murder. However, It was easy to read, well written and the characters were believable. I give it “The Last September” a 4 star rating and thank LibraryThing for their complementary review copy.
    • 4/5
      A good novel, well written without being too gimmicky or categorical. Brett is married with a young daughter working on her dissertation on Emily Dickinson, but leaves the house because her brother-in-law is coming and he suffers from mental illness. Brett is concerned for the daughter. Most of the book then is flashback to explain how she met the two brothers and became involved in their lives and to explore their relationships. All the secrets slowly come out, but it's really just about book about life, love, family, choice, loyalty, and the interplay of all those entities. It was very enjoyable reading.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. The story of Brett and her best friend Eli and his brother. She marries the brother and later her husband ends up dead. Now a murder mystery. Everything leads toward Eli but we have to wait till the end to find out. The ending seems a little lacking. Just an abrubt end.
    • 1/5
      I received The Last September from Librarything's Early Reviewer Program, and while I've had excellent experiences with their matching me up with books before, it was a struggle for me to finish this one.The book advertises itself as something of a love story, something of a murder mystery. It advertises itself as a book where the woman at the center is examining her life, trying to make sense of her husband's murder and whether or not she may have been complicit. The books is said to be 'moving and unpredictable'. All told, though, I'd say that none of this is true.The protagonist, Brett, is so incredibly self-involved that it's impossible to care for her, and while the back cover of the book proclaims that she loved her husband from the first day she met him...well, as the book presents the story, she might have been infatuated with him or in lust, at best, but it certainly wasn't love. And when she apparently gets involved with another man, and then engaged (out of what? boredom?), she then simply wanders away from him, at their engagement party no-less, to her ex-lover. From the beginning, I'm afraid she's painted as a conceited and immature graduate student, with little awareness of the real world or what it means to be in love, and as a result, much of the inertia that the book could have held is lost in her endless references to Emily Dickinson and her never-ending self pity. The last straw for me, personally, which probably guarantees that I won't pick up another De Gramont work, comes with Brett declaring that hers is a more powerful and extensive grief than that of another character (who is far more sympathetic)--after all, she has a child, and he never had one, so hers must be more powerful. Never mind the fact that we've seen no evidence of real connection between she and her husband, that they were estranged and cheating on one another before he was murdered, or that the other character has ever remained faithful to just the memory of his life and still speaks of her with what is clear love. Can you tell that, by the end of the book, little as I wanted to finish, I truly wanted the other characters to leave helpless and annoying Brett to her own devices, rather than taking care of her as if she were a five year old? Perhaps this isn't a bad portrait of a wannabe academic whose life isn't what she envisioned, but she's not anyone I want to spend five pages with, let alone 300.Simply, there's very little of a murder mystery here until the last ten pages, when that portion of the book is almost laughingly crammed in--and no, I'm afraid there's no surprise or twist there, either. De Gramont's characters may be believable, as is the plot, and her writing may be graceful and beautifully-delivered, but none of that makes up for the fact that we're presented with a boring story about characters who are unsympathetic, and closer to pathetic than interestingObviously, I'm afraid that this isn't something I'd ever bother recommending.
    • 3/5
      I am so torn by this book. I was sucked in from the very beginning. I felt every bit of emotion that Brett went through because the writing was so good. The long progression of the story kept building and building and the suspense was so great I was dying to jump to the end to find out who killed Charlie. I really didn't mind that the book seemed to go on and on but when I finally did get to the end I was so disappointed by it all. It was so very anti-climactic and a huge let down. I felt that after all the emotion I felt throughout the book was just washed away in the last few chapters. A huge disappointment at the end.
    • 3/5
      The book started out so strong. Story about how Brett met both Charlie and Eli kept me intriged - it was hard to put the book down! But then the event that changed everyone lives happened and it fell fast. Not so much action and a lot of useless talk talk talk. This book, in my opinion, had potential for excitement, but then it dopped at the end. Would I recommend this book to others - overall, yes, but not with a resounding YES, but I did enjoy the book and will look into others she has written. I did enjoy enough to say that.
    • 4/5
      In The Last September we meet Brett, our narrator, and her husband Charlie. Shortly after the book begins Charlie is murdered and we think we know how and why but during the course of the novel it is clear that nothing is really as it seems. The rest of the book details Charlie and Brett's life together, how they met and got married, as well as all of the drama they faced during the marriage. There is some mystery in the book about Charlie's death but it feels like an afterthought. More attention is paid to the events leading up to his death and to the question of whether Brett and Charlie should have married in the first place. I thought the book was an interesting portrayal of a marriage in turmoil but the mystery aspect felt rushed and the ending seemed tacked on. I liked the book overall but I was a bit disappointed at the end. I received this book through the early reviewers program.
    • 3/5
      Standard middle of the road mystery with a dash of Cape Code and mental illness thrown in. I found Brett to ultimately be a frustrating narrator as her relationships are all destructive but she's so clueless about it. She loves Charlie despite meeting him once and acknowledging the red flags; she loves Ladd despite knowing his temper and his past violence toward her and others. Neither of them felt like real people to me.
    • 4/5
      Two things drew me to this book – the Cape Cod setting and the character with a psychiatric problem. [[Nina de Gramont]] didn’t disappoint me in either instance. She drew the cape with words both beautifully loving of place and end-of-season melancholy, as fit her story. Her story – about the murder of the main character’s husband – flowed as if on the cape’s tides. Outgoing tides telling about the past – Brett’s college days with her best friend, Eli, how she met and fell in love with his brother, Charlie, their early married years, Eli’s descent into psychosis. Incoming tides with the story moving forward from the murder. The author’s portrayal of Eli is sensitive as to the realities of having a loved one who is living with a mental illness, and to the devastation it causes in their lives. In her book, a promising pre-med student, turned into a person who, because of his disease, can’t manage to keep a job exercising the dogs at a kennel. She got it right, every bit.What bothered me: how a grown woman could still be holding a candle for a guy she met in college, and with nothing to base it on but looks and a quickie. A little extra to enjoy about this book: a bit of Emily Dickinson. Each of the four parts of The Last September begin with an epigraph by Emily Dickinson. The main character, Brett, is an American literature student, living in Amherst to immerse herself in Ms. Dickinson’s world, while doing her dissertation on Emily’s letters to her sister-in-law. Altogether, I enjoyed this book very much – the writing, the descriptive setting, most things about the characters, and the story. I would definitely seek out more of this author’s work. (3.8 stars)
    • 5/5
      I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program?This book was one of the best I have read all year. It is extremely well written, full of well developed characters, good plot development - it has it all.
    • 5/5
      The Last September follows the story of Brett, a woman dealing with the death of her husband. I enjoyed this book, it might be my favorite read of the summer. My favorite part was the characters. Normally I will end up disliking at least one character, but not in this story. Nina de Gramont wrote characters that felt like real people, and even though they were all flawed, I couldn't hate them. That alone would be worthy of a high rating from me, but she also was able to craft a story that I found interesting. I didn't have any trouble finishing this book, and I felt that the ending was perfect for the story. This is something I appreciate, because many of fiction books that I've read lately have had endings that I found disappointing. The writing was also very nice. It wasn't a difficult read, but I never felt like the writing was poor quality. Well done, Nina de Gramont, you should be proud.
    • 4/5
      After a summer of disappointing reads, I was quite pleased to find this book waiting for me in the mail. I read this in a single weekend. While the portrayal of a rocky marriage and especially mental illness are heartbreaking, the quality of the author's prose lifts this above the ordinary. My only criticism is that parts of the book go on a bit too long. Still, I highly recommend this and plan to look for more by this author.Thanks to the Early Reviewers program for the opportunity to read this.
    • 4/5
      The Last September is a compelling read. The story centers around Brett and the murder of her husband Charlie. Through excellent story-telling we learn about their love story and and the events that lead up to the murder. It was both heart-breaking and surprising.
    • 5/5
      I received this book and absolutely loved it! The characters were likable and I almost felt like I knew them all personally. and the story line was easy to follow and some twists and turns that were completely unexpected. I read it from beginning to end in one night. Great read!
    • 5/5
      I got this book through the LibraryThing early reviewers group--and I could not put it down. Great characters, great story, unexpected twists, and a moody September feeling. Now I'm looking for everything else by this author.
    • 5/5
      This book drew me in from the very first page. It begins with the tragic murder of Brett's husband Charlie, and then tells the story of her first meeting him when she was eighteen. Charlie is the brother of Brett's best friend, Eli, who subsequently descends into mental illness and schizophrenia. We are privy to all the private thoughts and regrets she has as she recounts the circumstances of her life. The characters are so well-drawn and real that you feel as if you know them, and I wanted to savour every word in this amazing book, and find out what happened and why, and how Brett's life turned out in the end.
    • 4/5
      "Because I am a student of literature, I will start my story on the day Charlie died. In other words, I'm beginning in the middle."The narrator, Brett, a woman writing her dissertation on Emily Dickinson's possible love affair with her sister-in-law, is a woman whose husband has been murdered. She is, as De Gramont has her warn us, starting this story in the middle.Brett and Charlie's life together was not always easy, or simple, or the way Brett imagined it would be. They met through Brett's best friend, Eli, who also happened to be Charlie's brother. When Eli began to show signs of schizophrenia, Brett began to view a dangerous side to her life and her choices.De Gramont, luckily, handles Eli's mental illness with dignity and aplomb. We see him before his symptoms manifested, we see how shattering it is for Eli to attempt to process this change in himself, and how deeply it affects his life. We see why Eli would need to take his meds, and why he wouldn't want to. And we see how fiercely Charlie loves his brother, and how deeply Brett still remembers and clings to the boy she used to know.No one in this book is a perfect character. Everyone has secrets, everyone tells lies, but that makes them human. De Gramont writes about what happens when we try our best but life has other plans, when we love so deeply we can't see clearly any more, and what happens when our past choices refuse to leave our present alone.
    • 4/5
      Loved the suspense of this book. Good read
    • 5/5
      An extremely well-organized novel. As the protagonist explains in the first paragraph, the story begins in the middle - the day Charlie is murdered. The reader is immediately drawn in.This really is a story about one woman's relationships with four very different men. Charlie, her husband and the charming, fun-loving man she fell for after one romantic night in college. But is he worthy of her love, commitment and inheritance?Ladd, her ex-fiance whose parents pushed things just a little when they required a prenuptial agreement. But can she truly love him? Daniel, Ladd's widower uncle who has a summer home on the Cape and seems to be one of the kindest people on earth. Is he the only person who can see the real Brett and help her move on from tragedy?Eli, Brett's best friend in college and Charlie's brother. Is he her true soulmate?While much of the focus is on Brett and Charlie's marriage, I feel that the most important relationship Brett has is with Eli. She experiences his breakdown into schizophrenia first hand. She lives with guilt about not helping him more than she did. She fears for the safety of her daughter when Eli is near. She fears for his safety every time he disappears.The murder mystery takes a back seat to the relationships, but it is never far from mind. Could Eli have killed his much-loved big brother? Could Charlie's jilted lover have committed the crime and then put on the bereft display at his funeral? Could a random stranger have happened upon Charlie just before Eli got there?Again, the organization of the novel is wonderful - crime to history to post-traumatic haze to resolution.Keeps the reader engaged throughout.
    • 5/5
      This book is wonderful. It is the story of family, love lost and found, and mental illness. The characters are all very well written and I enjoyed each of them even at their low moments. The atmosphere is beautiful, the beach in the autumn. Each character in the novel is looking for something. Brett is looking for lost love. Eli is looking for sanity and lost love. Charlie is looking for a sense of family. Ladd is looking for Brett. All of their lives intersect throughout the novel. This story is part mystery and part drama. Brett's character studies poetry and is writing her dissertation on Emily Dickinson so there are many references to her life in this book which coincide with the story being told.
    • 4/5
      I have always loved the beach in Autumn. It's quiet and clear, and the sky is still blue. The grays of Winter have yet to come, and the window of Time holds open the end of Summer. Such is the mood and setting for author Nina De Gramont's contemporary Cape Cod murder mystery, "The Last September". At just eighteen, Brett Mercier's young heart had been stolen by the golden charm of Charlie Moss. Years later, when Brett had become engaged to Ladd Williams, Charlie came back into her life, and this time her took her away from her expected future and into a very different set of dreams. Complicating their togetherness is Charlie's schizophrenic brother, Eli, whose troubled existence shadows their peace of mind. When her mother passed away, Brett used her inheritance to help Charlie open a restaurant. Their life together, and their marriage, is blessed by the birth of their daughter, Sarah. However, an affair between Charlie and his employee, Deirdre, opens a rift in the happiness Brett has known with Charlie. Deirdre does not take the end of the affair in stride, becoming vengeful in her state of rejection. When Charlie tries to fire her, she refuses to leave, threatening to sue Charlie for sexual harassment. A decision is made to close the restaurant--not really ever a moneymaker--and Charlie and Brett move with Sarah back to the cape. Living in an old summer house that had belonged to Charlie's father, they have not yet solidified their new life together when Charlie is horribly and brutally murdered. Past merges with present, and unresolved relationships combine with secrets and whispers to blur the lines of reality. Who killed Charlie--and why? When the truth is finally revealed, what will life hold in store for Brett and Sarah? "The Last September" is a character-driven mystery tale, perfect for reading in just a sitting or two. Review Copy Gratis Library Thing
    • 4/5
      I won this from Early Reviewers. What a good read! This is a debut novel and I hope the author writes more. This book had so much - love story, mystery, murder, mental illness, family dynamics, troubled marriage, and a love triangle. The story grabbed me on the first page and took me on a roller coaster ride to the end. There were several characters I just wanted to shake some sense into, but will not go into detail as I do not want to give away too much.