The Last Letter [Kindle Edition]

Kathleen Shoop (Author)

Book Description

Katherine wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t found the letter...

Katherine Arthur's mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie's husband Frank it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank. But, it was a society of uncertainty—a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death. 



Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures on the prairie to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, and far from the homestead, Katherine has found the truth – she has discovered the last letter. After years of anger, can Katherine find it in her heart to understand why her mother made the decisions that changed them all? Can she forgive and finally begin to heal before it’s too late?

Independent Publisher Awards:
2011 Gold Medal, Best Regional Fiction–Midwest

USA "Best Books 2011" Awards:
Winner, Fiction--Western
Finalist, Fiction--Historical
Finalist, Best New Fiction

National Indie Excellence Book Awards:
2011 Finalist Award–Historical Fiction
2011 Finalist Award–Regional Fiction

International Book Awards:
2011 Finalist Award–Historical Fiction
2011 Finalist Award–Best New Fiction

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathleen Shoop, PhD, is a language arts coach in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Last Letter (2011 IPPY Gold Award Winner--Best Regional Fiction, Midwest) is her debut novel. She is published in four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and regularly places articles and essays in local magazines and newspapers. Kathleen is also married and the mother of two children.

Product Details

• File Size: 518 KB
• Print Length: 374 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1456347209
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004XR50K6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,032 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
  • #15 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
  • #37 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 115 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A heartwrenching story - I couldn't put it down! April 28, 2011

By lkm

Format:Kindle Edition

There were so many things to love about this book -- but the most compelling for me was depiction of the complexities and tragic misunderstandings of a relationship between a mother and her daughter. As the story opens we see Katherine, a 26 year old woman who is forced to take in her dying and estranged mother Jeannie. The source of Katherines bitterness and resentment toward her mother is unfolded in a parallel story line set in the 1800's, when Katherine was just a young girl who set off with her family as they attempted to make a new life on the prairie. But their little family was wholly unprepared for what prairie life had in store for them -- for the utter devastation it would bring to their family. Without divulging too much, I came to see Jeannie as a true heroine who, unbeknownst to her children, did the absolute best she could under utterly terrible circumstances. The adult Katherine could not begin to grasp the untenable situation her mother was left in - she knew only that the women whom she once adored, the most tender, loving and selfless person she knew - her playmate, her confidante, her protector and defender - her whole world, had turned her back on her. Katherine could not know the calamities that reduced the strong and capable Jeannie, with such limitless hopes and the noblest intentions for her family, to a walking wasteland. Katherine could not know that she had been purposely shielded from a father and husband deserving of neither title. They were children, mercifully kept unaware of the secrets that Jeannie hid away so deeply, and the cost of that protection was the love of her children. Kathleen has deftly demonstrated that the emotions, personal dilemmas and the heartbreaking decisions of a women on the prairie in the early 1800s are equally relevant today. With vivid detail she takes the reader to a world that no longer exists, demonstrates that although it may have been a simpler time, it was, in enumerable ways, an extremely difficult time for a women to ensure the well being of her children against extreme adversity. It is a gripping story you are sure to love.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect read! April 27, 2011

By Marcia Lehman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the first book in a long time that captured my attention so much that I was up reading late into the night. The characters come alive on the pages and you feel that you know each one personally. It fits into many categories: historical fiction, character study, women's issues, intrigue, the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship. It gives insight into a way of life long past, but shows that some of the emotional issues we face today were present then, too, and that there were strong women then who forged their own futures, even when the social structures of the time made that difficult. I have always loved historical fiction, and especially such fiction set in the pioneer days of our own country. This book is satisfying on so many levels. I will be gifting this book to some of my closest friends and relatives, and I will be eagerly awaiting another book by Kathleen Shoop!

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As though you were there May 2, 2011

By Curt Coulter

Format:Kindle Edition

How fascinating!! Inspired by letters written by her great grandmother, Kathleen Shoop has crafted a fictional family tale of secrecy, deceit and torn relations against a stunningly accurate account of life on the prairie before and after the tragic "School Children's Blizzard" of 1888. Much like the main character in the story, Jeanie Arthur, Ms. Shoop's vivid descriptions tear the reader from the comfort of a civilized home and drop them, unprepared, in the midst of crude, primitive and unfamiliar terrain, a witness to the shocking, brutal and often disgusting realities equated with survival on the prairie in the 1800s. Lovers of history will relish the detail with which The Last Letter is penned. Those with yellowed family letters of their own, tucked away in dusty attic chests, will be moved by Jeanie's words to re-read their own family treasures, and perhaps even to preserve and honor them as Ms. Shoop has done in the compilation, My Dearest Frank, a must-have compliment to The Last Letter. And for every parent who makes gutwrenching decisions in the name of love, The Last Letter is a reminder that we should teach our children forgiveness because there is always some act, some discovered secret our children will struggle to forgive.

More About the Author

COMING SOON! Bliss--an anthology of love stories that all take place in the same house on the water, but each novella is set in a different era! Further details, soon!

LOVE AND OTHER SUBJECTS...The novel for every woman who wonders if she chose the right career...

Thank you for reading about me here and for purchasing my novel! I'm married with two children. I've been seriously writing for almost a decade although I dabbled much earlier than that! I've had short stories published in four Chicken Soup for the Soul books, am a regular contributor to a local magazine, Pittsburgh Parent, and have had essays in local newspapers as well.

I have a PhD in Reading Education and have worked in schools for over twenty years. I work with teachers and their students in grades k-8 and am lucky to learn something new from them every time I walk through their doors. This experience was a huge help in writing LOVE AND OTHER SUBJECTS--a quirky, post-college coming of age story.

My first novel, The Last Letter (2011 IPPY Gold Medal--Regional Fiction, Midwest, 2011 Indie Excellence Finalist Award for Historical Fiction and Regional Fiction, 2011 International Book Awards Finalist for Historical Fiction and Best New Fiction), was a fascinating trip through history, punctuated with fictional characters and events. The idea for the story grew from my great-great grandmother's letters (see My Dear Frank for the complete set of letters!) written during the year of her engagement to Frank Arthur. The beautiful letters are the inspiration for the novel, the seed from which The Last Letter's characters and their voices grew.

I've also written women's fiction--LOVE AND OTHER SUBJECTS-- and have written another historical fiction novel, AFTER THE FOG, set in 1948 in a town not far from Oakmont, PA. AFTER THE FOG is also an award winning book--silver IPPY and WINNER in the literary category of the National Indie Excellence Awards.

Right now, I'm finishing up a 20,000 word short love story for an anthology and am also using my characters and setting from THE LAST LETTER as per reader request to show what happened between the two timelines in the original book! I hope readers will enjoy the fact I write about varied eras and places and that they will love each book for its unique setting and time.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#44 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#64 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

#44 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#64 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical