Leah
Written on Jan 18, 2011
I’m a huge fan of Melissa Hill, and have all of her books on my bookshelf. I’ve read the majority of her books but I still have a few left to read, and one of those was The Last To Know. I heard from a friend that it needed total concentration to read, and it’s taken me until now to have a free day to dedicate to the book. I was hoping for another fab, plot-twist-y read and I got exactly what I was looking for.
Now, I don’t want to give too much away about the plot because the beauty of a Melissa Hill book is discovering the plot as you read the book, rather than have everything spelled out to you in the synopsis or when reading a review. Basically, the plot revolves around Aussie Brooke, who is a book editor at a major Australian women’s fiction imprint, and when she receives a manuscript entitled The Last To Know she quickly becomes engrossed in the story of its characters. But all is not what it seems, and it turns out that the truth really can be stranger than fiction. We also meet Eve, Sam and Anna, three girls living in Dublin and London as they make relationship changes, hope to get married, and stick with their jobs. I was immediately taken in with the plot and I was intrigued as to how it would all unravel because in true Melissa Hill style, I knew it would undoubtedly be less than straightforward.
I thought the cast of The Last To Know was very well rounded, and very well characterised. I immediately liked Eve. She’s the mother to two children, has been with her partner, Liam, for 9 years and is hopeful of a marriage proposal sometime soon. She seems very downtrodden with life when we first meet her but after she and her sister Sam to a bit of a life swap, she really comes into her own. I also liked Sam, Eve’s sister and a best-selling author in London. Her life is the polar opposite of her sister and I liked her spunkiness. As for Anna, I wasn’t totally convinced about her. I was never really taken with her to be honest and it was only at the end of the book that it all made sense to me. I also really disliked Eve’s partner Liam, he was barely in the book due to his work as a wine importer but whenever he was around, I couldn’t wait for him to disappear again. I loved Brooke, and she was one of my favourite characters.
As with all of Melissa’s books The Last To Know is incredibly well written. It’s told in the third-person, allowing us to get the full scope of the story. But as usual in a Hill book, we don’t get the full scope of the story until the end. I love the way Hill can somehow tell a story without revealing everything until the final few chapters. It must take immense strength to not blurt it all out beforehand. A lot of the twists and turns came as a surprise to me, because as usual I had my own thoughts and suspicions and thought I had the story cracked when it turns out that as usual I was completely and utterly wrong. I would get dispirited but it’s my fault for trying to second guess Melissa. I hugely enjoyed The Last To Know and although I didn’t enjoy it as much as some of her previous works, it’s still a notable novel that all Hill fans will lap up.