The Last of Something — Susan Kelly

"A reflective, smoothly written novel. . . . The denouement is strong and affecting."―Publishers Weekly

They've been friends since their college days―Shotsie, Bess, and Claire-and the twenty years since have gotten them husbands, children, mortgages, assorted body patches, one handgun, a hysterectomy, and lots of neurosis. Still, at least once a year they again have each other. And Ian.

This year, in this affecting, sly, bittersweet novel, they are gathering along with their husbands at Dune Ridge on the coast of North Carolina near the close of summer. Only this year their circle is incomplete. Because Ian―wildly irresponsible Ian, "the enigma" Ian―does not show. His young, new wife does, however, and no matter what romance Ian may in the past have shared with Shotsie, Bess, and Claire, it's the dewily beautiful Nina who is bearing his child.

For sure, a hurricane is heading menacingly their way, and neither friendship nor memory, any more than a creaky seaside cottage, can grant them safe harbor. In old stories new truths unfold.