Published 22nd October 2026 by EMF Press.
From the cover of the book:
When a final goodbye in Cornwall is only the beginning...
Meredith Tremayne Russell has spent her life mapping the world, first in intelligence during WWII, and later as a professor. But at ninety-eight with time running out, she faces a journey she cannot chart, a return to her old Cornish home to sell it and to scatter her beloved husband’s ashes.
With her is her twenty-five-year-old granddaughter, Grace, a dyslexic who believes she is a failure in a family of academics. For Grace the trip is a welcome escape from her mother’s demands. But when she unlocks her great-grandmother’s abandoned art studio, she finds a legacy of a passionate artist and a French resistance fighter.
As Meredith relives the frozen December of her 1946 wedding, she understands her final mission isn't to say goodbye to her old home, but to draw one last map—showing Grace how to navigate a life of her own making.
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Meredith (Merry) Tremayne Russell has spent her life immersed in maps, first as a cartographer in World War II, and later as a professor in America. She is now feeling the weight of her ninety-eight years, and the heart-breaking loss of her husband, Jake. She decides to head back to her Cornish home, in the company of her granddaughter Grace, planning to sell her family estate, Kestle, and scatter her husband ashes. Time is short, and she has a lot to address about her family's past, present, and future, before she can rest...
I thoroughly enjoy Liz's Cornish stories, and adored her novel The Secret Shore - which told the story of Meredith's important wartime work, and her romance with Jake. So, when I knew about this little gem, revisiting Merry's story at the end of her life, I knew I had to read it!
The story unfurls from Merry and Grace's perspectives in a gentle meandering between present and past, set against an atmospheric Cornish winter in the run-up to Christmas. Being back in Cornwall brings back so many memories for Merry. She is unsure if she has the energy to do all that must be done to ensure Kestle's legacy continues - and she is desperate to help Grace (who reminds her so much of her own mother) carve out a future for herself. In parallel, Grace has worries of her own to contend with, not least how frail her grandmother has become.
There are lovely scenes between Merry and Grace, filled with warmth and humour, especially as Grace learns about her grandmother's amazing wartime adventures, and the role Merry's mother played in the French Resistance. But this is not your traditional festive celebration, and even though Liz packs this book with heart-felt moments, there is a big slice of poignancy in both Merry and Grace's parts... keep the tissues handy to mop up the tears.
Liz does an incredible job bringing maps, artistic legacy, expectation, dyslexia, and the complex relationships between mothers and daughters into how the threads of the novel play out. There are nicely wielded ghostly whispers, and the vivid scenes that transport you back to Merry's wartime wedding are beautifully evocative. I enjoyed to appearance of familiar faces from Liz's Cornish world, too.
Sad, but hopeful, this heartfelt gem is a sophisticated slice of Christmas magic, and I loved being reunited with Merry at the end of her journey. Can we follow Grace as she charts her own voyage, please Liz?!
The Last Christmas is available to buy now in paperback and ebook formats.
Thank you to Rachel's Random Resources for sending me a review copy of this boo, and inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Novelist, slave to two cats and dreamer turned doer....
Award winning author of The Cornish House, A Cornish Affair, A Cornish Stranger, Under A Cornish Sky, The Returning Tide, One Cornish Summer, The Path to the Sea, The River Between Us, The Secret Shore, The Secrets of Harbour House and the novellas A Cornish Christmas Carol and Delivering Christmas. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and spends her time wrangling two mad cats, plot walking, reading and procrastinating on social media.
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