I was so in need of this type of book. The books I read last month were well written and had well developed storylines, but some of them were honestly a little depressing and some just did not live up to their hype, at least in my opinion. Where The Last Rose Blooms, by Ashley Clark, was such a nice escape at the end of the day. Clark did a lovely job of tying the past and the present together and transitioning between two different time periods. I also really enjoyed how she worked in a nice combination of mystery, history, and developing love stories.
Where The Last Rose Blooms tells the story of two strong women who are separated by 160 years of history.
Alice runs a flower shop in New Orleans with her aunt, who has been by her side ever since Alice’s mother went missing during Hurricane Katrina. On the night of Valentine’s a handsome man arrives at the flower shop just before closing, causing him and Alice to get off on a tense footing. A little while late, Alice finds herself waiting outside of a restaurant for a double date with her friends and a mystery man they have fixed her up with. To Alice’s surprise she soon discovers that her blind date is the man from her flower shop, and that the flowers were intended for her. After making it through a somewhat awkward dinner he soon wins Alice over and feelings of more than just friends start to bloom between them.
160 years before Alice, Clara was living through her own story during the Civil War in 1861 Charleston. With the encouragement of her cousin and without her father’s knowledge, Clara becomes an abolitionist. She becomes a spy for the union side with the assistance of a slave, Rose, who works in her family’s home. Like Alice, Clara also finds herself falling in love with a fellow abolitionist. Things soon take an unexpected turn and Clara and Alice are forced to take certain actions, causing a whole other chain of events.
Both women are faced with a sense of the unknown, but also with the endless possibilities of the future. I honestly cannot recommend this book enough. Where the Last Rose Blooms is actually the third book in a series, I definitely plan to read the first, but I have to say, I did not feel lost at all in the storyline starting with the third book. Mystery, love, friendship, family, history, a beautifully painted setting, this story has a little something of everything, and will draw you in from the very first page.
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