The Last Song of Winter

Lulu Taylor

A BEAUTIFUL, wild and windswept island off the coast of Pembrokeshire might look like a jewel shimmering in the ocean… but it is also the home of dark secrets that are just waiting to be unearthed.

Lulu Taylor (pictured below), queen of a string of classic winter-warming novels like Her Frozen Heart, The Winter Secret and A Midwinter Promise, dishes up all those favourite reading ingredients for a gripping and emotion-packed, dual-timeline story that was just made for log-fire reading on long, cold evenings.

Filled with this insightful writer’s acute observations on family relationships, beautifully drawn characters, and the all too recognisable slings and arrows of life and fate, The Last Song of Winter is a vivid, haunting story of theatrical glamour and forbidden love, wartime tragedy and a remote island with a dark history.

In Hampstead in 1938, young and romantic Veronica Mindenhall and her sister Billie live a seemingly charmed life with their wealthy parents. Their father is an actor and producer and their home is often filled with the stars of the theatre and music hall.

Veronica frequently falls in and out of love with some of their visitors but when she meets handsome young film star Jack Bannock, she is hit with ‘a great lightning bolt’ and secretly gives herself ‘body and soul’ to him.

Her other passion is St Elfwy, the beautiful island off Pembrokeshire owned by her family, and when war breaks out, the isolated bird haven becomes her retreat... a refuge from the conflict and a place to recover from lost love. But even peaceful St Elfwy cannot prevent tragedy and heartbreak.

Eighty years later, would-be author Romy Stevenson arrives on St Elfwy, now a trust-owned bird sanctuary and retreat, after gaining permission to stay at the remote island’s tiny Clover Cottage to write a book and where she will have only the enigmatic warden, an ‘oddball loner’ called Richard, for company.

However, Romy – who is escaping from a long-standing personal nightmare and hopes it won’t follow her St Elfwy – is not worried about the isolation, devoting herself instead to understanding the lure of this beautiful, haunting place and happily escaping into the past to discover the mystery behind an iconic film and the tale of Veronica Mindenhall. But warden Richard regards her as just another ‘spoiled’ city woman and behind its raw, ethereal charm, and the famous but eerie Singing Caves, St Elfwy hides stories of betrayal and loss... and it will be a perilous path to discover its dark and decades-old secrets.

Set against a stunningly atmospheric backdrop ‘where you can taste the pure air and the salty tang of the sea,’ and see ‘the guillemots dance,’ this evocative and romantic tale – is a classic wintertime treat. Weaving seamlessly between the lives of two generations of women – both battling their own demons and both drawn to an island that harbours terrible secrets that have festered over many decades – Taylor explores the pain of loss, mental illness and betrayal, and the sense of release that comes from truth, discovery, peace and redemption.

At the centre of the story is the irresistible St Elfwy, a breathtaking island sanctuary nestling in splendid isolation in the sea off the picturesque coast of Wales where troubled souls retreat in the hope of finding solace and inspiration amidst nature’s matchless wonders and birds of every hue. Turbo-powered by emotion, love, angst and drama, and with a satisfying twist in its feathered tail, this winter-warming romance is best imbibed with a glass of gently warmed, mulled wine!
(Pan, paperback, £9.99)