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The Last Summer Paperback – August 2, 2022

by Karen Swan (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 4,106 ratings
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When the residents of St Kilda ask to be evacuated from their remote island home in the summer of 1930, it’s in search of a better life on the mainland rather than the scratch existence on their mountain in the sea.

For 18-year old tomboy Effie Gillies, it’s a bittersweet departure. She’s the best young climber on the island, as skilled and brave as any of the men. But it is Effie’s expansive knowledge of local bird life that leads her to taking up a position as curator of Dumfries House’s ornithological collection - and back into the arms of Lord Dumfries’ son and heir, Sholto.

During her last summer on St Kilda, Effie had been Sholto’s guide, and their attraction had seemed irresistible but, in the glamorous polite society of Ayrshire, it is clear they are worlds apart. When a body is discovered on the island, soon after the evacuation, a scandal erupts as she is implicated. Sholto knows she’s keeping secrets – but are they even her own?

The Last Summer is the first in an epic, sweeping historical series by Sunday Times bestseller Karen Swan, set in and around the Scottish island of St Kilda.

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  1. Book 1 of 4
    The Wild Isle
  2. Print length
    400 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Macmillan UK
  5. Publication date
    August 2, 2022
  6. Dimensions
    1.54 x 6.02 x 9.13 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    1529084377
  8. ISBN-13
    978-1529084375
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Karen Swan is the Sunday Times top three bestselling author of twenty books and her novels sell all over the world. She writes two books each year – one for the summer period and one for the Christmas season. Previous winter titles include Christmas at Tiffany’s, The Christmas Secret and The Christmas Lights, and for summer, The Rome Affair, The Greek Escape and The Spanish Promise.

Her books are known for their evocative locations and Karen sees travel as vital research for each story. She loves to set deep, complicated love stories within twisty plots, sometimes telling two stories in the same book.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan UK
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529084377
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529084375
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.47 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.54 x 6.02 x 9.13 inches
  • Book 1 of 4 ‏ : ‎ The Wild Isle
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 4,106 ratings

About the author

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Karen Swan

Karen Swan

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Karen Swan is the Sunday Times Top Three and international best-selling author. Her novels sell all over the world and she writes two books each year - one for the summer period and one for the Christmas season. Her books are known for their evocative locations and Karen sees travel as vital research for each story. She loves to set deep, complicated love stories within twisting plots.

The Last Summer is the first book in her five-book historical series called The Wild Isle Girls, set around the dramatic evacuation of the Scottish island St Kilda in the summer of 1930. It was partly inspired by Karen’s Scottish roots: her father’s family came from Skye, moving to Fort William where Karen was christened and where many of her family still live. Her childhood memories are full of Christmases, Hogmanay and summer holidays spent in the Highlands and she was married there in 2001.

She lives in Sussex with her husband, three children and two dogs.

Visit Karen's author page on Instagram @swannywrites, Facebook, and Twitter @KarenSwan1.

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4.4 out of 5 stars
4,106 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Pat Skinner
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2022
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    I can't wait to read the next book. This author does her homework with respect to history, culture and folklore. I really enjoyed this book.
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  • Elin de Ruyter
    4.0 out of 5 stars Get swept away by the wild beauty of life in the Herbrides.
    Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2022
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    This is my first book by this author and it won’t be the last. I really enjoyed being swept back in time to St Kilda in the Herbrides. I loved Effie and following her journey from the island to the mainland after the evacuation. Great pacing, beautiful prose and stunning location. The tension and suspense kept me turning the pages and of course the romance subplot.
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  • RF
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
    Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2022
    Format: Kindle
    The Last Summer by Karen Swan and audiobook Narrated by Katie Leung is an excellent historical fiction that takes us into the lives of those living and leaving St Kilda during the 1930s, and I just loved it.

    This book is the first in The Wild Isle series and what a great start it sure is. This is the third book that I have read about the history, lives, and events taking place on the isolated island of St Kilda, and each one is so unique and brings something different to the table.

    This book is special in that it is almost two books in one. The first part involves the inhabitants still living on St Kilda, and the second gives us a glimpse of the unique positions these women (and men) experience when they are forced to vacate their home and find a new life for themselves on the mainland. Society, culture, relationships, and the structure of classes are all an awakening and a jolt for sure. Some changes are positive, some are different and difficult. Relationships that were simple on the island are now complex, complicated, and sometimes changed and broken. There is love, loss, friendship, family, changes, mystery, and it is all drawn out beautifully by the author and it all sounds lovely by the impressive narrator and her stunning accent. It really adds to the novel.

    I really love Effie as a character. She is beautifully written and I really enjoyed her story.

    Definitely a 5/5 star rating.
    One person found this helpful
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  • RPhmom
    3.0 out of 5 stars Great Read as Usual but . . .
    Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2023
    Format: Audible AudiobookVerified Purchase
    For Karen Swan fans, this one will not disappoint from the perspective of characters, relationships, storyline, history, etc. SPOILER ALERT . . . I like a lot of series books; what disappointed me was the "to be continued" ending.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Emily N Wahlberg
    3.0 out of 5 stars If you love dogs don’t read it.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2022
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Made me heartsick if you are an animal lover difficult to read parts of it. I can’t get it out of my head- so sad. Almost stopped reading. The ending sucks- I get it will be a follow up but it left in a terrible spot.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Beth Ann
    1.0 out of 5 stars Hope you don’t mind graphic descriptions of dog killings
    Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2022
    Format: Hardcover
    I am so, SO ANGRY with this author. If you are going to graphically describe dogs being killed, not to mention all the birds being slaughtered, the VERY least you could do is warn people. I DO NOT CARE IF ITS HISTORICALLY ACCURATE, you did NOT have to include such details.

    What a horrible, unforgettable, thing to do to a reader. Not only will I never read another book by this horrid author, I will advise everyone I know to never buy, or read her books.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • amma
    2.0 out of 5 stars WHAT???????!!!!!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2022
    Format: Kindle
    Great writer. Great story & fabulous descriptions of place & people. Loved the suspense. I was already planning on gifting it for Christmas.
    And then the ending.
    You MUST be joking!!
    No gifts.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • mllvanisl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Historical fiction included
    Reviewed in Canada on April 15, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    This series is awesome because of the historical information
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  • Kati
    5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating
    Reviewed in Germany on May 29, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Great author, great story
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A well written emotional Rollercoaster.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2025
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    A slow start getting to grips with with the time and place until Lord Sholto and his father arrived at the island of St Kildow Outer Hebrides . They were from a different world, but his farther was an Ornithologist . From this point onwards there were so many twists and turns up to the evacuation of the 36 inhabitants to the mainland in 1930. the author herself travelled to the island to get a sense of place, and the reader can certainly join the adventures that follows her research. Euphemia ( Effie} the main character, would be very pleased that Prince Charles in 2007 saved the island, and later on bequeathed the land to the National Trist of Scotland as a bird sanctuary . You will be entranced by this story ,and walking through Effie's journey I just couldn't put it down. I will allow you to be absorbed in the story , A place that there are no trees ,and when the inhabitants had no shops, but only their hard work to sustain a living. Unfortunately when Effie had a very different lifestyle the story ended far too abruptly. A sequel is certainly needed. Please .
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  • Portybelle - Joanne
    4.0 out of 5 stars Secrets, danger and forbidden love on a wild island
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2023
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    I really enjoyed reading The Last Summer. It is mostly set in St Kilda and it was so interesting to read about that community. I cannot imagine living somewhere so isolated and cut off from everywhere for a large part of the year due to the weather. You get a good sense of what it would be like living in such a close knit community where everyone obviously knew everyone’s else’s business and everyone had to support each other. At the time we meet the islanders, it is the last few months before St Kilda was evacuated and at that point there were only 36 people living on the island.

    It’s not surprising that moving to the mainland was so hard for Effie. She was actually highly educated and could speak both Gaelic and English so had an advantage over some of the islanders. Even so, she found it difficult to suddenly be pigeonholed with the women and not allowed to do the same work and earn as much as the men although she was more than capable. On the island, everyone did what was necessary to survive regardless of who they were. It was even more of a culture shock when she moved to work on the Earl’s estate.

    Effie is a great heroine. Karen Swan explains in her author note that she is not based on any one real person from St Kilda but that instead she has combined common names from the island for her protagonist, something she will do again in the rest of the series. Effie was a hard worker and a true support for her father. She knew so much about birds and was just as able as the men to scale the cliffs and catch the birds which would keep them fed. It was so frustrating for her, and for me as a reader, to see how sometimes her skills were overlooked simply because she was a woman.

    Love came unexpectedly for Effie when the Earl and his son Sholto visited the island. There is an instant attraction between them and Sholto is in awe of her adeptness on the cliffs and her knowledge of the natural world she inhabits. This is a classic tale of a forbidden love due to the different social strata the two were part of. If Effie stood out as a bit different in St Kilda due to her feistiness, then she stood out even more in Sholto’s world among the wealth, extravagance and entitlement that she could never have imagined.

    The Last Summer is a book of secrets, danger and forbidden love in a wild island setting. I must admit that I was rather taken aback at first with what seemed like a very sudden ending to the book. But it is perhaps very appropriate, given Effie’s climbing skills, that the book ends on such a dramatic and unexpected cliffhanger. I would have wanted to read the next book in the series anyway, but now I have to!
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  • tricia
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
    Reviewed in Canada on April 1, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    A different Karen Swan story but worth reading. More of a historical story which is different for her.
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