A dual-timeline historical and contemporary fiction novel with mystery and intergenerational secrets.
When Grace Peltier returns to her grandmother's beach house on North Carolina's Outer Banks, she's grieving lost dreams and searching for healing. What she never expects to find in the attic is a collection of fragile journals written by her great-grandmother, Leisl, a young woman coming of age in 1930s Germany as the Nazi regime tightens its grip across Europe.
Within the faded pages lie truths too dangerous to tell and too painful to forget-stories of a friendship threatened by Nazi Germany, heartbreaking loss, and quiet acts of rebellion that would have devastating consequences during one of history's darkest times. But hidden among them are secrets that would alter the course of her family forever.
As Grace becomes consumed by Leisl's haunting story, she discovers that her family's past holds secrets someone worked hard to keep hidden. The deeper she reads, the more she realizes the truth didn't end with the war-and that the choices Leisl made decades earlier continue to shape the lives of those she loved.
Spanning war-torn Germany, the windswept shores of the Outer Banks, and the sunlit coast of Hilton Head Island, The Last Secret is an emotionally gripping novel of family, motherhood, and the secrets that echo across generations. Heartbreaking, suspenseful, and impossible to put down, it explores how far we will go to protect the people we love-and what happens when the truth can no longer remain hidden.