The Last Romantics: Book Release Party with Tara Conklin

Celebrate the release of Tara Conklin’s latest New York Times bestseller, The Last Romantics (Harper Collins, 2019).

The evening will begin with a 7 pm reading from the novel at Elliott Bay Book Company, followed by a party in the Hugo House Salon beginning at 8 pm.

The Last Romantics is a meditation on the power of stories—how they navigate us through difficult times, help us understand the past, and point the way toward our future. When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time. It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the Skinner siblings—fierce Renee, sensitive Caroline, golden boy Joe and watchful Fiona—emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected.  Two decades later, the siblings find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they’ve made and ask what, exactly, they will do for love.

About the Author

Tara Conklin is the author of the New York Times bestseller The House Girl (William Morrow, 2013). Trained as a lawyer, she worked for an international human rights organization and as a litigator at a corporate law firm in London and New York. Her short fiction has appeared in the Bristol Prize Anthology, Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the Globe, and This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home. She holds a BA in history from Yale University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School (Tufts University). She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her family.