The Last Train Home 🚂
by Elle Cook
Pub Date: 09 Nov 2023

Never judge a book by its cover - serves me right 🤣 It looks like a cute rom com but it was much more than this. I went into this blind without reading the blurb as there's not much I wont read about. I was expecting a bit of fluff to get me through the boring days between xmas and new year but I was actually hooked, this book gives all the feels.

Elle Cook also writes historical fiction under the name Lorna Cook, I haven't read any yet but I hope to do so soon cos I loved the writing style.

#TheLastTrainHome #NetGalley

I must admit the cover drew me to this book, and while The Last Train Home started off with a bang, I am sad to say halfway through the book I lost interest. You could call The Last Train Home a book about missed opportunity or bad timing, but this isn't Sliding Doors or Sleepless in Seattle. This is a book where two MCs have an adorable meet cute that goes from adorable to dramatic in seven seconds flat.

I will admit, I loved the line, "A lot can happen in seven years. A lot can happen in seven seconds." I thought it was foreshadowing, but the book didn't move where I hoped it would move. Our MCs both make poor decisions, communicate poorly, some of which is due to drinking way too much way too often. While I liked the MCs they reminded me more of teenagers than working adults.

I really, really wanted to like this book, but it was not what I was expecting, and even the hint of infidelity (especially with children involved) is a huge turn off for me.

Think this might have been a case of reading this at the wrong time, unfortunately! As I started reading it on my commute to work, so the opening scene of the train derailing felt quite triggering without an immediate resolution.

The last train home by Elle Cook

3.5 ⭐️

This was a brilliant love story with a right person wrong time element throughout. I didn’t expect the train to become a trauma element in the story but it was a really interesting take on finding the right person at the wrong time. I completely fell in love with Tom and Abbie from their first meeting. There were times when I wanted to tell them to cop on to themselves for being so oblivious, I really enjoyed their journey.
The ending was beautiful!
This book gave me very similar vibes to Emily Henry’s writing.
I’d recommend giving this book a read if you like:
- Right person, wrong time
- Strangers to friends to lovers
- Emily Henry
- McDonald’s happy meals
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguins publishers for a copy of this book.

This was such a great story. Beautiful and hard to read all at once. The characters had great depth and I enjoyed watching them grow. This story has lots of twists and turns and is really well paced.

The Last Train Home was an easy read with lots to love. I was really in the mood for a slow burn and that was definitely what I got, with added bonus fun details from the great settings: London, Singapore, Dubai, Seychelles, and the "period" details of the 2005-2012 timings. Great fun!

The Last Train home is a love story, but not like you expect.

With many twists and turns and lots of bad timings life doesn't always go as you expect it too.

A good read and a good follow on novel from Elle's first The Man I never met. The characters were believable and such a lovely read

I wanted to like this and to be fair, I did read it in a a full day. It was cute and simple, and a palate-cleanser read, but I don't think I'd read it again. The pacing was a bit off and it was hard to really keep up with it. That being said, I really did get into Abbie's character across the book and wanted to shake her and tell her to leave Tom and Sean (many times with Sean) behind and go live her life. At the same time, the book was really realistic with how relationships function in terms of people settling for things they know aren't good for them.

Overall, 3/5 for me, and it was good to read during my flight.

I somewhat struggled with this story. The beginning was great and got me very excited for the book, but then it fell very flat for me and I had difficulty finding the motivation to keep reading. I didn’t quite fully connect with the characters and had trouble understanding their actions throughout the years. I also felt like I didn’t fully get invested in their love story! The drive I felt in the first few chapters didn’t follow through until the end. I’m sure some of it comes down to personal preference, so I would probably recommend this book to selected friends from which I know they like slower romances.

The Last Train Home is a contemporary romance book that explores the misgivings of adult decisions and what it means to ‘do the right thing’, through the lens of contemporary romance fiction.

Tom is a young bachelor working in finance and living in the heart of London and Abbie is a journalist living with her parents in Enfield. Despite being closer than they realised, the two never crossed paths until the last underground train home. It would have taken mere seconds to derail their meeting, but it was those few seconds that set the two up on an unexpected path.

Initial thoughts:
With booktok, we have seen the ‘tropification’ of book marketing and a rise in books being written around tropes, completely ignoring the aspects that make readers fall in love with stories. This is why Elle Cook’s take on contemporary romance has been a breath of fresh air.

The Last Train Home didn’t feel like a romance book. The book was a realistic story that focused on the lives of two people, and the decisions they made, who happened to fall in love. If the book didn’t end the way it did, I would have still been satisfied, as the romance was not the focus of the story as much as the life and development of Tom and Abbie were. In reality, the romantic love we find on the way can be an extraordinary tale, but in the end, it is only one aspect of our life, and it doesn’t detract from our life saga if it happens to end.

I had to put my phone down a couple of times in sheer anger, frustration, and disbelief at what some of the characters were saying and doing. Nevertheless, this made me love the book even more. I love having large reactions to a book, my heart swelling or clenching in time with the pacing; it submerges me into the plotline more and solidifies my emotional connection to the story.

Characters:
The story was written from a first-person, dual point-of-view (POV) perspective, giving us a chance to connect with both Tom and Abbie. The story was plot-driven and I feel as though I had more of a connection to the plot through Tom and Abbie than I did with the two characters themselves. I can’t say I know much about Tom and Abbie or that I care about the characters in any way. I was more concerned with how their lives would turn out and the consequences of their decisions, rather than how they felt about their decisions. Nonetheless, it was satisfying to see the two characters mature and grow, realising that the holes they dug themselves weren’t worth burrowing inside in the end.

We are introduced to characters who hold major importance to Tom and Abbie, however, they are not fleshed-out characters who hold a reader's attention. This is a feature in Cook’s writing style that I have noticed and surprisingly enjoyed. I’m used to books where we are introduced to numerous side characters who are fleshed out to the point where we root for them or ship them with other characters, invested in their lives as well as our main characters. It is interesting to read the opposite style but still fulfilling.

Tropes:
Cook’s ability to gently guide you through the story, as if you are there in spirit, is enthralling. Each scene felt like it was a friend sitting down to update me on their life. I could spot some tropes: right person wrong time, the miscommunication trope, and the pregnancy trope to name a few examples, but they were a part of the character’s lives instead of being plot devices to market the book.

As the miscommunication trope’s biggest hater, I can say that I still enjoyed that aspect of the book. It wasn’t written in the way it typically is, and it was subtle enough that you could argue it wasn’t there at all. I feel as though this trope is often used to create some sort of drama to move the plot along without the author considering if it even makes sense for the characters or the story, but here? Cook has thought it through and used Tom and Abbie’s characteristics to create that miscommunication, which makes it frustrating, but bearable.

A lifelong gripe of mine is that people often underestimate what it means to have a child, forgetting that this is a person. There are many things to be said about the dehumanisation of children and how this lends itself to the frivolous thinking surrounding having a child. This is a big reason why I despise the pregnancy trope, children are often thrown into the mix of messed up storylines in the name of shock value, or again, moving along the story and marketing. When done wrong, it becomes difficult to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story. It’s too realistic of a concept to ignore how it’s used in a fictional world, which is why I think it was done well in this book. Pregnancy is a real part of life and the way it was used in this story was realistic. I’m sure we have heard a million stories in real life about how pregnancy has affected people’s lives and relationships, and this story was no different from those.

My Rating:
I rate this book a solid five stars. I loved the storyline and the ending and how realistic the book felt. I think I could honestly read anything by Elle Cook and this is only her second contemporary book!

I enjoyed this one because it diverged from the typical narrative, highlighting the complexity of love and relationships. It skillfully depicted that the journey of love isn't always straightforward; sometimes, timing is askew, and life presents obstacles. Abbie and Tom emerged as remarkably relatable characters, and their genuine friendship struck a chord with me. I found myself eagerly rooting for them to navigate through the intricacies of their connection and come together in the end

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in return for an honest review

This is truly a book, you can’t help but fall in love with. Tom and Abbie are brought together by a tragic encounter on the tube. The story follows them over the years as their lives continue to intertwine with one another. A real emotional roller coaster of a read with unexpected twists and turns along the way

Talk about a slow burner!!! I could not put this down. Abbie and Tom meet on a train that ends up derailed, and start a friendship that turns into feelings. But things are never that easy... Beautifully written and Elle Cook's writing just gets you hooked! Loved it

The last train home is a beautiful slow burn type of romance that is perfect for the winter. We meet Abby and Tom on the train, where a terrible event leads to a beautiful friendship that could lead to more if there wouldn’t be some life obstacles to overcome first.
I just love the slow burn in Elle Cooks novels and the characters are just amazing.
Thank you yet again for an enjoyable, deep yet easy read.

This book got me out of a 20 day reading slump! It is an incredible - and heartbreaking - story about (very bad) timing and fate. I enjoyed reading about Abbie and Tom over the years and how their lives, characters, and personal connection developed. The book is wrote brilliantly and it's so easy to love all the right people, and hate all the right ones too. Genuinely a lovely story which made me laugh and cry.

I was gripped by this book from the off. Thankfully, this was taken on holiday with me and I sat by the pool and read this is one sitting.
Abbie and Tom are great. Really nice, relatable characters. They are caught up in an accident on the Tube and this ensures that they are going to be linked together forever.
Told over several years and from the POV of both Abbie and Tom, I was utterly invested in this.

I really enjoyed reliving the early 2000's which is when I would have been roughly the same age as Abbie and Tom and the memories just kept coming thick and fast.

I really hope that this book is as successful as it deserves to be.

I fell in love with this book. I really fell in love with the characters. They were so well developed. If you enjoy reading about modern relatable love stories, you'll love this as much as I did.

The main premise of this story was right person, wrong time. It reminded me of The First Time We Met by Jo Lovett. The train ride changed Abbie and Tom's lives, but an event drove them apart for majority of the story.

Of course, they'd definitely end up together as expected, so it was a waiting game to see when things would change in their lives as the years went by.

I enjoyed this story even though the ending felt a bit rushed, but that was to be expected in a way since they'd loved each other for the longest time.

Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Train Home is told from the perspectives of Tom and Abbie who meet on a train and grow close following a traumatic event. The book then follows them both over several years and how their relationship is challenged and grows.

Overall its a nice slow burn romance and the dual perspectives helps give the reader a better insight into both characters thoughts and feelings which I always enjoy in these types of books.

I found initially I was struggling with this book and I think the start is a little slow but it really picks up and pulls you in as it goes on.

Would recommend for anyone who enjoys a sweet romance story and wants an easy read.

This book kept me on my toes! It has such great characters that I literally could not put it down, I just needed to know what would happen next. I really loved Abbie and Tom and they were so amazing to follow.