Emma @damppebbles is honoring #bookbloggers with her annual #R3COMM3ND3D2023 – and today is myday! November 18, 2023 Wow. Seriously. Just beautiful. So many wonderful elements… So many memorable characters… Beautiful and utterly affecting.’ Louise Beech Mabel begins reaching out to others, opening up her formerly closed off life. Mabel learns to explore new things, something she refused to do for much of her marriage. She also realizes that she isolated herself, and she begins the process of reaching out and making friends. The women she brings into her life range greatly in ages and experiences, and all have their own troubles. All the women, including Mabel, gain tremendously from their new relationships with each other. Since writing The Secret Life of Albert Entwisle, I've been inundated with books in the uplit genre but this is by far the best I've read... It's moving, life-affirming and utterly wonderful.' Matt Cain, author

Surprisingly, Arthur has prepared for his passing by hiring someone to come in to their home for two hours each day. This carer is named Julie, and despite Mabel's initial misgivings, Julie becomes a true friend, helper, and confidant. Through Julie, and her own newfound courage, Mabel meets other friends. A teenager who works at the local market. A seventy year old dance instructor, and a young mother with a tiny daughter. Suddenly Mabel doesn't feel so alone and she is experiencing camaraderie for the first time in decades. She has a new lease on life at the tender age of eighty-six. Her new friends set about to help Mabel find her old friend Dot. DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Boldwood Books via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow,always’.Mabel and Arthur Beaumont were married for over sixty years, and when he dies suddenly, Mabel is left isolated and grieving. Then she finds a list that he left her saying "Find D", and Mabel decides to act on it. The last list he left had one item on it, Find D. Mabel thinks he must have meant her old friend Dot. Although she hasn’t seen Dot for over 60 years, they were completely inseparable for many years. Dot left without so much as a goodbye and it’s bothered Mabel ever since that day.

But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’.I am not sure if the complete personality change in Mabel after Arthur's death was intentional in the "I am out of prison now, so I no longer have to pretend" or if it was just a plot device to show character growth, If it was a plot device, it failed for me, because the change was so dramatic. With the home health aide's help, Mabel develops three close friendships and reaches out on her own to a young adolescent. These three women come to support her in her quest to find her best friend, Dot, who disappeared right before her wedding to Arthur. The young adolescent allows Mabel to be giver. Eighty six year-old Mabel and 89-year-old Arthur have been married for more than sixty years. He’s all about moving forward, trying new things and loves a list, whereas she is about quiet contemplation and reflection. The couple are the proverbial chalk and cheese. Now Arthur has suddenly gone and it’s just her and what will she do without him? The final entry on Arthur’s last list says “Find D“. Does he mean Dot, a good friend who drops off the radar who Mabel hasn’t seen for 62 years? After some understandable wallowing due to his loss, she gives herself a metaphorical shake and makes a list of her own, five things which includes “find D“. Though this task seems impossible with the help of new found friends, Mabel is determined to try. Love the character of Mabel, she undergoes such development and growth throughout the story. She’s lived a different life than what she wanted, not a particularly bad one with her husband, but she suffered losses of many kinds. Her brothers death changed things, her best friend departed without explanation and Mabel made the safe/sensible choice. This is a very uplifting novel. With themes of aging, loss, societal expectations, and the acceptance of change, it was a poignant and very satisfying story of female friendships. There are a couple of neat little twists, and the final one concerning Arthur's note "Find D" was delightful.

I adored every moment, I was hoping that this mystery quest would have a good resolution and that every character found the happiness they were looking for. My thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Last List of Mabel Beaumont”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Laura Pearson has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester. She lives in Leicestershire with her husband, their two children and a much-cuddled cat. It’s gorgeously written and the reader easily becomes absorbed in the story and invested in the characters and the outcome. Mabel and her friends will take over a warm space in your heart, and they’ll stay there for a very long time! What she doesn’t know is that her list isn’t just about finding her old friend. And that if she can admit the secrets of the past, maybe she could even find happiness again…

At the age of eighty-six, Mabel Beaumont loses Arthur, her husband of over sixty years. Mabel is a quiet and reserved individual and her husband was the one who was relatively more outgoing and expressive and also fond of making lists. As Mabel grapples with her loss, she finds her husband’s unfinished list with an item “Find D” on it. Mabel believes Arthur meant to find Dot, once Mabel’s best friend and her deceased older brother’s love interest. After Bill’s sudden demise and Mabel’s engagement to Arthur over sixty years ago, Dot disappeared from their lives. Mabel embarks on a quest to find Dot and finds a kindly and supportive group of people who are intent to help her – Julie, the new caregiver Arthur had arranged for her; Kristy a kindly neighbor and new mother in her thirties; Patty, a dance instructor in her seventies and Erin, a sixteen-year-old girl who Mabel meets in her local grocery store. For someone who has mostly kept to herself all her adult life, Mabel finds herself increasingly involved in the lives of her new friends, adding more items to her (Arthur’s which she expands upon) list and reflecting on people and events from her past – the people she loved and lost, her regrets and secrets about herself she has never been able to share with anyone. Mabel's quest for Dot and her plans to help her friends, (though efforts don’t always produce the desired results), each of whom is struggling with personal problems, gives Mabel a sense of purpose, in turn inspiring her to approach her own life from a fresh perspective. Written in elegant prose with superb characterizations and a realistic and relatable take on relationships – family, marriage, love and friendship -I found this to be a lovely story that will touch a chord in your heart.

There is a minor touch of the surreal in the book, through Mabel’s habit of seeing Arthur around the house. I simply adored their relationship. How such a long marriage results in such compatibility and comfort despite certain basic differences in marital expectations comes out wonderfully through this story. All in all, this is a really sweet and touching book, filled with moments of love, care and concern. I guess the only negative for me was that even in its USP, it doesn’t venture much out of its comfort zone. Still, if you want a warm and fuzzy read, this is a great book for that mood. It isn’t possible, to erase the lives we’ve lived. We only have today, and whatever future we’re granted.” EXCERPT: When Arthur woke, he asked what he had missed, and we told him nothing. But it wasn't quite true, I don't think. It felt like something had shifted infinitesimally, between the four of us. The truth was, and always had been, that he was the one I could have done without, the one I cared about the least. How strange he was the one I spent my life with, in the end.Something interesting that I found when comparing this to similar real-life situations where one partner passes away after being in a long-term relationship, is that the remaining partner will often embark on a fulfilling, active life that’s sometimes quite different from the one they shared with the loved one that they lost. At the surface level, the story seems quite easy-going. But Mabel’s life contains many secrets, and as we learn her thoughts through her own first-person perspective, we understand how her life isn’t what it seems. While her biggest secret was quite guessable to me, it was still written well. It seems impossible. She doesn't even know if Dot's still alive. Also, every person Mabel talks to seems to need help first, with missing husbands, daughters, parents. Mabel finds her list is just getting longer, and she's still no closer to finding Dot. Such a treat!... Just beautiful... Charming, warm and moving... A beautifully written story about love and longing, and a poignant reminder that it's never too late to follow your heart.' Holly Miller, author Arthur was always the list maker but Mabel made her own task list to accomplish. Despite her age, her judgement seemed rather questionable at times although the decisions were made with good intent and I did worry at what the outcomes would be.