The Last Kings of Sark
A Novel

Quotes

“A luminous, enchanting novel about friendship, loss, and love. Exquisitely written, beautifully told, THE LAST KINGS OF SARK is a world I won't soon forget.” —Anton DiSclafani, New York Times bestselling author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

“With THE LAST KINGS OF SARK, Rosa Rankin-Gee has woven an irresistible and heady spell of youth and summer, love and friendship. Her energetic prose and attention to sensual detail will keep you reading greedily until the last page and thinking about the characters long afterwards. What an enchanting debut.” —Joanna Hershon, author of A Dual Inheritance and Swimming

“Rosa Rankin-Gee's The Last Kings of Sark is a cracklingly witty, earnestly heartbreaking novel about a young girl who is sent to be a tutor on a remote island as majestic and magical as Evelyn Waugh gone to Neverland. What begins as a reminiscence of a summer-to-remember, turns elegantly into a powerful story about what happens when you fall into a love that cannot be forgotten in three lifetimes.” —Kristopher Jansma, author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

“Funny, vivid, bittersweet” —Ned Beauman, author of The Teleportation Accident

“Rosa Rankin-Gee is a sophisticated stylist and her prose feels sharp and sleek. This is a book full of friendship and adventure and love and pigeons which fly out from pineapples. Like every great novel, it has magic at its core. It feels very modern too, like it has been written by a writer of a new time. Rankin-Gee is a writer we will all want to read again and again.” —Monique Roffey, author of The White Woman on the Green and Archipelago

“A stunningly well-written first novel.
” —The Times, UK

“Lithe, shimmering novel. . . ends explosively, but also with extreme tenderness, an unforgettable finale.” —The Guardian, UK

“The past and present join together in a tale of a summer love that weaves its tendrils around three young hearts and still grows there decades later . . . create[s] vital characters and paint[s] wonderfully with words . . . interesting and thought-provoking.” —Kirkus

“Rankin-Gee's prose moves with a languid pace that vividly showcases Sark's – as well as her characters' – peculiarities . . . hidden surprises and a beautifully written, bittersweet ending pack a vivid emotional punch.” —Publishers Weekly

“Exploration of sexual identity and upended expectations . . . sure to send readers into contemplation of loves long gone and left more appreciative of them. As in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, the narrator's awareness of storytelling conventions create opportunities to reflect on how memories form, and fans of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife will enjoy the ebb and flow of time. Debut author Rankin-Gee's keen insights into romantic negotiations belie her youth. The confident narrative will be a shot in the arm for bored book club planners, and the fluid sexuality will be a welcome (if overdue) offering for readers of LGBT fiction.” —Library Journal, starred review

“Rankin-Gee's tactile, mellifluous prose is on full display here, as the tiniest details help fully immerse readers in the otherworldly island setting . . . full of deep, unshakable bonds, twists of fate, and the power of nostalgia.” —Booklist

“Freshly innocent and self-assured - each word seems chosen with extreme care.” —New Yorker