Eliza is determined to find him and bring him home because he’s the only one who can save her from a future she does not want and a man she does not love. Eliza has heard rumors that he may be at a work camp in the Keys, which is what has brought her to Florida. She tries to play it cool and be coy about why she’s traveling so far alone, but the truth is that she’s desperately searching for a long-lost family member. The last young woman we meet is Eliza, a native New Yorker who has traveled to the Keys. As with Helen, I immediately became invested in Mirta and her well being. As they arrive in the Keys on their honeymoon before heading home to NYC, Mirta is feeling incredibly anxious, having been forced to leave her family and the only home she has ever known to go with this man who is a stranger to her. Her marriage is an arranged marriage to pay off her family’s debts and all Mirta knows about the man she has married is that he is from New York and that he appears to be involved in an unsavory and potentially dangerous line of work. Mirta, a young woman from Cuba, has come to the Keys with her new husband. Helen captured my heart right from that scene because imagine being in such a bad situation that trying to make it alone in the world with an infant in the middle of the Depression is preferable to living with your own husband. When we first meet Helen, she is daydreaming about what life could be like if her husband were to die. She is nine months pregnant and married to an abusive man whose abuse has only gotten worse as times have gotten more desperate. Helen has lived in the Keys all her life. Set in the Florida Keys during the Great Depression, Chanel Cleeton’s latest novel, The Last Train to Key West is a heart-stopping read that follows three young women whose lives are forever changed when a devastating hurricane strikes.

The Last Train to Key West by Chanel CleetonĪmazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book DepositoryįTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley.

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