The Last Kings of Sark

by Rosa Rankin-Gee

"My name is Jude. And because of Law, Hey and the Obscure, they thought I was a boy."

Jude is twenty-one when she flies in a private plane to Sark, a tiny carless Channel Island, the last place in Europe to abolish feudalism. She has been hired for the summer to give tutoring to a rich local boy called Pip. But when she arrives, the family is unsettling - Pip is awkward, over-literal, and adamant he doesn't need a tutor, and upstairs, his enigmatic mother Esmé casts a shadow over the house.

Enter Sofi: the family's holiday cook, a magnetic, mercurial Polish girl with appalling kitchen hygiene, who sings to herself and sleeps naked. When the father of the family goes away on business, Pip's science lessons are replaced by midday rosé and scallop-smuggling, and summer begins. Soon something surprising starts to touch the three together.

But those strange, golden weeks cannot last forever. Later, in Paris, Normandy and London, they find themselves looking for the moment that changed everything.

Compelling, dark and funny, The Last Kings of Sark is tale of complicated love, only children and missed opportunities, from an extraordinary new writer

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Love, Book Club, Queer

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2013

About the author

Hi! My name is Rosa.

I've written four novels and am working on my fifth, mostly at a McDonalds in Delhi, NY.

My first THE LAST KINGS OF SARK won Shakespeare and Company's Paris Literary Prize.

My second DREAMLAND has just been made into a 6-part drama for the BBC.

My third BACHELORETTES, is a romcom based on how I met wife, for Audible.

And my fourth, MY ONLY BOY, is coming out in May this year.

I live with my wife and our newborn daughter Mara in between a few different places, including the Catskills, the East Village and whenever I'm allowed to get back: England.

Reviews

[Jood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book for two reasons - "My name is Jude. And because of Law, Hey and the Obscure, they thought I was a boy” – that is absolutely me (although I spell my username a different way) so how could I resist? The other reason being that I have always wanted to visit Sark but never made it. So far, so good…

So, Jude goes to Sark to tutor sixteen year old Pip, despite the fact that she is not a teacher. How did she get the job? Apparently through an agency – hmmm. Anyway, there she is, tutoring Pip in preparation for his departure to the mainland and college. His parents are an odd couple to say the least. His French mother, Esme whose presence is more felt than seen because she spends most of her time in her bedroom sustained by Badoit mineral water and, seemingly, nothing else. Pip’s father, Eddie, a rather loud character, leaves for the mainland quite soon after Jude’s arrival. Then we have young, beautiful, eccentric Sofi, the cook, who is Polish, but is often at pains to point out that she’s from Ealing – why make her Polish? It serves no purpose. Over the long, hot, lazy summer Pip, Jude and Sofi become a threesome spending their days roaming the island, and doing not much else.

Rankin-Gee beautifully evokes the atmosphere of summertime on the island, but I felt the book was never going to end, as it doesn’t really develop into anything. It’s a sort of “coming-of-age-last-bit-of-youthful-enjoyment-before-Life-gets-Serious book which just didn’t grab me. The characters did not engage me at all, and the plot, such as it is, is flat and lifeless; having said that, the writing style and quality of writing is good, but it’s like having pretty wrapping paper around an empty box.

So much promise, but sadly not fulfilled….which made for an exasperating read.

[Maya Panika · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that seems to be about youth, love and loss, and the loss of youth and all that glory, told in three parts. I enjoyed the first bit, set on Sark and beautifully told with the yearning sense of days enjoyed with nostalgia even as they were being lived. It was a pleasantly poetic read, but one that never seemed to get where it thought it was going and in part two, it lost its way completely.
In the second part, the tale moves to France, where the three friends - Jude, Sofi and Pip - are a little older, more jaded and worldly-wise: that aside, I have no idea what the author was trying to say here. This bit (such a long bit, or did it only feel that long?) is full of disjointed conversations: I never knew who was speaking to whom (which says all you need to know about the strength of the characterisation; the voices are indistinct and interchangeable, I hardly ever knew who was speaking when I wasn't told). Were we supposed to guess? There was an arch sense of being played with: 'You think Jude is talking to Pip, don't you? Well you are so wrong...' but who are all these new people? New characters arise out of the spume and with as much solidity: we're never properly introduced, we never really get to know them and so we have no feelings for them at all; even when one of them dies in the most tragic of circumstances, I didn't care a jot. All feelings have to be reserved for Sofi, Jude and Pip, but they only ever circle each other, barely touching. After a while, this gets dreadfully tedious and eventually, very annoying indeed. If this had been a library book, I would have given up and returned it at this point.
The third section takes us back to Sark, and makes a halfway satisfying end to the story, but never really captures the promise of that first part.
Much of the writing is truly lovely; rich in myth and metaphor, but there's no story or substance, just a pretty cloud of nothing, sweet and insubstantial as candy floss.
I wish I'd liked it more. I loved it at the start, when it seemed so full of possibilities, when it still seemed likely that an interesting story might happen, but never did.
I'm torn on my rating. 2 stars means, 'it was OK' and it was more than that, but I can't bring myself to say 'I liked it'. Two and a half stars would be about right, but I can't give it that, so I'll be generous and round it up to three, for the beauty of the writing, and the setting.

[Rachmi · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at chapter 12 (30%)

ARC was provided by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.

The blurb intrigued me to read this book, that's why I requested it from NetGalley in the first place. Somehow I was kind of wish that I'll get Jane Eyre-esque story, a beautiful-romantic with mystery kind of story.

Sark island interesting enough with its mysterious vibe. I think the author did a good job describing it. However it was hard for me to connect to the story and the characters. I really tried but up to the end of chapter 12 I still couldn't care less with both of them. Jude, the main character and narrator of this story described most of everything but I got so little thing about her. Her co-worker, Sofi is an interesting character but I feel like she talked too much and her character overshadows Jude. It made me think why didn't give her own POV, instead of Jude since I got her story more than Jude. She came to Sark to tutor a boy, Pip, he is supposed to be an interesting character too, but he feels flat to me. It was like he was there just so Jude has someone to tutor while she even rarely tutors him. Esme, Pip's French mom, she's the one I thought could make the story more mysterious, but the way Jude describes her make her isn't mysterious enough for me to know what her story is. And Eddy, Pip's dad, he disappears a lot from the story I didn't get much about him.

And there is also something off with the way Jude tells her story. Maybe it's just me being a reader with English isn't my first language, maybe it's because I'm still learning it so I don't know much about it. But one thing for sure was I have problem reading her story. She likes using 'later'. It's kinda kill the element of surprise for me. I think I already know who or what will happen long before it happen or he/she enters the story since she tells me one step forward. Hence when a character enters the story and/or some things finally happened, it didn't interest me anymore. I also quite difficult to differentiate when and where she talks about something. I feel like she talks about one thing and then in the same paragraph it turns to other thing. I think the flow doesn't go smoothly.

All in all, I think this book has potential but I just couldn't connect to it and there weren't much happened till 30% of the story. To be honest, I tried a few times to pick this book up again and again in a span of 8 months. I feel bad I couldn't finish it, maybe it just isn't my cup of tea and it will work differently for other readers.

[Derval Tannam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and its characters a lot, especially Sofi. Jude was the least sympathetic of the three, so awkward and spineless, but I still enjoyed her story. I wanted more, as I always do in a good shorter book, but it was well-written and engaging. Pip's post-Sark section was especially sweet and brief. I'm deducting a star because some chapters dragged a little, and I didn't understand why the author was so coy about whether Jude's lovers/partners were men or women once she had left Sark. Definitely worth a read.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy received from the publisher for an honest review.

Do you have memories of long careless summer days when you were young? I certainly do, as I’m sure many of us do. The Last Kings of Sark is a novel about such a summer – and how those days can leave a lingering taint over subsequent years – making you want to go back to those youthful golden days.

“My name is Jude. And because of Law, Hey and the Obscure, they thought I was a boy.
Not even a boy. A young man, and someone who could teach their son. I was none of these things, apart from young. But a merchant banker called Edward Defoe flew me out to Sark on a private plane together with frozen meat and three crates of Badoit, and that’s how it started”

Jude is hired by wealthy Eddy Defoe to tutor his teenage son over the summer at their home on the tiny carless Channel Island of Sark. Flying into Guernsey as no planes are allowed to land on Sark, or fly over it blow a certain height, Jude travels by ferry to the island, and into another world, the last place to abolish feudalism, and into a summer that will change everything for her. Jude is twenty-one, herself from a privileged background of public school and St Andrews University. Jude’s pupil; Pip is awkward, determined he doesn’t need a tutor, while his painfully thin mother Esmѐ remains mostly upstairs her presence throwing a pall over the household. Also helping out in the Defoe house that summer is Sofi – Polish by way of Ealing, she is an exuberant nineteen year old, hired as cook and general dogsbody. Sofi’s cooking leaves rather a lot to be desired as does her hygiene standards – she sings to herself, cycles quickly through the pitch dark lanes of Sark, sleeps naked, and initially hates Jude. However the two are thrown together quite literally as they are both to share a small twin bedded room at Bonita’s – more a private house with gnomes in the garden than a hotel.

When Eddy leaves on business for a few weeks, summer really begins the three of them enjoying a wonderful golden freedom. Pip’s lessons are replaced by scallop smuggling with the Czech boys, rosѐ and afternoons on the beach. All good things of course must come to an end, and summer never lasts for long. Just a few days before Jude is due to leave, Eddy returns with his brother Caleb and his four teenage sons. Immediately the atmosphere changes sharply. Just like the sudden chill that can descend following a blistering hot day at the beach, leaving goosebumps over your skin, the tension in the house becomes palpable. Suddenly Sofi is not so sure of herself; she doesn’t understand the world of these boorish arrogant sexist males, a world Jude seems more able to adapt to. Planning to spend one last golden day together, Jude, Sofi and Pip are thwarted by the weather, a sudden storm brewing means that Jude will need to leave by the ferry that day. Sofi and Pip travel to Guernsey with Jude to say goodbye, and what happens between them in their last few hours together will make itself felt across the years that follow in Paris, Normandy and London. Naturally they make promises as they part, promising to meet at the Eifel Tower in Paris.

“As long as it ends where is began, with leaves, and light coming through them. With the sun. Sun on Pip, and sun on Sofi. The sun on all of us, when we were young, when we were kings.”

This coming of age novel of sexual awakenings and reminiscence of golden summers and lost youth is told in several ways. The first longest section of the book set in Sark is narrated by Jude, Rankin-Gee’s luminous prose and vibrant descriptions of Sark make for great reading. The second part of the book is narrated in a variety of voices, as the three friends move forward in life to different parts of Europe. The summer in Sark has left its mark, but those are days that can never be returned to. Things have changed, the world is a darker place – like those squally autumn days when summer has really finished; life is filled with responsibility, disappointment and even death.

The Last Kings of Sark is an excellent first novel, from an author I look forward to reading again in the future. If I am being totally honest I did greatly prefer the first section of the novel, but the ending comes together beautifully with a lovely sense of time having passed, and the poignancy of looking back at a time that felt perfect.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like this book had potential--the premise was good, but it was so disjointed at times that it swiftly became boring or painful to read. You could see where the story was headed but something is lacking that creates a cohesive narrative. Also, I never really quite figured out Jude's character. I feel like I should have had more of a connection since over half the book is told from her perspective. Maybe that's the point? All I got was that she is probably anorexic, she lies a lot about little things, is passive and insecure, and is kind of boring. Maybe it was supposed to highlight the fact that she's just figuring herself and her sexuality out?

[charlotte, · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2.5)

[raidah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can’t quite decide how much I enjoyed this. Enjoyed reading about what Pip, Sofi and Jude got up to during the fever dream-like summer. The yearning and growth came through in the later parts. Jude’s later chapters were a little vague, i don’t understand why. The last 100 pages didn’t hit the same as the first part of the book. I both like and don’t like the fact that they never got a proper reunion, all three of them. Mixed feelings but made me feel something so 3.5?

[Amy Skinner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weirdest thing happened to me with this book. I enjoyed the first half of the book, they left Sark and from then onwards I couldn’t get back into the flow of the book. I tried and tried but there was like a block. I finished it eventually but I felt frustrated by the end and ready to throw the book into the sea and be done with it. A real shame

[Linley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, nay. I gave up bored by trying to work out who was saying what, why and to whom.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ordinary Beginning, Intriguing End

About 130 pages into the book, I drafted the opening of a review: "Rosa Rankin-Gee's debut novel is pleasant enough, but I kept waiting for it to dig in and bite...." Three young people come together for a summer on the idyllic island of Sark, off the coast of Normandy. I liked them all, more or less, but nothing really happened. They got on but didn't fully engage, whether with each other or with me. I expected the book to continue in the same leisurely way to the end. But then, in the next 40 pages, several things happened that did bring them together. And in the last 100 pages, the author did something quite extraordinary: by treating the characters separately over the next several years, she managed not only to share some striking insights about life, but to make me care about these people in a way I never had when they were together.

The narrator of the first part, a recent graduate of St. Andrews University, is engaged sight unseen to tutor the teenage son of a wealthy businessman in the English Channel Islands. Her name is Jude, "and because of Law, Hey, and the Obscure, they thought I was a boy." When her employers get over their surprise, they board her with Sofi, the outspoken young woman hired to do the cooking. Pip, the 16-year-old boy, is pleasant, but arguably better educated already than Jude herself. His father Eddy is away most of the time, and Esmé, the boy's French mother, is a stick of a woman who spends most of her time in seclusion. What follows for most of the first is a fairly typical summer idyll, in which the three young people get to know one another, meet a few others on the island, and engage in no more than the usual risky behavior. Sark—a small rocky principality where cars are forbidden and everything nominally belongs to the Queen—seems nice, the people seem nice, and the book purls along—but is that really all there is?

Fortunately not. The summer comes to an abrupt end, and various feelings that had merely been hinted before suddenly come to the surface. In that end-of-summer way, the three agree to meet again someday in Paris. In fact, all three do go separately to Paris, or at least to France, and the second part of the novel gives us glimpses of them over the next decade. We keep waiting for this reunion that will close the circle and make true love flourish once more. But life isn't that simple. Each vignette shows one of the three having moved on further with his or her life, a little messily, and somewhat provisionally, as so often happens in one's twenties. But as each new chapter brings its small surprises, we see that out of accidents, mistakes, and little bursts of courage, each is building a future that will be both meaningful and true. I found myself surprisingly moved. Any romance author could have penned the first half of this novel, but its conclusion is the work of a true writer. [3.5 stars]

[Kanika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Their last night together healed something in me.

I spent the second half of the book chasing a reunion as did the characters.

My Kindle really has some unread bangers on it.
pun not intended

[Tim Roast · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Last Kings of Sark” is about love and about the long summers like you experienced when you were young and carefree. “The world was blond, the wind was warm. These were the days that were golden.”

The first part of the book is written from Jude’s point of view and sees her arrive in Sark at the beginning of summer to provide tuition to the only child, Pip, of Eddy and Esme. Things don’t start too well as they thought she would be a boy. (“My name is Jude. And because of Law, Hey and the Obscure, they thought I was a boy.”

Sark is painted as a small island with Jude being shipped in with meat supplies, and there are no cars on the island, and no roads, only golden paths which “were tree-lined, but the trees had grown up and bowed until they met at the top.” Bicycles are the mode of transport here.

Jude is 21, Pip is 16 and the hired help, Sofi, is 19 and, although at the beginning “I could tell straight away that Sofi didn’t like me,” their relationship develops into something special, what with Eddy often away on business and Esme bed-ridden. “It somehow worked, the three of us, tea after tea, tale after tale at the table.” And they also ventured outside to experience all the island.

But summer passes. “Our skin got darker and our hair got lighter, and summer passed like sand through our fingers.” And the love they develop for each other is lost forever although there is the promised reunion under the Eiffel Tower to look forward to. “I can’t wait to go. Baguettes man.”

The second half of the book is written differently with multiple points of views from the three characters from the first half as they all live in France but yet do not really see each other. And when Pip does meet Sofi “it feels forced, almost formal.” The feel is darker too with death and responsibilities rearing their heads.

Then the last chapter is a return to Sark to reminisce about that perfect summer once more “when we were young, when we were kings.”

So a coming of age novel where you can reminisce over the lost summers of youth, and also get into the lives of three characters you’ll come to love and long for them to be reunited once more.

[Star Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four very solid stars. I have to take away one star for the format of the book. I'm kind of an old-fashioned reader who likes my story sequential with obvious transitions. This novel is divided with a feel of short story chapters that combine to make up a whole book. We start with Jude on the first day of her summer tutoring job, and then more or less follow a timeline that spans 10 or so years. Unfortunately, I did feel a little lost sometimes. So, four stars it is.

The first chapter focuses on the longest stretch of time and has no particular order other than Summer, but I feel that was a very necessary technique. Part of the absolute beauty of this novel is Jude's complete awareness of time. It moves us forward, yet when we look back it doesn't seem to stack up in the same order it was made. The power of nostalgia warps our memories. Events make time move quickly and slowly all at the same time. It is an ever allusive quality, yet Rosa Rankin-Gee captures the essence of time here.

There is one particular section where no names are used, just the pronouns you and I. I have mixed feelings about this section. Because it took me until the end of the chapter to figure out who the characters were, I was able to read that particular chapter in a couple of different lights. This technique really made it obvious to me that there are three distinct voices to this novel. All the points of view are set out there, and we as readers really get to immerse ourselves in this love story. So, I guess in the end I didn't hate the technique as much as I started out.

This novel is certainly a story about love. Its complications, ups-and-downs, and the moment that you gain it forever or lose it. The story could also be placed in the category of coming-of-age in that magical summer. It always seems to be summer when people think they grow up, but winter when they realize that they haven't. I find that fascinating. And this novel really captures that fascination and awareness of time for me.

I was very impressed with this story. It was just beautiful. Not grand, or genre inventing. Beautiful.

[AJourneyWithoutMap · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Kings of Sark by Rosa Rankin-Gee is a gripping and expressive story about life, love and loss revolving around Jude, Sofi and Pip. Jude is 21, Sofi is 19 and Pip is 16. Jude was engaged to be Pip’s summer tutor, and in the process learned so much about herself, Pip and Sofi, and she got much more than what she expected. Spirited, buoyant, carefree and yet so tender, Rosa Rankin-Gee has hewed out of a simple plot a wonderful and beautiful story which will endear to many readers.

Funnily enough, her employers through Jude would be a boy and they were a bit shaken when she arrives in the small island of Sark at the beginning of the summer. It wasn’t the best start either as a tutor to Pip. But when the dust and din of the awkwardness settled down, Jude and Pip ended up liking each other so much that their primary task was thrown to the winds and Jude begins to see life in a new way. Jude and Sofi, who employed as a cook, also immediately bonded. Together, the three embark on a voyage of discovery exploring what summer sun brings for them.

What you have is a story that will draw you into it as you listen to Jude what she has to say as the early part of the story is told from her perspective, and then from multiple point of views, eventually rounding off with a return to Sark and a nostalgic portrait of an unforgettable summer many moons ago – when the voices in the book were the kings of Sark. Beautifully written, and so full of life, The Last Kings of Sark by Rosa Rankin-Gee is a debut novel the likes of which we do not come across too often.

[Ella Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this book is evocative and beautifully observed, which is why I gave it the benefit of the doubt with three stars. I couldn't connect with characters in the way I felt Rankin-Gee was intending, though. I found Sofi unlikeable, which meant that the dough-eyedness of Jude and Ben was often infuriating. I would have been enchanted by the insta-filter through which Rankin-Gee writes when I was younger, thinking Sofi a bold and enlivening girl, their friendships troubled and romantic, but actually I found the friendships based only on their desire to be liked, and lusted after - vaingloriously -, and I more wanted to find out about Jude's experiences as an adult as she seemed the most relatable character. I also expected Ben and Jude to find what they were looking for in each other, and felt hard done by every time the adulation of the narrative pivoted on Sofi. I felt like my appreciation for the arc of the story would have been improved by some sort of betrayal on Sofi's part, as I felt like there was no real epiphany reached about that Summer, nor the fact of the distance that grows between them. Saying that, the last chapter was beautifully written and - again - inspired my giving the book the benefit of the doubt. For all the aforementioned ambivalence, I did feel susceptible to Rankin-Gee's enchanting vision as an author in so much as I'd like to go for a coffee with her, and I hope that she writes more books for me to tear quickly though (as I did, in one weekend).

[Bob H · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reader could call it "summer reading," in a way, both as an escapist novel -- and as a romance in a romantic setting, a wealthy family's vacation home on the remote, scenic and somewhat exotic isle of Sark, present day. The story focuses on two quirky young women: Sofi, 19, who cooks for the family, is of Polish ancestry but insists she's really from Ealing; and Jude, 21, who is there to tutor the family's only child, the teenaged Pip. There's also the father, Eddy, who is absent on business a lot, and the mother, Esmé, who is also absent, closeted upstairs. It's mainly about an idle, idyllic and somewhat boozy summer spent together by Sofi, Jude and Pip, three people on the cusp of adulthood, told at a pace that is concise and fast-reading, albeit because they are sketched, rather than detailed.

That's the first half of the book. The second half is more like an extended epilogue, and in place of the linear narrative of the first half the reader experiences a series of episodes, vignettes, mostly in various parts of France. It's a bit jarring, and a bit darker, and winds up with a separate finale that resolves things but seems pasted-on. The reason this still works is because Sofi, Pip and Jude are compelling, if somewhat reticent, characters that readers may care about, and their subsequent stories are intriguing enough. The book seems a little disordered but maybe this story and these lives are disorderly enough, and it's worthwhile.

[Courtney Maum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished "The Last Kings of Sark," and now I am listless, and in a saddened mood. This story, about three young people who forge a special friendship during what might have otherwise been a solitary summer on a remote island is a sensual hymn to youth, and innocence, to lust, to passion, to the thrill of cold water and skin warmed by the sun. My only regret is that I didn't get to spend more time with Pip, Sofi and Jude on the island of Sark-- I missed their hard won camaraderie in the second half of the book, but alas, that is the point. The opening of this novel is simply breathtaking-- it seems unfair that the author is so young and already writes like this—a spellbinding mixture of Didion, Proust, and just when you don't expect it, short gasps of power, à la Steinbeck. I would be very jealous of her if she weren't a lovely friend!

[Renee Lareau · Rating 4 out of 5]

My editor friend hooked me in with this description of the book:

"Do you remember those last days of summer, when the real world was tantalizingly just around the corner, but you were firmly planted in the sun and the glory and the beach and the friends you loved beyond measure? THE LAST KINGS OF SARK transported me back to those hazy, amazing, electrifying days and nights of pure love and fierce friendship, when all of us would last forever. If I close my eyes and reach back around the corner, the world of Jude, Sofi, and Pip is just within my grasp. . ."

Loved this book! Gave it four stars instead of five because the first half was riveting and the second half lost me a bit, but it was because the first half was so GOOD!

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how this book evoked the minutiae of life so beautifully, yet so simply. Snapshots of time like super 8. Not at all in a precious instagrammed way. How young relationships imprint indelibly throughout a decade or even more, even as other people and things happen.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have no idea what to make of this book. The writing is pretty good, but the story is lackluster, to say the least. Extremely predictable.

[Simon S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jude — not the boy everyone might assume — is on her way to the Channel Island of Sark to tutor a local child. She’s being flown out in a private plane, though this is not quite the treat she’d imagined; it usually carries frozen meat, and the only place for her to sit is the co-pilot’s seat. She arrives filled with apprehension.
The family are a little taken aback to see a young woman — the father, Eddy, may have form when it comes to getting involved with the help — and while not overtly hostile, their welcome is decidedly muted. Pip, the boy she’s come to tutor, is unresponsive and sullen. The only glimmer of light comes from Sofi, the recently arrived cook, with whom Jude will share a room in a (relatively) nearby hotel.
I really loved this book. Rankin-Gee captures beautifully Jude’s fumbling hesitancy, her lack of confidence, and her determined, youthful effort to remake herself as the competent tutor everyone was expecting. Pip, bright and resentful, is at first unresponsive and clearly not in need of any schoolroom guidance Jude can offer.
Sofi — Polish by way of Ealing — is a marvellous creation, and I defy any reader not to be captivated by her; she’s a fizzing spark of will and guileless wisdom.
Eddy is often away on business, and Pip’s mother, Esme, tends to stay in her room, leaving the young people to explore the island together and bond over the long summer. There’s a glorious sensual glow to this part of the book, a compelling mix of languor and urgency, knowing the magic cannot last.
As summer closes, their idyll is punctured by the arrival of some privileged boors, and their final hours of closeness bring a change that will shape all their lives.

The second part of the book follows Jude, Pip, and Sofi over the following decade or so as they process their relationships to each other, promises they made, and the things they experienced during their summer on Sark.

This is quite an achievement for a debut novel. Assured and rich, Rankin-Gee’s articulation of place, character, and emotion throughout this compelling story is winning, playful and wholly persuasive.

[A J HOOPER · Rating 3 out of 5]

I assume that the title the Last Kings of Sark refers to changing times for the island of Sark. The young people who are the main protagonists are markedly different to the adults in the same household. Constant mention is made of the rich man on the island who seems to be buying his way into the community in contrast to old established ways. When one of the characters revisits the island many years later special notice is taken of the day trippers, not a new phenomenon but much much busier than in former years. Change yet again.
The story is about Jude who comes to work as a tutor to teenager Pip, Pip's move into maturity and the Polish cook, Sofi who is actually from Ealing. There is something about Rosa Rankin-Gee's writing here that reminded me of Francoise Sagan's first book Bonjour Tristesse. I think it was the kind of flat certainty of very young people, common to both books, plus these were young people described through the eyes of another young person, the author. Writers are regularly told to write about what they know and this is what Rosa has done. She herself went to work as a cook on Sark after finishing her degree and I suspect that large chunks of the book are distinctly autobiographical.
She writes beautifully but this is an immature first book. I'm about to start Dreamland, her second, on the grounds that she has moved on.

[Kiera · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT

I think I was underwhelmed by this book, because I read Dreamland a few days ago, and as was incredibly impressed by it. This was published in 2013, and Dreamland in 2021 so perhaps if I had read the books in that order I would have enjoyed it more.

Despite this, I did struggle halfway through this book to persist reading finding it laborious in parts to continue. I continued through a compulsion to do so, and even when I do not like a book I do tend to finish it. The characters are fairly two dimensional, and I didn't particularly warm to any of them. The latter part of the book left me bored.

Having visited Sark last summer, this is what also drew me to the novel. The descriptions of the island are brilliant and cannot be faulted, and really do conjure up what it feels like to be there. The mention of real pubs and cafes also added to this.
Yet the mention of the 'Farquat' family; a fictional billionaire family who own a castle, distribute newsletters on Sark and own properties there is so obviously describing the Barclay brothers - who do own a gothic castle on Brecqhou island, which is under the jurisdiction of Sark. This I can understand, but later in the book the Barclay brothers are mentioned as friends of the Farquats when attending an annual mass - which I found bizarre.

Overall I was disappointed and would not recommend this book.

[Samantha Penrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with some other reviewers, that the second half of the book was something of a let down, but I believe that it was the author's intention to make the reader feel as lost, disjointed, and unfulfilled as the characters continued to feel after they left Sark and parted ways...
Such is life.
I give to you, my two favorite quotes that capture the mood. The first quote is from the first part of the book, the second quote is closer to the end.

page 115 "Lying in the dark at night is the best. Everything you say could be said quicker in the light, where you are not allowed to look away and think about something else, or be quiet. But in the dark, there is so much to say. You talk all night. You can't see dandruff or chipped teeth or dappled skin. The camera is in soft focus."

page 229 "'It's not a choice to be like this,' she says. 'It's the way it happens.'
'It is a choice.'
'Not.'
'Its the torture of it, Jude. You like the minor keys.'
'I don't.'
'The nearlies and could-bes.'
'You don't know what you're talking about.'
'The maybes.'
'I get it.'
'It's what a teenager does.'
'You're not a teenager anymore.'

[poopy swag · Rating 2 out of 5]

I literally could not finish this book. It started out as just like a story it didn’t go anywhere except for the very end of the first part was what I was hoping for but also there was no lead up it was very confusing??? But the second half like what was that… I could not tell who is who who was talking to who it didn’t lead anywhere this whole book was like there’s nothing going on it’s just like someone telling a very long boring story. I like the aesthetic and the setting in the vibes but other than that this was shit. I’m also very confused because I was so hoping for this to be like a lesbian love story but it literally wasn’t maybe that did happen at the very end but I could not tell you. I really tried to finish this book and I hate writing reviews when i haven’t finished but reading this started to physically pain me!

[Kirsty Keddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the reviews for this book before buying it which I don’t normally do and was therefore fully prepared to find it lose focus halfway through.
In fact I disagree with those reviews.
I bought the book largely because of the setting of Sark for part one and greatly enjoyed that part and recognising the descriptions of Sark and her people. However I found part 2 & 3 equally well written as the story follows how life and love panned out for the three over the coming years and the impact that the summer in Sark had on them all.
In my opinion a beautifully written debut novel about love and life and the impact that first love has on the rest of your life.

[Christi Poulsom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an odd one, loved the author's style in the main, though found it quite difficult to work out which character I was reading about.
It felt really disjointed after the first part. While I don't need neat endings, I couldn't really connect the whole and there were some really random bits that went nowhere [especially the little girl in the window] that I couldn't really see the point of including.
Picked this up because I spent a day on Sark many years ago, but apart from drunken bike rides it could really have been set anywhere.
I'll read more books by this author but how they are a bit more developed.

[Paltia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a touching story that leads a reader, like me, into the land of memories. A summer on an island where three souls join in losing themselves to the moment. It follows them in a serpentine pathway, to years later where each of them is given time to reflect. There are periodic currents of tension and menace. There are moments of sheer bliss. These times invite you to pause and reflect on your own passage of time and what you have left behind. This reads at a languid pace but never becomes boring or trivial. In fact, I read it straight through.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰:
For some reason, I picked this up thinking it was going to be a bit thriller-y (?!). I was wrong.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading about the escapades of Jude (the hillarious), Sofi, and Pip.

As much as there were moments that made me laugh, it also touched on serious topics such as xenophobia.

The last part was quite a hard read, wondering if they would all meet again. It's fair to say the last chapter left me with a lump in my throat.

A solid debut.

** I would like to know though who Jude met in The Chaperone, The Children chapter. I mean, what was it all about??