The Last Train Home: A gorgeous will-they-won't-they romance to curl up with this winter

by Elle Cook

Overview

A will-they-won't-they love story about two people who cross paths on the last train home and spend seven years finding their way back to one another. Perfect for fans of Beth O'Leary and Laura Jane Williams.

'Two sparkling leads who will steal your heart!' Holly Miller
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On the last train home you expect to find...
- Standing space only
- Drunk people singing
- The overpowering smell of McDonalds

You never expect to find love.

When Abbie and Tom cross paths traveling home after a night out, their eyes meet across a crowded carriage and their connection is unmistakable.

What they don't know is that moments later they'll both be caught up in an event that will change them forever.
It is one that will bring them together. But it will also tear them apart.
A lot can happen in seven seconds. A lot can happen in seven years.
Can they find their way back to each other?
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Don't miss THE LAST TRAIN HOME!

"I absolutely devoured this funny, moving, unputdownable novel." —Jenny Ashcroft
"A wonderful, heart-warming, different love story." —Tracy Rees
"A beautiful, uplifting story from start to finish." —Virginia Heath
"A compelling modern love story brimming with emotion and heart." —Fiona Gibson
"Romantic, warm and swoon-worthy." —Emily Stone
"A touching story of love, fate and second chances." —Fiona Lucas

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529157765
Publisher:	Penguin Random House UK
Publication date:	09/24/2024
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elle Cook worked as a journalist and in PR before becoming a full-time novelist. The Last Train Home is her second contemporary romance novel and her follow-up to The Man I Never Met. She is also the author of five historical timeslip novels under her real name, Lorna Cook. The Girl from the Island, The Dressmaker's Secret and The Hidden Letters have sold over 200,000 copies combined. She lives in coastal Essex with her husband and two daughters.

Editorial Reviews

Chapter 1

Abbie
October 2005

Why is it that so many of us can talk to the person opposite us
on a train when it’s midnight and everyone’s been out having
fun, but you would never in a hundred years do the same
thing on the morning commute? And how is it that every
train journey is the same as all the other journeys that have
come before, until it’s not? An ordinary day that becomes
unlike any other. Because of a moment. Because of a person.
Because of an event beyond anyone’s control.
I dash down the Underground stairs at Tottenham Court
Road and run onto the Central Line Tube just as the doors
close. I lean back on the glass partition and breathe in with
a sense of triumph. When I look back at this exact moment,
I often wonder if it’s fate that I made it in time. That I was
supposed to be there, on the last eastbound train of the night.
Supposed to meet Tom.
How different everything might have been if I hadn’t run
a bit faster, hadn’t downed my drink and left the pub a little
bit earlier. In the end, perhaps it was always meant to be
like this.
'That was lucky. I didn’t think you were going to make it
in time.’ I look up to see where the voice came from. There’s
a man about my age wearing a deep-grey suit, standing and
looking up at me from his newspaper. He looks vaguely
familiar, as if I might have passed him in the street. Maybe.
I give him a quick, polite smile, sharing in my silent joy
that I didn’t get stuck on the platform, missing the last train
and having to get a taxi all the way home, or (and I think
this might be worse) stuck between the doors as they closed,
bouncing off me, prompting everyone to glance up and stare
at the person causing the delay. That’s happened to me before
and it is humiliating.
There are no free seats, so I stay where I am as the train
leaves the station.
‘I didn’t think I was going to make that, either,’ I confess
over the noise of other intoxicated and buoyant travellers
making their way home on one of the last Tubes of the night.
I’m breathless. I can hear it in my own voice. I open my
nearly empty water bottle and drink the last of it.
‘I’ve got one I’ve not opened yet,’ he says in a slightly
slurred voice. ‘Do you want it?’
‘Ah, that’s really sweet, but it’s OK. I’m sure I’ll make
it home without dehydrating.’ No matter how parched and
tipsy I am, I can’t take someone’s water bottle from them
when I’ve only just met them. That’s so weird.
He smiles, glances back down at his newspaper and I find
myself watching him absent-mindedly as a bunch of blokes,
dressed in matching football T-shirts with Hawaiian garlands
draped round their necks, make their way towards us through
the busy carriage, singing drunkenly. The man opposite me
looks up. Everyone looks up with amused expressions. It’s
hard not to share in their joy, as they’ve brought the revelry
in this carriage up about a hundred points.
They amble past, cheering and singing, and find a space
further down the carriage. I’m still watching them and chuck-
ling to myself when the man who offered me his water says,
‘What do we think? Are they on a stag-do or on their way
home from a match?’
Overcoming my reservations about conversing with
strangers is easy when I’m half a bottle of wine and three
cocktails into the night. ‘Hmm, tough one,’ I reply with an
expression that pretends I’m really thinking about it. ‘The
Hawaiian garlands are throwing me.’
‘Me too,’ he says.
‘Shall we ask them?’ I offer.
‘Go for it,’ he replies with a smile that makes the sides of
his blue eyes crinkle. ‘Tenner says it’s a stag-do.’
‘But what if I also think it’s a stag-do – then who wins
the money?’
He narrows his eyes. ‘I think I’m too drunk to understand
what you’ve just asked me.’
‘Excuse me!’ I call down to the group of jubilant men.
‘Have you had a really good night out or is one of you getting
married?’
They cheer loudly and shove one of their number towards
me. ‘This is Jonno,’ one cheers. ‘He’s just lost his virginity, so
we’re celebrating—’
‘Sod off!’ Jonno looks incensed and rolls his eyes. ‘I’m
getting married in a week. It’s my stag-do.’
‘Congratulations,’ we say in unison.
Jonno leans forward and clinks his can of lager with us.
‘Cheers,’ he says loudly, and we cheers him in return.
‘Where have you guys been?’ the man opposite me asks
Jonno, who is now swaying from side to side as the train
carriage takes us through the network of tunnels carrying
me towards Liverpool Street to catch my overground train
home.
Jonno lists an American restaurant and a few bars near
Oxford Street, then his mates start singing a song about him
losing his virginity and Jonno turns back and gamely joins in.
‘I remember those days,’ the man opposite says to me. ‘All
those tourist traps luring me into London because we didn’t
know anywhere better to go.’
‘Same,’ I reply. ‘I used to love getting dressed up and
catching the train to go clubbing at Fabric.’
He makes a face. ‘Fabric. I think I just travelled back in
time.’
‘Ha,’ I laugh, noticing his playful smile. He’s quite good-
looking and fun, a combination I can really get behind.
‘Where have you been tonight then?’ I ask. The train doors
open for the next station and someone does exactly what I did
earlier and only just makes it into the carriage in time, slicing
through the middle of our chat before we move off again.
He tells me the name of a private members’ club. ‘A friend
goes there and I was thinking about joining, but I’m not sure
I’d use it enough, so . . .’
‘That sounds like a wild Thursday night out,’ I deadpan.
‘He thought I needed cheering up. I’ve recently called time
on a relationship, and apparently extortionately priced drinks
in graveyard-quiet surroundings are always the answer.’
‘Sounds awful,’ I say. ‘I’ve never set foot in a private mem-
bers’ club, and this has probably confirmed that I’m not sure
I’m supposed to.’
His eyes crinkle again as he smiles. ‘It’s not the most
appropriate place to get wasted,’ he agrees. ‘Where’ve you
been then?’
‘A bar near my friend’s work in Bond Street,’ I say and
then realise this also doesn’t sound too wild.
‘A few drinks after work in a bar turns into a few drinks
in another bar, turns into going to a members’ club,’ he says
knowingly.
‘Oh,’ I say teasingly, ‘I see how easily it all gets out of hand.’
‘Thursday’s the new Friday – or so I keep hearing.’ He
chuckles and I lean back, relaxing against the glass partition.
He watches me with that smile still on his face and I wonder
if this silly chat is going to lead somewhere even flirtier. Prob-
ably not. I’m getting off in a few stops.
‘Where are you headed then?’ I ask over the increasing
noise of the Tube as it speeds up over the tracks.
We have to lean in to hear each other, and there’s a faint
scent of pine or something similar on his skin as he dips his
head and says, ‘I’m off to meet someone at Bank.’
‘Off to carry on the partying?’
‘Something like that. You?’
‘Home. Bed.’
‘Home and bed sounds like a good idea,’ he says wistfully.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see people giving each
other looks. We’re the drunk people on the train who can’t
stop talking, although Jonno and his crew are still going
strong further down the carriage, still loudly trying to make
something rhyme with the word ‘virginity’.
‘I really want to join in with the word “affinity”,’ I tell
the guy. ‘But I might not be drunk enough to take part in a
stag-do singalong.’
‘I am definitely drunk enough,’ he says, as if trying to
work himself up to chiming in, and then bottles it. ‘No, I can’t
do it. What about the word “infinity”?’ he suggests to me.
‘“Infinity” works. I think.’
‘Flexibility?’ He’s on a roll now.
‘In the city?’ I suggest, but fail to make it rhyme.
‘Losing your virginity with flexibility to infinity in the
city?’ he says, and I laugh.
‘We have a hit on our hands here,’ I say. ‘But I’m not sure
it all rhymes.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t need to rhyme,’ he says. ‘Maybe it
shouldn’t rhyme. Also,’ he says as if it’s a huge secret, ‘per-
haps there are no words that truly rhyme with “virginity”.’
‘It’s probably for the best or else there’d be more songs
about it,’ I say.
‘Which would be weird,’ he says.
‘Which would be weird,’ I echo.
I glance over at the guy who got on the train at the last
stop. He is doing his best not to laugh at us, which in turn
makes me smile. The train pulls into Chancery Lane station,
he gets off, the doors close and we head off again.
‘Are we the weirdos on the train?’ my new friend says,
echoing my thoughts.
‘I think so, yes.’
‘I can’t believe I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never been the
weirdo on the train before,’ he says, opening his bottle and taking
a sip. He sounds quite plummy, sort of posh, now that I’m paying
attention. Although that might just be his slurring confusing me.
‘Congratulations,’ I say. ‘I’m twenty-four and I think this
is my first time too. Or maybe we have been the weirdos on
the train, but we never realised it.’
'Profound,’ he says with a mock-serious face.
‘I know,’ I return with a matching expression.
He drops his newspaper as he drinks and I bend to pick
it up for him, passing it back. I look at the front page for a
second as the train speeds up. The headline’s talking about
plans for the Olympics, now that London has won the bid to
host them in 2012. That’s for ever away.
Seven years.
A lot can happen in seven years.
A lot can happen in seven seconds.
At that moment there’s an earth-shattering bang, followed
by creaking and the noise of metal twisting. It’s a sound unlike
anything I’ve ever heard before. The man in front clutches
the handrail and I do the same. There’s confusion and crying
and I reach up to touch my head and I’m sure there’s blood,
but the lights have gone out in the carriage and I can barely
see anything. A few people issue a shocked kind of scream.
And then there’s crying. I think it’s me. I think it’s everyone.
And then there’s nothing.

From the Publisher