The Last Noel

Book excerpt: Award-winning author Michael Malone's The Last Noel is a beautiful gift to American fiction. In a deeply touching tale, The Last Noel captures the exuberance and poignance of a lasting friendship between a man and a woman from very different backgrounds. Noni Tilden and Kaye King grow up and grow close as their lives come dramatically together through four decades of tumultuous change in a small southern town. The story begins in 1963 when Kaye first meets Noni on the eve of their seventh birthdays. On that Christmas Eve, Kaye climbs through her bedroom window to invite her to come sledding with him in a rare southern snowfall. Over the next thirty years on twelve days of Christmas, they meet to share the passion, the sacrifice and the romance of a lifetime. At once exquisitely written and tearfully joyful, The Last Noel is one of the great love stories of our time. Praise for The Last Noel: "Malone's latest novel reaffirms his brilliance in crafting carefully plotted fiction with a literary burnish, most often through Southern manners and intrigue."—Denver Post "A warm, engaging love story."—Booklist "Malone writes with such quiet authority and clear understanding of the world his characters inhabit that the story strikes deep emotional chords."—Washington Post Book World A Book Sense 76 Top 10 Selection