The Last Letter

Rebecca Yarros is an American novelist and New York Times bestselling author. Yarros mostly writes contemporary romance and romance fantasy; she is best known for her fantasy novel Fourth Wing (2023), the first of the Empyrean series.

For The Last Letter, a standalone novel, Yarros draws on aspects of her own life to contextualize the story and draw out themes. Yarros is a military wife, and her husband has had deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan (Yarros, Rebecca. “About Me.” Rebecca Yarros). Yarros began writing her first book during her husband’s third deployment. Yarros’s personal experience with having a loved one in the military is reflected in The Last Letter: Ella, one of the protagonists, had a father and brother in the military. Beckett, the other protagonist and Ella’s eventual romantic partner, is also in the military.

The letters that kickstart Beckett and Ella’s relationship and form a recurrent motif and narrative device in the book are also inspired by Yarros’s own experiences. Yarros recalls how she and her husband wrote letters to each other during his multiple deployments. As the spouses’ only source of communication, these letters were essential to the health and strength of their marriage.