The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch

The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch

The Last Enchantments is a powerfully moving and lyrically written novel. A young American embarks on a year at Oxford and has an impassioned affair that will change his life forever

After graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he's poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he's been in love with for the last four years.

Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he's always known, but he's soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he's least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.

Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century.

Charles Finch, novelist of the Charles Lenox mysteries, notably The Lady in the Sea (February 2018), is a USA Today bestselling author. The Last Enchantments, his first contemporary novel, is also available from St. Martin's Press. Martin's Press is a publishing house based in New York. The National Book Critics Circle awarded Finch the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation Prize for excellence in reviewing. His thoughts and criticism have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Slate, and the Washington Post. He currently resides in Los Angeles.