The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks
THE LAST SONG

Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, character s, places, and incidents are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. A ny resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Nicholas Sparks
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under th e U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or tr ansmitted in any form or by any means, or
stored in a database or retrie val system, without the prior writ ten permission of the publisher.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First eBook Edition: September 2009
Grand Central Publishing is a divi sion of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name a nd logo is a trademark of Hachette
Book Group, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-446-55815-0

ALSO BY NICHOLAS SPARKS
The Notebook
Message in a Bottle
A Walk to Remember
The Rescue
A Bend in the Road
Nights in Rodanthe
The Guardian
The Wedding
Three Weeks with My Brother
(with Micah Sparks)
True Believer
At First Sight
Dear John
The Choice
The Lucky One

For Theresa Park and Greg Irikura My friends
Acknowledgments

As always, I have to start by thanking Cathy, my wife and my dream. It’s been an amazing
twenty years and when I wake in the morning, my first thought is how lucky I am for having
spent these years with you. My children—Miles, Ryan, La ndon, Lexie, and Savannah—are sources of endless joy in
my life. I love you all. Jamie Raab, my editor at Grand Central Publishe rs, always deserves my thanks, not only for
her brilliant editing, but for the kind ness she always shows me. Thank you.
Denise DiNovi, the producer of Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, Nights in
Rodanthe, and The Lucky One is not only a genius, but one of the friendliest people I know.
Thanks for everything. David Young, the CEO of Hachette Book Group, has earned my respect and gratitude in the
years we’ve been working together. Thanks, David. Jennifer Romanello and Edna Farley, my publicists, are not only good friends, but
wonderful people. Thanks for all. Harvey-Jane Kowal and Sona Vogel, as usual, deserve my thanks, if only because I’m
always late with my manuscripts, thus making their jobs a whole lot harder.
Howie Sanders and Keya Khayatian, my agents at UTA, are fantastic. Thanks for
everything, guys! Scott Schwimer, my attorney, is quite simply the best at what he does. Thanks, Scott!
Thanks also go to Marty Bowen (the producer of Dear John), as well as Lynn Harris and
Mark Johnson. Amanda Cardinale, Abby Koons, Emily Sweet , and Sharon Krassney also deserve my
thanks. I appreciate all that you do.
The Cyrus family deserves my thanks not onl y for welcoming me into their home, but for
all they’ve done with the film. And a special thanks goes to Miley, who chose Ronnie’s name.
As soon as I heard it, I knew it was perfect! And finally, thanks to Jason Reed, Jennifer Gipgot, and Adam Shankman for their work on
the film version of The Last Song.

Prologue

Ronnie
Staring out the bedroom window, Ronnie wondered whether Pastor Harris was already at the
church. She assumed that he was, and as sh e watched the waves breaking over the beach, she
questioned whether he was still able to notice the play of light as it streamed through the stained-
glass window above him. Perhaps not—the window had been installed more than a month ago,
after all, and he was probably too preoccupied to notice anymore. Still, she hoped that someone
new in town had stumbled into the church th is morning and experienced the same sense of
wonder she’d had when she’d first seen the light flood the church on that cold day in November.
And she hoped the visitor had taken some time to consider where the window had come from
and to admire its beauty. She’d been awake for an hour, but she wasn’t ready to face the day. The holidays felt
different this year. Yesterda y, she’d taken her younger brother, Jonah, for a walk down the
beach. Here and there were Christmas trees on th e decks of the houses they