The Last of June by Alex A King

Agria, Greece

This (mostly) lighthearted book was written as the last book in Alex A King’s Women in Greece series. June is a 40-something, confident, attractive woman from Miami dating a Greek god of a man named Agapi. One day, the man vanishes but leaves the cryptic note “He is coming for me” on June’s mirror. Later, a strange man comes to June’s house and tells her to forget about Agapi - he is gone. But June is determined to find Agapi, and she sets off for his hometown of Agria to find him.

Fun Fact: Alex A King is a pseudonym, but I have not been able to find out the author’s true identity.

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June is able to track down Agapi’s family, thanks to the fact that he lives in a small town, and small towns don’t seem to care about privacy laws...but Agapi has completely changed since his arrival in his home country. June learns that Agapi has bipolar disorder. When he’s manic, he leaves home and travels all around the world, usually finding a woman to hook up with. His brother tracks him down (thanks to a Greek delicatessen he always orders from his mother’s shop), then brings him home before he crashes. When June arrives, Agapi is being treated at a nearby inpatient mental health facility.

June sticks around because she already came all the way out to Greece, she can work remotely, and she’s on a side quest to find her Greek father that walked out before she was born. Somewhere along the line, she ends up falling for Agapi’s brother (the strange man that informed June in Greece that Agapi was gone and to not try to find him), Christos.

The novel takes all sorts of twists and turns (such as two previously unknown wives showing up at the house). King does a good job of juxtaposing the comical and lighthearted but while also addressing the serious impacts of mental health illnesses, including a suicide attempt and a death by suicide.

Perhaps this book gets a pass because I had such low expectations going into it, but I genuinely enjoyed it. Is it going to go down in history and become a classic? Am I going to try to track down King’s other books? No. But it’s a nice read, and you will literally laugh out loud.

Review by the Numbers

Overall: 4/5

Writing: 4/5

Plot: 3/5

Character Development: 3/5

Message: 4/5

Challenges Satisfied:

Greece (Reading My Way Around the World Challenge)

Book about Other Groups, Bipolar Disorder (My Diversity Challenge)