The Last Night at the Ritz: A Novel

The intelligent, captivating, and as she admits, not entirely trustworthy (unnamed) narrator invites three close friends to lunch with her at the Ritz Hotel, in Boston, for her birthday. Two of them, Len and Gay, are a long married couple she has known since college days. The third, Wes, was once her lover.

But her party takes an unexpected turn. The present intrudes upon their celebration. Secrets slip out, and what emerges is a window into both the pastâ their loves and their hurtsâ and the presentâ the uncertainties, the fears, and the innate tragedy of growing old.

Elizabeth Savage was the acclaimed author of numerous novels, including The Girls of the Five Great Valleys, Summer of Pride, But Not for Love, A Fall of Angels, and Happy Ending. She lived in Maine and was married to the novelist Thomas Savage. She died in 1989.