This exciting debut novel is the love story of a Jewish girl and an Armenian-American soldier who together enter a maze of underground politics at the conclusion of the First World War.

Yael Weiss, an eighteen-year-old from St. Louis, reinvents herself as the twenty-five-year-old Methodist Yale White when she travels to Paris with the YMCA to work in a soldiers’ canteen. Dub Hagopian–the doughboy she has a carried a torch for all the way across the Atlantic–is at once the patriotic child of immigrants from Rhode Island and, covertly, a member of Erinyes, an organization dedicated to avenging the Armenian massacres of 1915.

In her jaunty, engaging style, Mitchell captures the atmosphere of political carnival surrounding the Paris Peace Conference, where Yale, Dub, and their crowd gather, bursting with both the passionate ideals and the devil-may-care energy of youth. When they decamp to a château outside Paris, where Erinyes is hatching a radical plan and Armenian war orphans are billeted, Yale and Dub will face the largest decisions of their young lives.

A beautiful love story, The Last Day of the War is also a tragicomic farce about the workings of history and a testament to the moral fortitude of men and women swept up in the tide of their extraordinary times.

From the Hardcover edition.

"A bravura performance . . . Intelligent . . . blistering . . . ntermingling romance with history, [it’s] Alan Furst with a dash of Tintin.”–The New York Times Book Review

“Mitchell captures Europe after World War I with a seasoned writer's appreciation for the timeless appeal of a lost world. . . . An engaging tale of humor and pathos and young love amid the rich tapestry of post-war France.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"A sprawling, exciting love story. . . . This combination of love and war, history and revenge, makes for a thrilling read, one that lingers long after you finish it." --The Providence Journal

"Engaging. . . . Page-turning. . . . The work of a very good novelist." --Chicago Tribune

“When people say they love sinking into a great novel, The Last Day of the War is exactly the kind of book they crave. Judith Claire Mitchell’s debut novel is an eloquent, sweeping, generous tale of war, love, history, deceit, and friendship, and it reads like the work of a seasoned novelist. Delicious, enveloping, and deeply affecting, The Last Day of the War is the kind of book that will be passed among readers for years to come.” --Thisbe Nissen, author of The Good People of New York

"As satisfying as it is unpredictable. . . . . [An] assured first novel [that] neatly masters the historical novel's biggest challenge: It breaks through a potentially overwhelming tangle of events to focus on the actions of a few well-defined characters and uses them to illuminate a broader scene. . . . Fully developed [and] thoroughly believable." --Columbus Dispatch

“An extraordinary achievement: a book simultaneously full of humor and horror, both enthralling and poignant, and spilling over with heart.” --Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector

"Mitchell seamlessly incorporates the political, social and cultural issues of the time, offering a novel as rich in historical detail as it is in character development. This is a meticulously crafted story." --Rocky Mountain News

"A sweeping saga. . . . A captivating coming-of-age tale." --Madison Capital Times

“Magnificent. . . . Subtle and elegant. . . . Judith Claire Mitchell has not only re-created 1918, she gives the reader intriguing characters. She also gives us a beautifully nuanced love story.” —Desert Morning News

“When people say they love sinking into a great novel, The Last Day of the War is exactly the kind of book they crave. Judith Claire Mitchell’s debut novel is an eloquent, sweeping, generous tale of war, love, history, deceit, and friendship, and it reads like the work of a seasoned novelist. Delicious, enveloping, and deeply affecting, The Last Day of the War is the kind of book that will be passed among readers for years to come.”

Thisbe Nissen, author of The Good People of New York

Yael Weiss, eighteen years old and looking for adventure, finds it in the library one day when she discovers a packet of guns meant for Erinyes, an Armenian organization set on avenging their people’s massacre by the Turks in 1915. While the weapons make her nervous, Dub Hagopian, the young Armenian-American soldier sent to retrieve them, excites her in a completely different way.

Smitten, Yael impulsively follows Dub to France by volunteering with the YMCA, reinventing herself along the way as twenty-five-year-old Methodist Yale White. When she and Dub cross paths again, Yael gets caught up in a crowd bursting with both the passionate ideals and the devil-may-care energy of youth–with consequences neither of them could ever foresee.