The Last Valentine

Coming to CBS as a 2009 Movie of the Week and HALLMARK HALL OF FAME, The Last Valentine has been called, "The most powerful love story to come along in years,” by Publisher’s Weekly. Thousands of fans around the world have written James Pratt about the life-changing elements to the love story.

Beginning with a wife's farewell to her husband in World War Two and continuing to the present day, James Michael Pratt weaves an emotional tale of love transcending time and space. Television reporter Susan Allison is looking for the perfect story about true love, but her heart of hearts tells her such a thing doesn't really exist. Writer Neil Thomas, Jr. wants only to share the powerful message of the "Last Valentine," his parent's tragic, yet triumphant fifty-year love story.

On February 14, 1944, Caroline Thomas said goodbye to her beloved husband, a Navy pilot sent to the Pacific. For fifty years she waited for him to return--until a miracle happened and she received his "last Valentine." In the present day, when Susan and Neil meet, neither of them expects the emotional outcome: that the story of Neil's parents will bring them together in a love as powerful as she dreams of and he remembers...

The Last Valentine title came to me as a shot out of a dark night as I lay pondering on the events of my own father, his recent passing and the devotion my mother showed for him. I couldn’t dismiss the strange and powerful voice urging me to get up from my bed in those early hours of a January morning in 1996 and write the title down.

I obeyed the small voice writers learn to trust and sat at the kitchen table pondering what to do with the title, The Last Valentine. What were the main plot points and elements for such a powerful title? My mother had told me of how she waited on different days for the train to come in a Union Train Station Los Angeles after my father had announced he was headed home from the east coast during the last months of World War II.. He had been in the major battles in North Africa and Italy and the time since they had seen each other was two and one half years.

Combined, the emotions my mother described allowed for me to paint a dramatic backdrop for the visits Caroline Thomas would make each year. I imagined that virtually ALL the men who left their sweethearts standing on the rails as their trains headed off to shipping destinations to the war fronts had told their wives and girlfriends the same thing: “Don’t worry sweetheart, I’ll be back.” --Or--“Wait for me. I’ll be standing right here again before you know it.”--And-- “I love you darling.” Appropriate to the story in The Last Valentine as Neil Thomas heads off to the Pacific were the words, “I’ll be your last Valentine.” By dawn that cold January day in 1996 I had not only an outline for the story but three of the major characters, where they would live, what they should do.

Facts about The Last Valentine

• In the first six months of 1998, Pratt made more than 100 personal appearances.
  
  
• Pratt received widespread coverage on the Today Show and on network affiliates of Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS as well as regional cable television shows nationwide.
  
  
• Advertising included a commercial spot for one week on the Today Show.
  
  
• More than 125,000 copies of the hardbound edition shipped in three months.
  
  
• The Last Valentine was a main selection of Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club.
  
  
• Audio rights were sold to Dove Audio.
  
  
• The Last Valentine was a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller.
  
  
• The Last Valentine Film rights purchased by HALLMARK HALL OF FAME.
  
  
• Foreign rights sales for The Last Valentine include 12 languages.
  
  
• Paperback edition included printing of 500,000 copies.

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