The Last Word - Book Review

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After a life-altering tragedy, Emma Carpenter wants to run away from it all. She takes her dog, Laika, to spend the winter house sitting at a wealthy widow's beach house on an island. The area is deserted in the off-season, so Emma has plenty of time and solitude to continuously read novels. Her only neighbour, Deek, is an elderly man who lives a quarter of a mile away. The two communicate only via messages written on whiteboards held up to their respective windows.

One day, after reading a particularly awful horror novel called Murder Mountain, Emma leaves the book a one-star review online. Shortly afterwards she gets a response from the author demanding that she remove her review. She refuses on principle, despite the author's threatening responses. However, when she starts to notice strange noises and smells in the house, and feels like someone is watching her, she worries that this isn't just a coincidence.

The Last Word is an edge-of-your-seat thriller written by Taylor Adams, the author of No Exit and Hairpin Bridge. The premise caught my attention, with the tagline "give this book one star and you might end up dead". I actually agree with Murder Mountain's author, HG Kane on one point only,. It does seem a little mean and unnecessary to leave a one-star review of a self-published indie book when you could just move on and read something else instead. Not that a bad review in any way justified Kane's actions in the novel, of course. The fact that I am now talking about Kane as though he were a real person is a testament to the actual author, Taylor Adams' skill as a writer. He absolutely nails the imaginary horror writer's authorial voice in the rage-inducing sections written from his point of view. I knew this guy would own at least one Katana long before he mentioned it.

I'm impressed that even with such a tongue-in-cheek premise, this book is still also full of suspense and excitement. It's a tricky balance, but the author achieves it. I read this novel in one nearly sleepless 24-hour period, which probably added to the experience.

For those like me for whom animal deaths are especially distressing, one spoiler - the dog is fine at the end.

The Last Word is an exciting thriller with a fun, satirical premise. It was first published in 2023.

#horror
#books_writing
#book_reviews
#arts_culture
%wneverywhere

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