Member Reviews
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10/10 would Recommend
One of the twist-iest books I’ve read since Gone Girl or A Simple Favor. This book will keep you on your toes page after page and just when you think you’ve got it all sorted it’ll flip everything upside down for you leaving you raptured.
Seriously, so so so good. I’ll be reading a second time to see what all I missed on the first go!
I was a huge fan of All the Lovely Pieces so I couldn't wait to possibly get approved for her second novel. When it came thru I dropped everything I was doing and immediately started reading. The book drew me in from page one starting out with a fast pace that kept going thru the book.
Kelsey arrives to pick her daughter up early from daycare and finds out she isn't there. They say she was never there to begin with. Who is lying? Detective Paul Ryan is immediately on the case and doesn't know if the woman is lying or what exactly is going on. Told from both their points of view and someone else, maybe, the book takes you through the search for the missing child,if there is one. There is even her husband missing but no one can even vouch if they existed in this town. What is really going on? And what is really Kelsey's past. As the puzzle pieces start to fit together, your realize maybe you have the entirely wrong puzzle to begin with.
This is a book you don't want to miss and I guarantee that you won't guess the ending.
I read until the lines blurred together in the wee hours of the morning, then the characters haunted my dreams. I awoke with a chest tightened with anxiety only to realize it was just a story and in my world everyone is safe... I only wish I could say the same for Kelsey Jennings.
The Last One to Lye is a fast paced thrilling novel. Kelsey Jennings arrives at her daughter’s daycare to pick her up only to find her daughter isn’t there – nor has she ever been there. Distraught she quickly calls her husband, who doesn’t answer. When Detective Ryan is assigned to the case he quickly finds himself pulled into an endlessly unraveling story even he can’t unravel.
This is my 13th book of the year, and is by far one of my favorite 2020 reads. J.M. Winchester writes this psychological thriller with such fluidity you find yourself 100 pages in before you've noticed a moments passed by. She'll keep you connecting the dots and guessing until the very end.
Ok, so Kelsey (our main character) drops her daughter off at daycare and somehow when she returns to pick her up there is no record of her. In fact Kelsey's daughter and husband have been wiped off the face of the earth. He won't answer his phone. Enter the detective Paul Ryan who realizes something is off with Kelsey's husband. Yes its a thriller, yes there are some plot twists, However, some of those plot twists are so off the wall, I found myself shaking my head and almost laughing at them.
The book seemed to be trying to hard to be as shocking as it can be, both with the mystery and the sex (lots of it) its like a thriller meets 50 shades with out the bondage.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC
I liked this book. Parts of it were a tad predictable but I do read a lot of thrillers so that might just be me. I still enjoyed it.
Maybe I’ve been reading too many suspense novels, as the publishing world seems to be filled with them, but this book did nothing for me. I found it read like too many other suspense books mashed together, full of plot cliches, unlikeable characters, and a feeling of who cares what happens to these characters.
HOLY. SH*T.
My mind is blown.
Shattered into pieces.
The more I read, the more drawn in I was. The more I couldn’t stop.
Definitely past my bedtime, so to speak, but I honestly could not put this book down...even for a few minutes.
Incredibly captivating, sinister, thrilling and gripping.
A story I’m not likely to forget. I am enthralled by each and every word that this author has scrawled upon these pages. A psychological thriller that contends up there with some of the best.
I don’t want to even try to summarize it because anything I say could very well shed light onto the whole story, but hot dang what a read.
I was puzzling my way through the twists and turns as the story got more and more twisted the closer you got to the end. Literally up until the last lines, my brain struggled to catch up and put all the pieces into place..because every thing I thought I knew kept getting turned and flipped upside down.
Absolutely incredible.
After moving to a new city Kelsey drops off her daughter at daycare and when she comes back to pick her up she realizes that her world has suddenly changed, she works with the police to try to find her daughter and she ends up trying to seduce the detective in a weird attempt to hide who she really is? A lot of the Detective chapters were pretty much him fantasizing about her about not knowing who she was but still having sex with this "stranger".
The book was entertaining to read but definitely corny in the sense where all the "twist and turns" were not really a shock, the chapters aren't listed as the character either so they can be a bit hard to follow.
Thankyou netgally and publishers for the early release of this book.
I was absolutely riveted by this book. Totally different than anything I have read before and a shocking twist of an ending. Highly recommend this mystery/suspense/thriller!
This was a twisted, crazy good thriller! Identical twins that were separated at a young age and brought to two different foster homes lived very different lives.. Years passed and one adult twin decided to find the other twin. But that twin did not want to be found. That is where this fun,twisted ride begins. It starts when Kelsey Jennings reports her daughter Mikayla missing. Police and Detective Ryan follow the clues to find Mikayla and it leads to many confusing dead ends. Things are not as adding up....there are secrets and lies to be told!
Kelsey just moved to a new city. After yoga one day, she went to pick up her daughter, Maikayla, early from day care, and they don’t have her daughter. The day care said her daughter was never there and they woman Kelsey dropped her daughter off doesn’t work there anymore. Detective Paul Ryan was appointed on this case. Not only was Maikayla was missing but also Kelsey’s husband, Malcolm, is also missing. Is this a case of parental abduction? In the meantime, Paul discovered that Kelsey is not who she said she is. She has a dark past that is also involved in her sister.
The pace of the story was good, and the storyline kept me reading. I think there are great twists; however, there are twists that was written as a diversion, such as the character Fran. The diversion made little sense to me and I thought was unnecessary. Each chapter was written in a different character’s voice. However, without labeling at the beginning of the chapter, which character was speaking made it frustrating to read. I didn’t know who was speaking until the second paragraph. It mess with my reading flow. It was also hard to differentiate the characters at the end, especially with such a huge twist. Putting all that aside, the story was great.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this fabulous ARC in exchange for an honest review.
5/5 STARS!
Wow... This book was phenomenal.
Every chapter i could not stop reading it was crazy and the twist.. WOW i recommend this to anyone who likes thrillers so many things happened so many secrets.. the main character kept me glued.. the detective kept me glued so many people kept me glued.. Its had to leave a review about this book without spoiling something.
I look forward to reading this authors work again in the future
Please reas this book asap!!
What a psychological page turner! I was hooked from the beginning, actually I was hooked from the title! The plot was engaging, easy to read and turned me into a detective. I was desperate to try to figure out who took this child and how these stories were all woven. The author does a wonderful job developing the characters from the protagonist, to the detective and even a third mystery character (I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who has not read it yet).
I stayed up late into the evening finishing this story because I had to know what happened next. It has been a long time since a book has engaged me in the way this one has. Until the last line the author had me hooked!
The protagonists backstory is unlike any I have ever read which made it so appealing. It was great to see how all of these stories wove together.
This book I will definitely read again and again, and recommend to friends. 5 out of 5 stars and will be looking for the next great book by this author. Thank you netgalley and publishers for the early read.
Oh my goodness, this is such a ridiculous book. I literally laughed out loud a few times at the "plot twists" and tropes the author threw in. At one point I actually stopped reading, looked at the ceiling, and thought, "Really? You're going to play THAT card?" and laughed. Wow. It's almost like one of those movies that's designed to be campy, only it's not.
So why three stars? It was still well written in the sense that the author (who says she is well known under another name as a romance writer) knows how to write dialog and keep the book flowing. I was curious what on earth was going on. She knows how to write a scene, in the sense that someone who is trained in a craft can do it well.
The author thanks two law enforcement officers in her acknowledgements. I have a feeling they're going to be mortified thinking that people will think that they do this level of police work. You're going to need an incredible amount of suspension of disbelief to go along with how this missing child case (or even simple background check) is supposedly worked by the police. And then there are instances of the main police officer not being able to figure something out (ever) that has a ridiculously easy way to tell the answer. I'm honestly shocked nobody in editing picked up on this glaring mistake, but okay.
Oh yeah, and there's lots of sex and the main character is absolutely beautiful with a perfect body, because of course she is. All of it is just ridiculous. Read this book the way you'd watch The Bachelor, not because you care about any of the characters but because you want some mindless, inane fun. :)
I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
I will rate Last One to Lie by J.M. Winchester a 5/5 stars. This was one wickedly good read. This is the second book that I have read by this author and was a great addition to her psychological thriller genre. Her first book, All the Lovely Pieces was as equally amazing as this current book. Omgee, where do I start? This book had it all... Lies, deceit, envy, murder, sex, lust, tragedy, stalking, mental illness and mystery. I did not want to put this book down. The storyline drew me in right from the synopsis and I was not disappointed when I began reading this book. From the outside looking in, Kelsey Jennings seemingly had it all. A loving husband, Malcolm, and a beautiful two year old daughter, Mikayla and she was living the American Dream as a housewife. After relocating from Florida to a small town in Maryland to be closer to Malcom's parents, Kelsey's perfect world and perfect persona shatters as her daughter turns up missing from daycare. Frantic and afraid, she waits on standby while the daycare workers contact the police which sets the pace for an abduction case to be opened on Mikayla. Detective Paul Ryan is reluctantly assigned the missing persons case and immediately believes that Kelsey is bat-sh*t crazy and may have fabricated the whereabouts of her daughter and husband after several attempts of contacting Malcolm have proven futile. The deeper Detective Ryan digs into Kelsey's troubled past, the more inconsistencies to her story rises to the surface and haunting memories of his own missing sister's, Julia, cold case re-emerges. He begins to wonder if there is a common denominator between Mikayla's abduction case and his sister's cold case. Lies upon lies began to unravel as he pulled back the layers of Kelsey's dark and tumultuous past.
What I enjoyed about this book:
This was truly a page turner. I love when psychological thrillers are able to mess with my thought processes. This book had me being a mini detective in my mind. I was trying to figure out if Kelsey was who she said that she really was. About 40% into the story, I made a conclusion that Kelsey was truly lying about her identity. The author throws in subtle clues throughout the book that will help you figure out what exactly is the truth.
I enjoyed reading this book from the three POVs that they were written in. In light of not spoiling the story by giving away anything, I will just say that reading from Kelsey's and Detective Ryan's POV and the "other" main character's POV was thrilling. You will have to pay close attention to figure out who this third individual is.
Detective Ryan's attraction to Kelsey was one that I really was not expecting from the way he had originally viewed her in the beginning of the story, but I loved their chemistry. The way he tried to resist temptation was so real and convincing. The fact that his involvement with Kelsey could have cost him everything made this story that more appealing to me.
What I didn't enjoy about this book:
I enjoyed it all. This was an amazing book.
I will be recommending this book to others. I read this story within 24 hours and honestly did not want it to end. It was full of twists and turns and had so many secrets. I loved reading every single tragic detail from Kelsey Jennings' former life. I felt that the storyline was original and quite interesting. Especially the part about the movie actors turned porn star parents. That's not something you read about everyday.
Thank you to the author, NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
I read this author's first book and loved so I was really looking forward to her next and it was fantastic! There are so many twists and turns that you think you figured it out but not a chance till the very end I was still so engrossed with the book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that loves a good psychological thriller/suspense novel.
I didn't get very far in this before losing interest---it just didn't hold my attention. The writing style did not work for me.
Detective Paul Ryan has landed a particularly baffling case. Kelsey has reported her little girl is missing from her day care. But it turns out that the day care has no record of the child, and Kelsey’s husband’s employer says they have never heard of him. The family is new to the area, so that explains why they have no close friends, but how is it possible that no one else remembers Kelsey’s husband and child? Ryan tries to sift through an ever more confusing case, one where nothing adds up. This story is so full of twists and red herrings that I was totally in the dark. Addictive fun
Last One to Lie by author J.M. Winchester is a thrill of a mystery! Awesome character development and a strong story line!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.