I wanted to like this much more than I did. I can appreciate Winstead’s boldness in exploring this topic and am all in favor of more books that discuss the grossest aspects of men and the exploitation of young women. However… this plot read like the Sarah Lawrence and NXIVM cult ladies had a crossover bookclub meeting to discuss Fifty Shades of Gray, but someone mistakenly included Ghislaine Maxwell on the invite, and she got wasted and wouldn’t stop yelling about how much she loved Eyes Wide Shut.

I can’t say I enjoyed this book, but I think Winstead is a talented author and won’t discourage others from giving it a try because it really resonated with other readers. But check the trigger warnings if that’s something that concerns you, because this has all of them.

Thank you to Kaye Publicity and Sourcebooks Landmark for our gifted ARC of The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead. This post publishes on August 16, 2022.

Rating: Not rating this one. It's phenomenal writing, but the content can be very triggering. Do your research on this one!
Genre: Thriller

Let me start by saying we ADORE Ashley Winstead. We will read anything she writes. This book continues to show the strength of her writing and I cannot wait to see what she writes in the future. That being said, I think we are in the minority on this book.

The hardest part for us was the graphic sexual and violent nature of this book. Obviously, it lends to the story and is a necessary aspect. It was just hard for us. My biggest recommendation would be to do your research on this book and read reviews before you go into it! For some people, it will be fine. For others, it might be hard to read! Feel free to message us for more discussion around this!

I went into this book expecting a variation on a typical psychological thriller, and that's not really what this is. Think "Eyes Wide Shut" crossed with "The Handmaid's Tale" with a dash of "Fifty Shades of Gray," except this is much darker than any of those. I think it is well-written, but I personally did not enjoy this book. It was just too disturbing and violent for my taste. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

True crime, podcasts, cults, gender roles- Ashley WInstead captures timely and hot button issues in this very dark, fast paced thriller. Eight years after graduation, Shay finds out that her closest friend from college has committed suicide in a manner eerily similar to their other best friend. Can this be connected to the relationship they had with the mysterious father of one of their roommates? The longer Shay stays in New York, the more she's forced to confront her own secrets and what has happened to her in the past, and how it's intersecting with the present. This is both powerful and deeply disturbing.

The Last Housewife tells the story of a woman named Shay Evans as she tries to solve the murder of her college best friend. The story takes quite a turn when she realizes that a cult is behind it all and this isn't her friend's (or Shay's) first experience with one. Between the current-day sleuthing and the retelling of Shay's tragic past, I was fully engrossed in the story and its mystery.

This book was absolutely amazing! I don't think that I could recommend this enough. It had cults, suspense, and mystery. 10/10.

I went into this one completely blind, and while I absolutely loved it, I would not suggest all readers go in blind as well. This story is incredibly dark and disturbing, and readers may need to check out trigger warnings before picking it up. That being said, I devoured it in just a few sittings. It’s about a woman who escaped a cult, and returns years later to dismantle it. I’ve never read anything like it. Ashley Winstead is quickly proving herself to be a phenomenal author who is extremely versatile in her writing abilities. All three books I’ve read from her could not be more different from each other. She’s an autobuy author for me now for sure! 4.5 stars from me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

This book is a true masterpiece of the thriller genre as much as it is a feminist ode to righteous anger. The literal story of Shay Deroy being drawn back to her past after her best friend from college dies serves as a rich backdrop for addressing the power imbalances present in our society and how they are propped up by government, religion, education and gender norms. Make no mistake, the empowering odyssey of the main character facing her most powerful demons in an effort to save herself and other women alike is immersive and enthralling, but in the midst of keeping you on the very edge of your seat, it illuminates the dark, manipulative and corrupt corners of society that we fear looking at directly. It explores how abuse, manipulation and brainwashing slowly erodes agency and free will for victims, and empathetic ally demonstrates how self defense can look jarring to outsiders who haven’t lived the same experience. The Last Housewife will have you contemplating our social norms and the nature of justice long after you read the final pages.

It is an extremely dark story, and hits on almost every trigger warning, and the author encourages people to skip this one if it will bring up too many feelings for you, so be advised of the extreme content.

There's been a lot of buzz out on this book, for good reason. Although the synopsis is correct, I would recommend going in blindly, as the story itself slowly unfolds. A great read that will be perfect for spooky fall reading.

Ashley Winstead is one of the sweetest authors I've been lucky enough to chat with over bookstagram, and she also has one of the darkest minds - the paradox is INSANE.

This book is DARK. I mean, move over Verity - the adults have come to play now. If you are easily triggered, please stay away! But if you enjoy reading about some really sick people (because apparently I do), you need this book.

I don't want to give anything away but just know what you're getting into here: sex cults, anti-feminists, brainwashing, daddy issues on steroids.

Some parts of this felt all too real and were deeply disturbing, but the sicko in me couldn't put this one down.

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

This title just didn't work for me.. I thought the title was entirely misleading. It kept my interest, but more in the way you might stop to look at an accident. The violence seemed gratuitous and the characters either purely evil or utterly naïve.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this digital ARC.

The Last Houewife, for me, was leaps and bounds better than Winstead's debut - which I though was fine, trending toward positive- but Last Housewife felt like newer ground to tread on, even though it has a bit of shared DNA with the NXIVM cult.
This is the second book I've read where a main character leaps into action after listening to a podcast, but it makes more sense in this book, as Shay actually has a connection to the podcast host as well as to the victim in the case.
The two quarrels I had with the book are that Shay's husband serves no purpose beyond his finances and that I desperately wish that sometimes the people in power were just independently misogynists (the police chief for example), without needing to be part of an overall great scheme.
Otherwise, a dark beach read for fans of true crime, and I look forward to Winstead's next book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

I literally couldn’t put this book down from the moment I picked it up. A housewife who has a dark past. And will give up at nothing to uncover the truth and those behind it. Literally had me on the edge of my seat until the end. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Trigger warning sexual abuse and grooming.

I did not enjoy this at all. If you liked watching that series about the abusive sex cult, maybe you could appreciate this, but I found it to be all kinds of awful, and the marketing copy did not do a good enough job warning how horrific this whole thing is. The only character I found likeable was the male journalist with his podcast. I think it’s possible we were supposed to like the protagonist, but she married a wealthy man, and I don’t remember her ever indicating she might have married him because she might have loved or even liked him. When she runs off because she learns about the death of her college friend, she does her best to avoid his calls while enjoying using his credit cards to pay for everything.

NetGalley provided an advance reader copy. It will release August 16, 2022.

When I read In My Dreams I Hold A Knife, I was floored with how well Ashley Winstead sucked me into a gripping and well written story of death and trauma and when I heard that she had a new book coming out I was extremely excited to read it.

The Last Housewife is not what I was expecting from Winstead but I can definitely say it was phenomenal. What started out as a standard mystery blended and changed into a fascinating mixture of Eyes Wide Shut, Promising Young Woman and oddly reminds me of stories such as The Scarlet Letter or The Crucible. Winstead creates a story that looks at women and their roles in society as well as the issues that they face in modern day and she uses Shay and her story to both advocate and combat the ideas and world that we live in as well as the issues women face today and that have been ingrained in society since the Dawn of time.

Winstead’s characters are fantastic and feel like living characters and in the case of Shay and Jamie, someone you would want to meet. Her strengths show though with the Pater characters and their depravity and shows just how sick the world truly is and is the complete flip side of her heroes as we know people like Don and shows just how important a story like this is.

Overall The Last Housewife was a fantastic story that anyone can enjoy as long as you realize that sometimes the darkest stories can bring light to help those in need!

this book is TWISTED.
i read in my dreams i hold a knife, and immediately requested this book because i want more from the author.
this is nothing like her other her book.
this is very dark, and gritty. the cult aspect is huge - and the degradation of women is what feeds this cult.
it plays so well into current themes, and the way society views women. you have the highly influential men wanting to completely strip women of everything.
it was so difficult to read because i was so angry, but at the same time i couldn’t stop reading.
shay and jamie — loved them so much. i loved the podcast aspect, and how the author twined that into the story.
we do get some plot twist, which i thought rounded it out and gave it that suspenseful feel to it.
ashley winstead knows how to write some messed up characters. she does a great job at making them so morally grey that you’re constantly asking yourself if you should like them.
overall, proceed with caution with this book. it’s definitely not for everyone. the topics can be very triggering if you don’t know what’s coming. i definitely wouldn’t just recommend this to just anyone. i really enjoyed it tho.

The Last Housewife

Ashley Winstead is a different type of author, so she gets a different type of review.

There are, in my opinion, two layers to this book.

On the surface, It’s a thriller about a woman getting to the bottom of her college best friend’s death and accidentally embarking on uncovering a violent, misogynistic sex cult.

But underneath, it’s a truly poignant — yet extremely dark — and complicated commentary about gender roles and the power they hold in society to this day.

Just like I was with In My Dreams I Hold A Knife, I’m in awe of the layers of this novel. Who says a thriller has to my a mindless ride on the whodunnit train? (A very fun train indeed, but gotta love some depth!)

It’s worth noting again that this book is dark. So dark that Ashley herself warns readers to consult the trigger warnings and encourages people to skip it if it will be too hard for them to read.

It WAS hard to read at parts — the masochism, the rape, the gore. I found myself thinking “wow she went there and… why exactly?” Then it clicked for me toward the end. You need the upsetting gore and sadism of these awful characters to truly see the impact of their non-fictional counterparts. The violence of the book comes from the hands of powerful, manipulative men — the ones who lead local police stations, hold political office, oh, I don’t know, take away women’s rights to their own bodies. The fictional violence holds a mirror to the political unjust that might be less bloody but is still incredibly unjust.

Or maybe I’ve just read WAY too much into everything and it’s that first description lmao

#BookInEmojis: 👙🎧✈️🕵🏻‍♀️🏡🌲👱🏼‍♀️🔥🚒🕯🔪🪦🎙🪓

The Last Housewife was dark, twisted and incredible. I was so excited to receive this ARC because I love Ashley Winstead. But I could not have been prepared for how much I loved this.

Ashley’s mind is amazing. I love her female characters. They are always on the edge of unlikeable but written in a way that you root for them always. I needed Shay to get all the revenge. The ending was dark and crazy but I couldn’t have been happier. I especially loved the feminist thinking interwoven throughout.

The twists in this book were SO GOOD. I literally gasped at more than one point. Ashley kept me guessing and made the book so hard to put down. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark & Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

For starters: this novel is filled with every single trigger you can probably think of.

BUT ALSO: holy what in the world did I just read this was incredible.

This was my first Ashley Winstead book and this is me running as fast as I can to my book shelf to read Fool Me Once & In My Dreams I Hold A Knife. I mean this was a combination of HBO Doc The Vow, 50 Shades of Grey, Law & Order SVU episode & the Hulu show Truth Be Told (also wild the character's name is Shay). I was all in with the cult theme and it exceeded every expectation I might have had. There were so many dark and twisted parts in this book, some really hard parts to read, but I couldn't put the dang book down.

I LOVED how it flipped back and forth from chapters to written out podcasts interviews with the MC Shay and podcast host Jamie. I couldn't wait for those chapters to learn about how Shay ended up where she did. To learn her back story. You really start to feel for her & you really start to see how brainwashed she became.

The ONLY downside was the there were a couple chapters at the end I felt like were a little long, but the FINAL chapter redeemed those.

I don't want to spoil this book for everyone. PRE-ORDER this now. And then go read every Ashley Winstead book you can get your hands on.

Um. BRUTAL.

I had just read In My Dreams I Hold a Knife about a month before getting the arc of The Last Housewife. I loved that one, so I knew I had to check this one out.

First and foremost, this book is not joking about it being incredibly dark. I'm extremely grateful that Winstead included content warnings at the top of the book, which shows respect for me as a reader. (See those warnings below.) Shay, our main character, is unlikeable and complicated. Her story here is framed with the story of Scheherazade, and within a podcast. Shay returns to her college town to try to figure out what exactly happened to her friend/former roommate who is found hanging from a tree at their university - the same way her other friend killed herself in college. Her childhood friend has covered this situation on his podcast, which is one of the reasons that Shay even hears about it. Shay thinks the method of deaths is too much of a coincidence, she doesn't believe that her friend would have killed herself, and she thinks she knows who might be involved - the charismatic man who slowly came to control their lives and from whom Shay managed to escape. With her childhood friend, they go undercover to attempt to find answers.

This book was compulsively readable and incredibly cathartic. Winstead has been incredibly vulnerable and brave in putting something like this out in the world (which she discusses in her acknowledgements/author's note), and I think it is going to resonate with a lot of people, myself among them. It is intense and brutal, but in a way that reflects the reality of our world. There is revenge and vindication, exploration of the power in community and collective action, consideration of the injustice and corruption in our court system, examination of the derision of imperfect victims.

Honestly, it makes me a bit uncomfortable that people are describing this book as "salacious." To me, that implies a level of intentional sexiness or titillation. For me, that's not at all what this book was about. Although it does delve into sexual dynamics, and the chasm between our desires and our values, it very clearly examines that within the confines of a restrictive, cult-like secret society, looking at the power behind those sexual activities. None of the sex that is included is there for the sake of sexiness, if that makes any sense. In fact, some of it wouldn't even be considered sex, it is explicitly sexual assault.

I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time to come. And although it was tough to read, I think it's one I'm going to come back to regularly.

It was especially striking to have read this so close to when the verdict was decided in a truly unhinged celebrity trial, the outcome of which has set back victims' rights by decades. Especially thinking about how Shay is similarly an "imperfect victim."