{Book Review} HER LAST BREATH by Hilary Davidson

  

Her Last Breath

Standalone

Hilary Davidson

Released: July 1, 2021 by Thomas & Mercer

296 Pages

Blurb:

From the bestselling author of One Small Sacrifice comes a suspenseful thriller about a dead woman who predicted her own murder—and the sister who won’t let the truth be buried.

When her beloved sister Caroline dies suddenly, Deirdre is heartbroken. However, her sorrow turns to bone-chilling confusion when she receives a message Caroline sent days earlier warning that her death would be no accident. Long used to being a pariah to her family, Deirdre covers her tattoos and heads to Manhattan for her sister’s funeral.

The message claimed Caroline’s husband, Theo, killed his first wife and got away with it. Reeling from the news, Deirdre confronts Theo on the way to the cemetery, and he reveals both his temper and his suspicion that Deirdre’s “perfect” sister was having an affair.

Paranoid and armed with just enough information to make her dangerous, Deirdre digs into the disturbing secrets buried with Caroline. But as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes that her own life may be at risk…and that there may be more than one killer in the family.

My Review:

CW: Self-Harm

I got this as an Amazon first reads book and I usually go for the thriller picks so this was right up my alley. I finished the book I was reading before this and needed something while I was waiting in the waiting room of my mom's doctor's office and so I started reading this.

The story drew me in right away and before I knew it I was 30% into the book. I enjoyed the alternating perspectives of Deirdre and Theo. If you think this is a simple "woman dies and husband is the suspect/killer" plot, think again. This book has so much more to it taking you into a world of money-laundering, dark family secrets, and morally gray characters. 

It feels like you fall down the rabbit hole with the characters trying to figure out whether Deirdre's sister was murdered, what really happened to Theo's first wife, and who can be trusted. This book is really fast paced but I liked it, it really worked for me. I also like that the author chose to include so much about Berlin landmarks (it's honestly not a city I think of much so it was nice to learn about something other than the remnants of the Berlin Wall) and also how she wove Egyptian mythology into the plot. 

It was a really interesting, suspenseful read and I was hooked until the very end. I'm definitely going to be checking out this author's other books. 

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

5 of 5 Stars!

{Book Review} THE LAST RESORT by Susi Holliday

 

The Last Resort 

Standalone

Susi Holliday

Thriller

299 Pages

Blurb:

Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One perfect crime.

When Amelia is invited to an all-expenses-paid retreat on a private island, the mysterious offer is too good to refuse. Along with six other strangers, she’s told they’re here to test a brand-new product for Timeo Technologies. But the guests’ excitement soon turns to terror when the real reason for their summons becomes clear.

Each guest has a guilty secret. And when they’re all forced to wear a memory-tracking device that reveals their dark and shameful deeds to their fellow guests, there’s no hiding from the past. This is no luxury retreat—it’s a trap they can’t get out of.

As the clock counts down to the lavish end-of-day party they’ve been promised, injuries and in-fighting split the group. But with no escape from the island—or the other guests’ most shocking secrets—Amelia begins to suspect that her only hope for survival is to be the last one standing. Can she confront her own dark past to uncover the truth—before it’s too late to get out?

My Review:

To sum up this book, it's a lot like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None on a tech-heavy island with an ending that is Luke-warm at best. 

At the beginning of the book there is a little girl playing with another child on an island while visiting her grandparents who does something unthinkable. But who is the girl? How does she fit into the story? And who is the other child? (Who I mistakenly thought was a boy until the end of the book).

Years later 7 strangers who have nothing in common find themselves on a plane for a "luxury experience" none of them would dream of missing. Each has a reason for being there, and each is harboring a deeply buried secret. There's the influencer, the video game designer, the investment broker, the photographer, the gossip columnist, the health guru, and the aid worker. One of these things is not like the other. 

When the strangers get to the island, the discover things to be a lot less than luxurious and when some high-tech devices are planted in their ears that start revealing each of their deepest, darkest secrets it becomes clear that someone has lured them to the island for far more sinister reasons and they'll have to band together if they want to get off the island alive. 

I really enjoyed this book and will always devour anything that gives me And Then There Were None vibes so this book really had me going with the twists and turns until the end. I was all ready for some fantastic reveal and shocking ending and while the reveal was pretty good, how the main character chose to handle the ending was a bit of a letdown. But this book had everything going for it before that: a diverse group of characters with offenses varying from mild to I-did-not-see-that-coming, tension, a sense of who-will-make-it-out-alive, and an unseen madman pulling the strings from behind the scenes. 

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

4 of 5 Stars!