Book Review: THE LAST HOUSE GUEST by Megan Miranda

Title: THE LAST HOUSE GUEST

Author: Megan Miranda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Read: June 2019

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

Littleport, Maine is like two separate towns: a vacation paradise for wealthy holidaymakers and a simple harbour community for the residents who serve them. Friendships between locals and visitors are unheard of - but that's just what happened with Avery Greer and Sadie Loman.

Each summer for a decade the girls are inseparable - until Sadie is found dead. When the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can't help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie's brother Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they're saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name before the facts get twisted against her.

My musings:

A young woman’s death, which has been ruled a suicide. Her friend, who cannot come to terms with it. A tightly knit community controlled by a powerful family. The stage is set – against the vivid backdrop of the picturesque Maine coast. And when one year after the tragedy the victim’s friend, Avery Greer, starts questioning things relating to that terrible night, she uncovers pieces that do not fit. But there are people that will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden ....

Yes, there is nothing new in the concept of someone looking into a friend’s death and finding something suspicious that leads to a whole chain of events, but I love this kind of story: the slow unravelling of clues, the mounting tension, the lies, the intrigue! I loved Megan Miranda’s writing in THE PERFECT STRANGER, and I really enjoyed it here. I especially liked the way Avery started off as a bit of an aloof, unlikeable character, but bit by bit reveals more and more about her past that made my heart go out to her. I would have loved to be able to become closer to Avery a bit earlier in the book, as this added a lot to my enjoyment of the story, but I guess it managed to build the intrigue and suspense to be kept in the dark about various things.

By far my favourite part though was the setting! A small community perched on top of rugged cliffs, reliant on and yet strangely resentful of “the summer people”, those residents with holiday homes in town and those who visit annually, making this a busy metropolis during the summer holidays. We live in a town just like that, and I related to a lot of the dynamics and the small town politics. The there are the Logans, the rich untouchable family who own half the town, have the other half in their pocket and seem to get away with murder. It isn’t surprising that Avery falls under their spell after her family’s death. It was her gradual disentangling that was interesting to watch, and I loved witnessing how she grew more confident and self-reliant as the story progressed.

THE LAST HOUSE GUEST may not offer anything new or unexpected to the seasoned mystery fan (even though the ending was a bit of a surprise and capped the book off nicely for me), and yet the well-trodden path of family secrets worked really well for me here. I read this book in one big sitting and was eager to find out what would happen next. The only thing I struggled with at times was the dual timeline, set in the present and one year earlier on the night of Sadie’s death. With timelines so close together, and set in the same place, it was sometimes difficult to work out what was happening now or then without getting muddled, and a couple of things did not totally gel for me in regards to timing. However, mostly all the threads came together nicely and the book made for an enjoyable read. With a setting like this, it would make the perfect book to take on holidays and read in a hammock somewhere sipping a pina colada and trying to solve the puzzle. I look forward to the author’s next book! 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Simon & Schuster for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.