Welcome to my stop on The Last Sister blog tour! This book is a page-turner and I’m excited to be sharing it with you today. Many thanks to Over The River PR and Montlake for a gifted copy to read and their generous offer of a copy to give away to one lucky reader… look for the giveaway information at the end of this post.
Synopsis:
Twenty years ago, Emily Mills’ father was murdered, and she found his body hanging in the backyard. Her younger sister, Madison, claims she was asleep in her room. Her older sister, Tara, claims she was out with friends. The tragedy drove their mother to suicide and Tara to leave town forever. The killer was caught. The case closed.
Ever since, Emily and Madison have tried to forget what happened that night – until an eerily similar murder brings it all back. It also brings FBI special agent Zander Wells to the Oregon logging town. As eager as he is to solve the brutal double slaying, he is just as intrigued with the mystery of Emily’s and her sisters’ past.
When more blood is shed, Zander suspects there’s a secret buried in this town that no one wants unearthed. Is it something Emily and Madison don’t know? Or aren’t telling? And Tara? Maybe Emily can’t bear to find her. Because when Tara disappeared, she took a secret of her own with her.
My thoughts:
The Last Sister is the first book in a new romantic suspense/mystery series by Kendra Elliot. If you read her Callahan & McLane series, you will see a few familiar faces but you won’t be lost reading this first book as a stand alone.
I love books set in small towns where you can feel the atmosphere in the words. And just like large towns, small towns have their fair share of secrets too. So when a double-murder draws in Emily, she is forced to face her own past, a town full of dark secrets, and a link that forces old wounds open in order to solve the case.
The past and present plot threads were masterfully woven together and the characters were well developed and engaging. The writing is well done and I can easily see room for the next book in the series – which isn’t always evident. This book will leave you wanting more.
While this is classified as romantic suspense, there was a small romantic undercurrent but no full blown romantic plot line. I appreciated this because I personally would have found that distracting with the secrets, murders, and racial complexities at the forefront of the story.
The drawbacks: this book is dark at times. If suicide, violence, murder, and/or dark family secrets bother you, these are all things to be aware of going into this book. With that being said, nothing was gratuitous or over-done for shock value.
I couldn’t put this book down and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
The Last Sister is available now at your favorite bookseller!
Or for a chance to win your own copy, please visit my Instagram to enter the giveaway. Sorry, US entrants only. Good luck!
About the author:
Kendra Elliot has landed on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list
multiple times and is the award-winning author of the Bone Secrets
and Callahan & McLane series, as well as the Mercy Kilpatrick
novels. Kendra is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier
Award, an International Thriller Writers Award finalist, and an RT
Award finalist. She has always been a voracious reader, cutting her
teeth on classic female heroines such as Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden,
and Laura Ingalls. She was born, raised, and still lives in the rainy
Pacific Northwest with her family, but she looks forward to the day
she can live in flip-flops. Visit her here to learn more about her and her work.
