Review & Giveaway – The Last Room on the Left by Leah Konen
Synopsis
The caretaker at an isolated mountain hotel finds herself fighting for her life—and sanity—in this twisty, addictive thriller.
Kerry’s life is in shambles: Her husband has left her, her drinking habit has officially become a problem, and though the deadline for her big book deal—the one that was supposed to change everything—is looming, she can’t write a word. When she sees an ad for a caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills, she jumps at the chance. It’s the perfect getaway to finish her book and start fresh.
But as she hunkers down in a blizzard, she spots something through the window: a pale arm peeking out from a heap of snow. Trapped in the mountains and alone with a dead, frozen body, Kerry must keep her head and make it out before the killer comes for her too. But is the deadly game of cat-and-mouse all in her mind? The body count begs to differ . . .
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Review
This book has a dual point of view. The main one is Kerry. Kerry is an alcoholic who has sold a book but can’t seem to get it written. So, she takes advantage of an offer to be a caretaker for a motel for the month. She has minor duties but can spend the majority of the time writing a book she has sold and is due to the publisher. What she doesn’t expect to find is the remnants of the previous caretaker and a dead body. While she has stopped drinking, this discovery sends her down a drunken rabbit hole, and it is no wonder that it is hard to take what she says as truth when she can’t prove anything she is saying.
Then there is a twist, but I don’t want to spoil anything. This is where the second POV comes in. The chapters will alternate between Kerry and the second person. There is a third person that has a few chapters near the end…which is a whole ‘nother twist!
I was kept guessing throughout the whole book. Who was the killer? Would the truth come out? And when it did, there was even another twist. Kerry is an unreliable narrator because while you want to believe she saw a dead body, not once but twice, the body disappears, and Kerry has started drinking, so was it an alcohol-induced vision? Kerry has some significant issues, too, that don’t help her cause.
Secrets are revealed throughout the book, adding dimension to the story. Sometimes, the revelations boggle my mind! Imagine being in a motel during a snowstorm. The power goes out, cell coverage is spotty, and there is no Wi-Fi. Communicating with the outside world is a struggle, so the characters are left to their own devices. This includes the neighbors, who are challenging for different reasons.
I enjoyed this book, but I do love a good psychological thriller. We give it 4 paws up.
About the Author
Leah Konen is the author of Keep Your Friends Close, You Should Have Told Me, The Perfect Escape, All the Broken People, and several young adult novels, including Love and Other Train Wrecks and The Romantics. Her books have been featured in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest, and The NY Post, among others. She lives in Brooklyn and Saugerties, New York, with her husband, their daughters, Eleanor and Mary Joyce, and their dog, Farley.
