bestselling author of emotional suspense
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel recommended The Last One Home in their Community Extra edition! Reviewer Amy Phelps says, “The story gives just enough detail each chapter to keep the reader intrigued about where it is going to go next. The ending was a big surprise for me. Family secrets will never be looked at the same.”
Sarah and I discuss The Last One Home, revenge books, Jane Doe, and aging with ferocity on the latest episode of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books!!! Look for Episode 451: More Earl Had to Die anywhere you get your podcasts, see below for a preview, or you can listen here: bit.ly/Ep451VHStone
The Publishers Weekly review of The Last One Home is in!
Stone gradually reveals her multifaceted characters’ secrets as the intricate, fast-paced plot builds to a surprising conclusion.
After Lauren Abrams, the protagonist of this unsettling psychological thriller from Stone (False Step), breaks up with her boyfriend in L.A., she returns home to Sacramento, Calif., where her 90-year-old paternal grandmother is in the hospital recovering from a stroke. When her grandmother offers to sell Lauren the family ranch outside the city, she accepts. While renovating the ranch house, Lauren receives a letter from serial killer Bobby Edward Kepnick regarding a murder for which her father, Michael, was imprisoned for 10 years decades ago. Kepnick’s confession to the murder led to Michael’s release. Lauren remains estranged from her mother, Donna, whose testimony helped convict her father. Flashbacks beginning in 1985 chart the fraught relationship between Donna and Michael. As Lauren digs deeper into her family’s history, she uncovers things that leave her questioning everything she thought she knew about her father’s family. Stone gradually reveals her multifaceted characters’ secrets as the intricate, fast-paced plot builds to a surprising conclusion. Fans of dark, twisted tales of dysfunctional families will be satisfied.
“In THE LAST ONE HOME, the latest title by Jane Doe author Victoria Helen Stone, nobody can be trusted. Least of all your family.
Lies and the choosing of whose truth to believe has driven a wedge between mother and daughter Lauren and Donna Abrams, Stone’s steely protagonists. It’s through their voices that we alternately hear of how Lauren came to want nothing to do with Donna, whose spurious testimony sent Lauren’s father to prison for murder years ago…
The novel is psychologically complex due to these two competing voices, which Stone attributes to wanting to convey the real-life complexity of secrets and truth. “I really wanted to examine the truth as a three-dimensional object that can’t be entirely seen by one set of eyes,” she says. “Lauren views her mother through the lens of the difficult and twisted life they lived together. That’s all she can see. But Donna’s narrative offers an utterly different story from an utterly different woman than ‘Lauren’s mom.’”
Last week I had the opportunity to celebrate the release of THE THREE MRS. WRIGHTS, the brand new thriller from the writing duo Linda Keir! Linda Joffe Hull and Keir Graff have teamed up for their third fantastic book together, and we had an absolute blast discussing writing style, sociopaths, bigamy, and the sexy bits of thrillers!
You can watch the whole party here:
Books mentioned in the discussion:
The Three Mrs. Wrights by Linda Keir
The Swing of Things by Linda Keir
I was an audiobook failure. Not a failure at writing the books, mind you, but at listening to them. I could never manage to get through more than a chapter or two, and then my interest would fizzle out and I wouldn’t go back. I’d try and fail every time. But I desperately wanted audiobooks in my ear while I was cleaning or driving or walking! So I trained my brain by starting small.
Want to learn how to go from audiobook failure to audiobook addict? Read more at CrimeReads! Recommendations included!
