4.3
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154,085 ratings
Don't miss the #1 New York Times bestselling blockbuster and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick that's sold more than 3 million copies —now an Apple TV+ series starring Jennifer Garner!
The "genuinely moving" (New York Times) and "gripping thriller" (Entertainment Weekly) about a woman who thinks she's found the love of her life—until he disappears.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen's sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.
As Hannah's increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen's boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen's true identity—and why he really disappeared.
Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen's past, they soon realize they're also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a "page-turning, exhilarating, and unforgettable" (PopSugar) suspense novel.
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ISBN-10
1501171356
ISBN-13
978-1501171352
Print length
336 pages
Language
English
Publisher
S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication date
March 20, 2023
Dimensions
5.5 x 1.2 x 8.38 inches
Item weight
10.9 ounces
This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart—and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.
Highlighted by 8,986 Kindle readers
This is the terrible thing about a tragedy. It isn’t with you every minute. You forget it, and then you remember it again. And you see it with a stark quality: This is what is required of you now, just to get along.
Highlighted by 8,240 Kindle readers
ASIN :
B08LDY1MKW
File size :
5139 KB
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Supported
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#1 New York Times Bestseller
“What starts as an intimate meditation on found families deftly turns into a heart-pounding mystery reminiscent of the best true crime stories. But both work so beautifully in this gripping, perfectly-paced novel. I dare you to stop reading.” —Susie Yang, New York Times bestselling author of White Ivy
“Laura Dave is a master story-teller. Gripping, big-hearted and twisty, The Last Thing He Told Me grabs readers from the very first page and never lets go.” —Greer Hendricks,New York Times best-selling co-author of The Wife Between Us and You Are Not Alone
"With dizzying suspense and gorgeous prose, The Last Thing He Told Me tackles tough questions about trust, marriage and what it means to be a family. A page-turner of the highest order." —Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Home Before Dark
“Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me is a thrilling roller coaster of a novel. This smart, intimate exploration of love and family is the foundation of a beautifully constructed mystery filled with twists and turns. A must-read.” —Jean Kwok,New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
“Dave pulls off something that feels both new and familiar: a novel of domestic suspense that unnerves, then reassures. This is the antithesis of the way novels like Gone Girl or My Lovely Wife are constructed; in The Last Thing He Told Me, the surface is ugly, the situation disturbing, but almost everyone involved is basically good underneath it all. Dave has given readers what many people crave right now—a thoroughly engrossing yet comforting distraction.” —BookPage
“A page turner.” —Associated Press
“The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave is a fast-moving, heartfelt thriller about the sacrifices we make for the people we love most.” —Real Simple
“Light and bright, despite its edgy plot.” —Vogue
“Gripping.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Page-turning, exhilarating, and unforgettable.” —PopSugar
"Dave’s neat trick is to unveil revelations at a brisk clip that does not overwhelm character development. The novel’s richness comes from the way Hannah and Bailey realize they need each other in the face of staggering loss; the mutual trust that grows between them is genuinely moving. As both daughter and stepmother come to realize, “That’s how you fill in the blanks — with stories and memories from the people who love you.” —The New York Times Book Review
"You will not think that this is Laura’s first suspense novel as it's so sharp and well done." —Book Reporter
“Mysteries unspool at a steady pace… riveting.” —Publisher’s Weekly
"A stunner with a heart and an ending you'll never see coming." —AARP Bulletin
“Fast-paced ...but heartfelt." —The New York Times, "Inside the Best-Seller List"
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— Part 1 —
I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy. —Albert Einstein
If You Answer the Door for Strangers…
You see it all the time on television. There’s a knock at the front door. And, on the other side, someone is waiting to tell you the news that changes everything. On television, it’s usually a police chaplain or a firefighter, maybe a uniformed officer from the armed forces. But when I open the door—when I learn that everything is about to change for me—the messenger isn’t a cop or a federal investigator in starched pants. It’s a twelve-year-old girl, in a soccer uniform. Shin guards and all. “Mrs. Michaels?” she says.
I hesitate before answering—the way I often do when someone asks me if that is who I am. I am and I’m not. I haven’t changed my name. I was Hannah Hall for the thirty-eight years before I met Owen, and I didn’t see a reason to become someone else after. But Owen and I have been married for a little over a year. And, in that time, I’ve learned not to correct people either way. Because what they really want to know is whether I’m Owen’s wife.
It’s certainly what the twelve-year-old wants to know, which leads me to explain how I can be so certain that she is twelve, having spent most of my life seeing people in two broad categories: child and adult. This change is a result of the last year and a half, a result of my husband’s daughter, Bailey, being the stunningly disinviting age of sixteen. It’s a result of my mistake, upon first meeting the guarded Bailey, of telling her that she looked younger than she was. It was the worst thing I could have done.
Maybe it was the second worst. The worst thing was probably my attempt to make it better by cracking a joke about how I wished someone would age me down. Bailey has barely stomached me since, despite the fact that I now know better than to try to crack a joke of any kind with a sixteen-year-old. Or, really, to try and talk too much at all.
But back to my twelve-year-old friend standing in the doorway, shifting from dirty cleat to dirty cleat.
“Mr. Michaels wanted me to give you this,” she says.
Then she thrusts out her hand, a folded piece of yellow legal paper inside her palm. HANNAH is written on the front in Owen’s writing.
I take the folded note, hold her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m missing something. Are you a friend of Bailey’s?”
“Who’s Bailey?”
I didn’t expect the answer to be yes. There is an ocean between twelve and sixteen. But I can’t piece this together. Why hasn’t Owen just called me? Why is he involving this girl? My first guess would be that something has happened to Bailey, and Owen couldn’t break away. But Bailey is at home, avoiding me as she usually does, her blasting music (today’s selection: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) pulsing all the way down the stairs, its own looping reminder that I’m not welcome in her room.
“I’m sorry. I’m a little confused… where did you see him?”
“He ran past me in the hall,” she says.
For a minute I think she means our hall, the space right behind us. But that doesn’t make sense. We live in a floating home on the bay, a houseboat as they are commonly called, except here in Sausalito, where there’s a community of them. Four hundred of them. Here they are floating homes—all glass and views. Our sidewalk is a dock, our hallway is a living room.
“So you saw Mr. Michaels at school?”
“That’s what I just said.” She gives me a look, like where else? “Me and my friend Claire were on our way to practice. And he asked us to drop this off. I said I couldn’t come until after practice and he said, fine. He gave us your address.”
She holds up a second piece of paper, like proof.
“He also gave us twenty bucks,” she adds.
The money she doesn’t hold up. Maybe she thinks I’ll take it back.
“His phone was broken or something and he couldn’t reach you. I don’t know. He barely slowed down.”
“So… he said his phone was broken?”
“How else would I know?” she says.
Then her phone rings—or I think it’s a phone until she picks it off her waist and it looks more like a high-tech beeper. Are beepers back?
Carole King show tunes. High-tech beepers. Another reason Bailey probably doesn’t have patience for me. There’s a world of teen things I know absolutely nothing about.
The girl taps away on her device, already putting Owen and her twenty-dollar mission behind her. I’m reluctant to let her go, still unsure about what is going on. Maybe this is some kind of weird joke. Maybe Owen thinks this is funny. I don’t think it’s funny. Not yet, anyway.
“See you,” she says.
She starts walking away, heading down the docks. I watch her get smaller and smaller, the sun down over the bay, a handful of early evening stars lighting her way.
Then I step outside myself. I half expect Owen (my lovely and silly Owen) to jump out from the side of the dock, the rest of the soccer team giggling behind him, the lot of them letting me in on the prank I’m apparently not getting. But he isn’t there. No one is.
So I close our front door. And I look down at the piece of yellow legal paper still folded in my hand. I haven’t opened it yet.
It occurs to me, in the quiet, how much I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to know what the note says. Part of me still wants to hold on to this one last moment—the moment where you still get to believe this is a joke, an error, a big nothing; the moment before you know for sure that something has started that you can no longer stop.
I unfold the paper.
Owen’s note is short. One line, its own puzzle.
Protect her.
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Laura Dave
Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me, Eight Hundred Grapes and other novels. Her work has been published in thirty-eight countries and The Last Thing He Told Me is now a series on Apple TV+. She resides in Santa Monica.
You can follow her on Instagram @lauradaveauthor
Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5
154,085 global ratings
Kindle Customer
5
Intriguing
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
Waited to read this after all of the hoopla died down because sometimes the hype is overrated. Also,this is my first time rrading this author. Defintely going to check out her other books. Surprisingly I really enjoyed this book. I did not know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I got into it and stayed the course. Didn't skip over anything. Nice pace of a story. Surprised by the turn of events. Surprised by the ending. I have been to Sausalito numerous times. It's definitely a "have" place. Nice homes. I used to joke that I couldn't afford the front door at most of the homes! Nice walking town. Great restaurants. Shopping is high end. The views are stunning. Typical northern California weather. Hannah played it cool when her prized table was in a house. Hannah played it cool throughout the whole book. Curious now to see how Jennifer Garner portrayed Hannah in the series. Enjoy!
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M. Davis
5
excellent
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2024
Verified Purchase
Very well written! A great story that builds suspense withe each chapter. The characters are well written. And you don’t know who to trust. Kept me guessing. The ending is not so much a let down, just very sad.
Kim
5
Intriguing
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
This is an intriguing story line. Quick vacation read. I am looking forward to the movie. Thought there might be more to the ending but it was appropriate for the story.
Bea L
5
Intriguing
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2024
Verified Purchase
This book was good at capturing the attention, had a great plot, but was not too complex to follow as a relaxing raid. The writing was solid, speaking as a person who appreciates quality structure, as well as content.
I’ve already purchased another book written by this author, and that speaks for itself.
Amazon Customer
4
good
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2024
Verified Purchase
The book was good and great. The story line was interesting. I thought it was a bit slow at times.
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