Taylor Adams | The Last Word

The Book: 

The Last Word by Taylor Adams
Published April 25, 2023 by William Morrow
Date read: June 8, 2023

The Characters: 

Emma

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon

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The Plot (from Goodreads):

After posting a negative book review, a woman living in a remote location begins to wonder if the author is a little touchy—or very, very dangerous—in this pulse-pounding novel of psychological suspense and terror from the critically acclaimed author of No Exit and Hairpin Bridge.

Emma Carpenter lives in isolation with her golden retriever Laika, house-sitting an old beachfront home on the rainy Washington coast. Her only human contact is her enigmatic old neighbor, Deek, and (via text) the house’s owner, Jules.

One day, she reads a poorly written—but gruesome—horror novel by the author H. G. Kane, and posts a one-star review that drags her into an online argument with none other than the author himself. Soon after, disturbing incidents start to occur at night. To Emma, this can’t just be a coincidence. It was strange enough for this author to bicker with her online about a lousy review; could he be stalking her, too?

As Emma digs into Kane’s life and work, she learns he has published sixteen other novels, all similarly sadistic tales of stalking and murder. But who is he? How did he find her? And what else is he capable of?

If you're worried about the dog
Most importantly, the dog does not die. You may keep reading if you were as worried about this as I was!

How did The Last Word end?

Click here for book spoilers for The Last Word
Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read The Last Word, I suggest you turn back now.

The Reveal:

This is a hard one to summarize. The killer was HG King, who happened to be the son of the woman Emma was house-sitting for. He was both Demon-Face and The Author. He was able to get in and out of the house so easily because he had keys, and he had been stalking Emma long before she read his book. He was an incel who just liked being closer to her, until Deek convinced him to kill Emma.

As a child, Howard idolized Deek, the author next door. He wrote a bunch of manuscripts and left them for Deek in hopes he’d read them. Deek hated Howard and was annoyed by the manuscripts. Deek was an alcoholic who had driven away his wife and daughters–he drank because he felt responsible for the girl that Howard killed as a child. Howard had killed her by accident, tying the ropes too tight, but also had been inspired to tie her up in the first place by Deek’s book.

Howard wasn’t a serial killer like Emma thought, but he did kill the delivery driver rather than leave any witnesses. He then accidentally killed his mother by tying her too tight just like the girl.

After much of a fight, Emma killed Howard with his own sword that Howard had admitted was hidden in the walls of his childhood bedroom. Howard somehow survived that too and then Emma shot him.

Deek survived the stab would that Emma had accidentally inflicted. Both Emma and Deek went to the hospital and got better, and Laika was fine despite ingesting rat poison.

Shawn was not dead. Emma’s car accident had killed their baby daughter, and in her grief she left town with the dog and cut off contact with him. She had been planning to kill herself since she was responsible for her daughter’s death.

Emma went to Deek’s house to have tea, and Deek poisoned her. He had been the puppetmaster behind Howard’s actions after all, because he needed to write another bestseller to restart his stalled career. He met Emma and knew she’d be the perfect victim for his next true crime book. Once he told Emma this, he drove her out to the beach and threw her dazed body in the ocean, weighed down with her backpack of rocks. Emma was able to fight the poison and survived.

The Ending:

Deek called the police to do a wellness check on Emma, at the exact same time as she had walked into the police station from the beach to make a statement against him.

Emma and Laika decided to go home. She called Shawn on her car ride and made a plan to meet him halfway to repair their relationship.

The Review: 

The prologue with the tormented book reviewer cracked me up. I’ve never had an author comment on my negative reviews, but it’s very relatable! I feel bad every time I post a review that isn’t glowing, but also don’t want to lead y’all astray…

The rave reviews of this book are spot-on. It’s tense, scary, fast-paced, and the perfect book to read in a single sitting. If you’re looking for slasher movie vibes in book form, this is the one for you. It takes place in an isolated house on the beach, and the “stuck with no power and no car” atmosphere was the perfect setting.

I really enjoyed our main character Emma, her snarky but true book reviews, and her love for her dog. I LOVED how Laika talked back in Emma’s imagination–I talk to my dog constantly and “talk” for her often as well. Also loved that Laika was based on the author’s real-life dog (so you know she’ll be okay, if you were worried about that like I was).

The Last Word was extremely entertaining and I highly recommend it.

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