The Last Thing He Told Me is a mystery/domestic suspense about a man living a lie and his wife and daughter who struggle to discover who he really is.
Hannah Hall has married Owen, a man that walked into her ‘woodturning” shop and swept her off her feet despite her resistance, due to having just broken up with her fiancée. Owen’s sixteen year old daughter, Bailey, despises everything about Hannah but Hannah is determined to win her over someday. Life is good for Hannah, she loves her work, she loves both Owen and Bailey, she finally has a family after suffering for decades over feelings of abandonment because her parents left her when she was young.
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Then one morning, she kisses Owen as he heads to work and that’s the last she sees of him. She gets a note, delivered by a little girl, that says “protect her”. The FBI arrests his boss and shows up on her doorstep. Bailey’s dad has left a HUGE puzzling gift for her in her locker at school. Things are falling apart and what Hannah knows about Owen is no longer adding up.
“There was some good character development, but the further I got, the more outlandish it became and not in a good, fun way.”
The Book Guide® Editor
Rather than waiting to see how things unfold, Hannah takes action. Based on a picture and very unreliable memories from when Bailey was less than 4 years old, they are off to a distant city to try to find out Owen’s true identity. Is Owen who he says he is and if he’s not, what does that mean for Hannah and even more so, for Bailey, his daughter? It’s hard to imagine that I would make the choices that Hannah and Bailey make throughout the book but the good thing that comes out of all of this is that they both realize that they have each other through whatever is going on in their lives.
What I was drawn to in this story is less the mystery and more the growing relationship between Hannah and Bailey. I think their reliance on each other and Bailey’s change as she opens up to Hannah, while she convinces Hannah to be open with her, too, is what makes the story work for me. Their world has become a different, scary place and I enjoyed watching them work through the realization that their lives would never be the same again.
The Last Thing He Told Me (2021) By: Laura Dave
Dune (2007) By: Glennon Doyle-
by The Book Guide® Editors3.9/5 Good
