By: Leah Konen
ISBN: 9780593715895
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP Putnam
Publication Date: 01/14/2025
Format: Other
My Rating: TBR (ARC)
The caretaker at an isolated mountain hotel finds herself fighting for her life—and sanity—in this "twisty, addictive, feminist take on The Shining" (Andrea Bartz).
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 . . .
Praise
"Konen deftly shifts the mesmerizing narrative between characters as well as back and forth in time, with nerve-shredding results, before delivering a pulse-pounding conclusion with a final, delightfully devious, Hitchcockian twist. Not since Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train or A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window has an unreliable protagonist been used to such great effect. Tipping her literary cap to Stephen King’s The Shining, Konen serves up a superbly crafted novel of suspense that will thrill and delight fans of Lucy Foley, Alice Feeney, and Sarah Pearse."
—Library Journal (starred review)
"I devoured this twisty, addictive, feminist take on The Shining. Terrifying and taut, The Last Room on the Left is equal parts tantalizing mystery, scary snowstorm survival tale, and thoughtful portrait of a complex female friendship speeding toward a cliff. If you love tightly plotted thrillers about women on the edge—read this now."
—Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of The Spare Room
About the Author
Photo: Nina Subin
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.
