#IFTHENNEXTREADBOOKS Showcase Series:
IF you read and liked BAD BLOOD by John Carreyrou…..
THEN your next read could be THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave

Last month author Laura Dave celebrated 1 year straight of being on the NYT Bestsellers List and it’s easy to see why. If you’re a reader who enjoys the mystery/thriller genre, this read is one to add to your beach bag this summer that will have you turning its pages as the sun dips down under the horizon. On the heels of the Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos scandal that has everyone talking due to the buzz resulting from a HBO documentary (The Inventor), HULU series (The Drop Out), and book release (Bad Blood), and especially with Holmes’ sentencing scheduled for September, the timing is perfect to make this your next read!

Dave’s book opens with a similarly inspired tech scandal with promises and investments made before a product was complete and finished, and now its company The Shop’s executives are on the run and being hunted by the FBI and other US officials. One of these execs, Owen, disappears with only a note left to his wife Hannah to protect his daughter. Now woodturner Hannah must try to unravel clues with the help of her reluctant teammate, her teen stepdaughter Bailey, to not only try to find Owen but reveal if he is really who she thinks he is. Along for the ride, the reader travels around the local haunts and famed spots of Sausalito and Austin, piecing together Owen’s past before his life with Hannah and his career at The Shop.

Grab this book before the now-in-production Apple TV series begins with THE Jennifer Garner in the title role! Sneak a peek of her turning wood in prep for her role as Hannah on Laura’s Instagram. Grab the popcorn and I’ll meet you on the couch for this book-adapted film coming soon to the screen!

This one packs a hell of a punch for something that’s fairly short in length - another beautiful, bittersweet tale of love and loss, what makes us family, and second chances - this one will have you grabbing the tissue box by the time you hit the last page.

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This one begins with Hannah, a newly married woman in her early forties doing the best she can to balance her husband, the unexpected love of her life, and her rocky relationship with her teenage stepdaughter, Bailey.

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Hannah’s life is turned into a high paced mystery with dangerous stakes as her husband disappears, leaving her only a mysterious note, a duffel bag of cash, and a team of U.S. Marshalls and FBI Agents on their tail.

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As Hannah is confronted with the horrible truth that everything she knew about her husband was a lie, she must do any and everything to protect Bailey, the only family she has left. #mysterybooks #biblio #bibliophile #bookstomovies

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* i have heard a lot about this book and have wanted to read it long before it came out, finally got to it! now, for a while i was really unsure why everyone liked this book so much, when i finished it, it overall was great but also different in a good way.

I enjoy when a book grabs me right at the beginning and you know you are in for a ride. Imagine your husband going off to work one morning and later that day you receive a note from him saying, "protect her." The main character knows this note has to mean protect her stepdaughter; but why? Things begin to unfold at a fast pace and will keep you flipping the pages. Don't miss this one!

It"s a nice blend of women's fiction and page-turning suspense. What sets this apart is the realistic relationship between a new mother and her teenage step-daughter. They grow closer as they try to unravel the mystery behind why her husband chose to disappear. Has one of the best last sentences of a book ever.

This book exceeded my expectations to the point it became binge worthy. It was compelling from the beginning. Hannah lives on a house boat with her husband Owen and his teenage daughter Bailey. One ordinary day, a young girl shows up at their home with a note from Owen saying “protect her”. Hannah knows Owen is referring to Baile, but she doesn’t know who or what she is protecting her from. Owen doesn’t come home that night. His company is being investigated by the FBI and they assume he is on the run. Hannah and Bailey begin to bond as the search for Owen and look into his and Bailey’s past. I really enjoyed this book and how it kept me guessing with its twists and turns. It is a light read that I finished in two days.

A thriller/mystery that I didn’t want to put down. I kept reading page after page, hoping to get an answer to the burning question. Spoiler alert, you won’t know until the last 20% of the book. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

The Last Thing He Told Me opens with Hannah receiving a note from her husband via a high school soccer player, containing only two words "Protect Her," presumably in reference to her step-daughter, Bailey. From there, Hannah learns that her husband has disappeared, appearing to have gone underground as the start-up he works for is shuttered for fraud. But, as Hannah and Bailey learn it is unlikely that Owen has run off to escape any liability for his part in the fraudulent activity, but instead to keep Bailey from harm. To understand why, Hannah and Bailey must come together and try to uncover more about Owen and Bailey's past.

This book is fast-paced and engaging. I could not put it down and read it over the course of a day. What is keeping me from rating this as a four- or five-star excellent read is the ending. I just could not find it believable, as others have also alluded to. I enjoyed the twists and the character/relationship development between Hannah and Bailey. I also liked the interspersed chapters from the past, providing a look into the dynamic between Owen, Hannah, and/or Bailey. But I could not get behind the ending and believe that the decisions made were those the characters, like Bailey, would actually make.

Thank you to Laura Dave, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for my free ARC of this book.

The description and multiple accolades for The Last Thing He Told Me enticed me to request it, but I think this book was oversold from multiple angles. It started off strong, but both the writing and the plot were underwhelming, The pacing was slow, the plot twists were unlikely, and the characters were annoying. Hopefully it makes for a better movie/series.

This was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club, and I must say that I have generally really liked her book picks. I like that she chooses from a broad range of genres and doesn’t only pick literary books. Thus, I was eager to listen to this suspense/thriller audiobook, and it was everything I hoped for. It was fast-paced with a story that kept me wanting to listen as the story unfolded, and the storyline kept me guessing all along the way. The characters were great and very relatable. Maybe it’s because I have a very dependable and predictable husband, but I do find myself being drawn to books where a spouse thinks they know their spouse, but really don’t. I just can’t imagine that and find it inticing (although I’m not wanting that to happen to me)! Dave did a nice job accurately depicting the growth of that relationship with a teenager, complete with ups and downs. The narrator for the audiobook, Rebecca Lowman, did an excellent job narrating this audiobook. I wasn’t familiar with her work, but she will be on my radar for future listens.

This book was a solid five star read for me. I loved this book from the beginning to the end! I started it and initially thought it was going to drag but almost from the beginning of the book it kept me guessing and coming back for more.

This is my third Laura Dave book to read and she is fast becoming an author I can count on for a good solid story. The Last Thing He Told Me was on my radar more for it being made into a film this year than for its inclusion of a celeb book club, but either way I knew I wanted to check it out. My local library cannot keep it on the shelf!! I enjoyed the relationship dynamic between the main character and her stepdaughter; there was just enough angst to be believable, but not so much as to make you dislike either of them. And the overall concept was one that I had not read before. It is always refreshing to find a unique concept or one that is maybe familiar but written in a unique way which I feel is a Laura Dave special. Thank you to the publisher and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced copy of The Last Thing He Told Me.

All Hannah has is a scrap of paper with Owen’s message - “Protect Her”. As she realizes Owen is not coming home and has left her and stepdaughter Bailey alone to unlock the pieces of a previous life he had hidden, she also knows they are not safe and don’t know who to trust. All Hannah knows is that Owen trusted her…. As she and Bailey set out to discover the past secrets and forge a way to the future neither could have envisioned they must also learn to trust each other. This was a great book with twists and turns that I enjoyed. I received an ARC of this book, all opinions are my own.

This book had its highs and lows. It hooked me immediately and I fell in love with the characters immediately…even the angsty teenager. It held my interest for most of the book. When the “mystery” was almost solved, it got very confusing and I felt like I had to reread different parts of the book. Nevertheless, the book ended strong and had the most perfect wrap up. I very much enjoyed this book, and think you will too. Thank you to netgalley.com for this ARC in trade for my honest opinion. I will look into other books by this author. Her writing is superb!

There's nothing like a death to leave you questioning how well you really knew someone. The Last Thing He Told Me masterfully pairs a mystery with emotional journey of grief and anger. Family drama, secrets, and a story full a twists wont let you put this one down!

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave is a great read. It hooked me right from the first chapter. I really loved Hannah and her relationship with her step daughter, Bailey. I loved to watch it grow and change in the setting of a thriller. The ending didn't feel rushed like it does in some thrillers and it was able to wrap everything up and give the reader closesure.

WOW ! This book was non stop action !
The FBI, a U.S. Marshall and the mob are all invested in a family on the run. I don’t want to repeat the synopsis or give anything away but know that a woman will do anything to protect her husbands 16 year old daughter even if she’s not her own.
I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review the book.

This book was so twisty and fun and interesting and is great for anyone who likes true crime. It was the perfect intersection of mystery and thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

Laura Dave, best known for her novels EIGHT HUNDRED GRAPES and HELLO, SUNSHINE, makes her first foray into domestic suspense with THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME.

When Hannah Hall receives a note from her husband that says “Protect her,” she is puzzled, to say the least. She and Owen have not been married for long, but being older and more established, their partnership has always been based on honesty. They undoubtedly have chemistry, but as two dedicated professionals parenting Bailey, Owen’s 16-year-old daughter from his first marriage, they’ve had to face their fair share of tough conversations. Still, “protecting her” has never come up before. Hannah immediately intuits that the message refers to Bailey, but what could she need protecting from? She’s a good kid in a less-than-ideal situation, but she’s the light of her father’s life --- and with Owen’s job at a software startup, the family has never struggled with anything alarming or dangerous before.

But when Owen doesn’t answer Hannah’s calls about what's going on, and then doesn’t show up for dinner that night, she knows something is wrong. It’s not long before a news broadcast provides the answer: the company where Owen works, The Shop, has been raided by the SEC and the FBI, and CEO Avett Thompson has been arrested for embezzlement and fraud. Hannah soon finds out that The Shop --- a company dedicated to building technology that allows users to take control of their online privacy --- has been struggling for months. The technology that they promised would make their investors millions has taken longer than planned to finalize, and Thompson lied to them about it, costing them entire fortunes.

Hannah is adamant that Owen must have had no idea and is in hiding for a good reason. But how could he, the company’s coder, not know that the technology was not ready? When Bailey finds a duffel bag full of cash in her locker, Hannah is certain that her husband is on the run for one reason: danger is coming to Bailey.

With a US Marshal on her doorstep and the FBI tracking her every move, Hannah starts to realize that Owen --- a Princeton graduate, the perfect dad and a loving husband --- is not who he says he is. A mysterious note left for Bailey that claims “You know what matters about me” suggests to Hannah that somewhere deep in Bailey’s memories about her beloved father lies the truth about his identity.

With nowhere left to turn, and some serious stepmother-stepdaughter resentment ramping up the tension, Hannah and Bailey set off to discover the truth about Owen Michaels. In alternating chapters that chronicle their investigation into his real identity and whereabouts, and Hannah’s romance with him, the novel explores just how easy it is to reinvent yourself and what happens when the mask begins to slip.

I've been wanting to read Laura Dave's work for years, but it wasn’t until THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME was announced that I knew it was time to bump her up on my TBR list. Thanks to her contemporary fiction background, she is adept at writing difficult human interactions and emotions, and making her characters truly resonate with you. But even more impressively, she can write a perfect mystery. When you combine the two genres, you get something truly spectacular. Dave hooked me from the first chapter; her writing is immediate and commanding, and her characters feel authentic right from the start.

Hannah in particular is perfectly layered. Having been abandoned by her mother as a child, she can relate to her stepdaughter’s resentment, but she also struggles with accepting love herself, which makes Owen’s betrayal sting even more. But Hannah is no victim --- she’s quick-thinking, resourceful and nearly unflappable, and though Dave thrusts her into some unthinkable situations, her responses are gritty, real and never over the top.

With a ripped-from-the-headlines mystery at its heart, it’s easy to see why THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME is instantly gripping. But Dave uses the budding relationship between Hannah and Bailey to elevate it into something far more than just a solid suspense novel. Motherhood comes in many forms, and though I've read about the stepmother figure numerous times, I’ve never seen one quite as fleshed out and explored as it is here. Hannah understands Bailey in ways that her husband doesn’t, and though she tries hard, she also acknowledges and respects Bailey’s resentment. At the same time, the 16-year-old --- and all her adolescent eye rolls, mood swings and sarcastic comebacks --- is no stereotype. Even when she’s at her bratty, hormonal, teenage worst, Dave approaches her with respect and care.

Although the novel is about Owen, it is Hannah and Bailey who take the lead. The mystery is always at the forefront, but there are so many elements simmering in the background that you’ll be hard-pressed to find one boring or forgettable page.

With all the taut pacing of writers like Carola Lovering and Julie Clark, and the astute emotional awareness of Sally Hepworth and J. Courtney Sullivan, THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME is a thoroughly engaging, heart-pounding novel perfect for those who are desperate for their next “can’t put it down” read.

YES, this was so amazing to read. I honestly judged this book instantly by the cover which, I'll say it, you should never do. But look at the font on the cover... it is beautiful! So I had to request. The book was not what I expected but it blew me away and defied everything I expected! Amazing!