Five amazingly disturbing and gripping stars! This book was so dark, eye opening, and heart wrenching in the best ways. From the first chapter I was completely hooked and could not put this one down until I finished. Ashley Winstead is an absolute force to be reckoned with in the thriller genre and I am SO looking forward to devouring her future releases!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark Publishing for providing me with an ARC!

Far from her home in East Texas, Shay Evans finds herself under the spell of her college roommate's father. Years later, her best friend Laurel is found dead and her friend and popular podcast host, Jamie is investigating, she has no choice but to return to the place of her nightmares.

This book was phenomenal! Ashley Winstead has yet to write a book I haven't enjoyed. I knew going in this book was dark, but the more I read, the darker it became (think anything Karin Slaughter or Behind Closed Doors level dark). In my opinion, this so much deeper than other psychological thrillers because it makes you REALLY think. It disects gender roles, power, sex, morals, and how society opperates. It sheds light onto how men use religion and other means to exploit women and do whatever they can to make their narrative the right one.

I loved the mention of Nxvium and couldn't believe I didn't see the similarities until it was mentioned at the end. I usually am not a fan of podcast pieces being woven in but Ashley made those parts so interesting by using them as the alternate timeline for the book.

Thank you THANK YOU to Ashley Winsted and Sourcebooks Landmark for my copy of this book. It was one of my most anticipated books of the year FOR A GOOD REASON. Winstead is a phenomenal writer and this book was no exception. It was about Shay Evans, a girl who is trying to forget her past. When she finds out one of her good friends from college committed suicide, it brings back memories of another suicide long ago and what she has escaped from. She finds out about the death from her favorite true crime podcast and once best friend Jamie. As Shay and Jamie begin to dig deeper, they realize there is much more to this story than they first thought, and the deeper they dig, the harder it will be to get out.

Thoughts: Winstead’s writing is phenomenal. This book is dark and gritty and starts off with the multiple trigger warnings that occur in this book. Seriously, it has every single one, so go in knowing that. It goes from dark to darker in the best way and drags the reader down a rabbit hole you can’t help but love. I couldn’t put this book down because each chapter made me want to read more and more. It has both a true crime podcast and A CULT! I mean, what else could you want in a book.

I loved the parallels to the NXIVM cult and some of the similarities that occurred in the book. This is a book about gender and where power is placed in our culture. It’s about fear and control and discusses these topics in a way that you can’t miss. I loved the characters in this book, I loved the story, and I loved the elements that came together to build a bigger picture. I know this book will not be for everyone, but it was very much for me. Ashley Winstead is one of my new favorite authors and definitely one to watch. 4.5 stars!

Wow! This book is like falling down a very dark and disturbing rabbit hole, but I mean that in the best way. Ashley Winstead really knows how to keep you turning pages. This book was as addictive as it was twisted! I enjoyed every minute of it. Lots of content warnings with this one, including: murder, sexual assault, domestic violence, sex trafficking, abuse, cults, suicide.

✨Book Review✨

The Last Housewife
Ashley Winstead
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Another binge-worthy book from @ashleywinsteadbooks 😎 This was supposed to be a buddy read with @jordans.book.club buuuut I kind of left her behind because I couldn’t put it down. Sorry bestie!

I will say it again, it takes an amazing writer to be able to write such varying genres, all so well. And Ashley does that! I’ve read her 3 books back-to-back-to-back and all were quick reads that I couldn’t put down.

Read this if you like:
🕵🏻‍♀️True Crime Podcasts
🤭Handmaid’s Tale

I can’t even put into words how good this one was, or everything I loved about it! Definitely pre-order it (releases August 16, 2022)! Thank you @netgalley @bookmarked and @ashleywinsteadbooks for the eARC and opportunity to read and review this book!

HOLY MOLY!! This book was one sensational ride. I am not sure what I expected but this was far beyond any expectations.. Dark and gritty, and so believable it could almost pass as a real live true crime novel. I loved the story wrapped up in a podcast format and the multilayered characters that you both loved and hated. I'm no glad I had a chance to read it, while it was full of triggers it was a bold and brave perspective that I think SO MANY people will resonate with. Thank you for the ARC!

Warning: you may need a Xanax after reading this book. Also, it’s one of the best things I’ve read so far this year.

The Last Housewife is definitely up there with the likes of Jar of Hearts vis-à-vis number of trigger warnings and disturbing content (sexual/emotional abuse, rape, cults, violence, suicide, murder, and more). You’ll also notice some similarities to The Handmaid’s Tale.

For as dark, tense, and scary as this gets, it’s also immensely thought-provoking and poignant, especially as a woman. What’s more, I was a Women’s Studies major in college, and this book (and especially the author conversation, which is a must-read!) truly brought me back.

I don’t exactly sit down and assess feminists texts on a day-to-day basis anymore, so it was almost nostalgic in a way to experience this book and Shay’s coming to terms with who she is, what she deserves, what power is and who defines it, and what it means to be a woman and a feminist today.

Disclaimer: This book has about every single trigger you could possibly imagine.

Now that I said that disclaimer, let's talk about one of the best books that I've read in years, shall we? Ashley Winstead has won readers over last summer with her debut thriller, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, so I was really excited to be given the opportunity to read her upcoming psychological thriller, The Last Housewife ! Wow, I need time to think carefully how to write this review and give this book justice. First and foremost, I am exhausted. I read this book in one sitting, which is a rarity for me. The Last Housewife is the most bingeworthy book I've ever read in my life.

The story focuses on Shay Deroy, a 30 year old married woman living in Texas with her successful husband Cal. Shay loves true crime podcasts, especially one created by an old childhood friend of hers, Jamie. While listening to the true crime podcast, Shay finds out that one of her high school best friends, Laurel, has died and the police are calling it a suicide. The facts don't line up with a suicide and Shay wants to avenge Laurel's death. Shay and Laurel had a very dark past that Shay would like forgotten, but when Shay and Jamie dive into her college BFF's life to find out the truth, Shay realizes that sometimes the past just won't go away.

UGH, I wish I can say more, but I won't. I actually didn't even read the synopsis of this book before picking it up. I just love the author so much, that I just picked it up on a whim. Whoa, this book has like scarred me. Without going into detail, because it's nobody's business, I related to some of the traumatic experiences in this book. I just was hypnotized by the compelling and powerful themes throughout this book, but this book won't be for everybody so join the adventure if you can handle triggers. Ashley Winstead really goes into a world that I never expected a book could be, but The Last Housewife is the golden standard moving forward. It's a must read.

Wow. Just wow. Fifty Shades of Gray meets The Maidens in this heart-pounding and seductive thriller. I was glued to this book into the late hours of the night. The plotting is brilliant and the writing is magnetic. Ashley Winstead has a fan for life.

Holy smokes! I couldn't put this book down and stayed up way too late reading! This is an incredibly dark psychological thriller! A warning to sensitive readers, this hits every trigger you can imagine. I loved the fast pace. We will be hand selling this to our thriller customers!

QUICK TAKE: THE LAST HOUSEWIFE is extremely dark and twisted (and dare I say, entertaining) pschosexual thriller. It's 50 SHADES meets EYES WIDE SHUT meets NXIUM: a ripped-from-the-headlines book that explores the dark world of a violent, sadomasochistic cult in a New York college town. The story unfolds through the eyes of Shay Evans, who returns to avenge the deaths of two college friends by infiltrating the cult to take it down from the inside and ultimately save the women who are still in danger.

At its core, this is a badass female revenge story that also tackles complicated issues of gender and power dynamics, coercion and agency. It’s propulsive and unputdownable. The author, Ashley Winstead, is a popular romcom author who released a thriller last summer (IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE) that gave us a peek into the dark territory she was willing to explore. I've read all her books and this one left me stunned and clutching my pearls. It’s not perfect -the back half is a bit of a mess and over the top (and I'm annoyed there was an epilogue because the page is brutal and amazing)- but I haven’t stopped thinking about the book since I finished a few weeks ago.

Buyer beware before jumping into this one: pay attention to the content warnings, this is not for the feint of heart.

I know I'm going against the grain here, but this one is really a steaming pile for me. Look, I know the evil misogynists are evil, but I'm not buying that there wasn't some hard core glorification going on in there *shivers skeevily*. Combine that with the MC being an unpalatable moron with exactly zero sense of self preservation or ability to read a room and...just no.

Not the type of book I would typically choose to read. I didn’t thoroughly read the blurb before requesting it, but I am glad I stuck it out as it ended up being an exciting story.
This book would be a good read for a Fifty Shades of Grey fan.

When Shay Evans was in college, she was introduced to and seduced by an older man. Along with a few of her college friends, she quickly fell under his spell and was sucked into his dark world, only to escape his clutches along with her friend Laurel during their Senior year.
Fast forward eight years, Shay quit her job to focus on writing a novel. Straying off track as she tries to build motivation to put pen to paper finally, she finds herself taking part in an amateur investigation with an old friend who runs a true-crime podcast. This investigation hits close to home as it involves the death of her college friend Laurel.
As Shay delves deep into the world she had left behind in search of answers for her friend's death, many memories and people from her past entangle her once again in their web. As her obsession for the truth grows, something awakens in her that she thought she had safely locked away years ago. With these old desires once again bubbling to the surface, will Shay get sucked back into the world she had barely managed to escape years ago? Or will she uncover the truth in the search for justice for Lauren?

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Last year, Ashley Winstead's In My Dreams I Hold a Knife completely blew away my expectations. Like many avid thriller readers, I've gotten used to most of them having a similar plot and vibe. (As someone who has tried to write them, I totally get it--it is really hard to come up with surprising yet inevitable plot twists while keeping everything real-world and still conforming to genre expectations.) So I was really impressed that Winstead managed to write a thriller that was compulsive, well-paced, twisty, surprising, and brilliant from start to finish!

Given that, I was excited to read The Last Housewife, if also admittedly a bit nervous that this next book wouldn't be able to hold the same magic. (It is hard enough to come up with one brilliant thriller, let alone two.)

Well. I need not have worried. The Last Housewife is one of the most amped up, effed up, and brilliant books I've ever read! It is also such an intelligent, well-crafted story. I always enjoy rich depth of themes, but I don't expect them from thrillers, which makes it even more of a pleasant surprise to find it in one.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the book, really, since I think the reading experience improves with knowing nothing going in. (Even the back cover blurb is too spoilery IMO.) But I will warn you that it is INTENSE and DARK. I didn't find it too heavy a read, despite it containing many heavy themes, but your mileage may vary.

If the rest of this rambly review didn't already make it clear, this was one of my favorite thriller reads ever. Ashley Winstead has joined my other thriller author faves, Jennifer Hillier and Jane Harper, and I cannot WAIT to read more from her! Huge thanks to Sourcebooks for providing me with an advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Ashley Winstead's campus thriller IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE, and so I was immediately excited for this one (even without knowing the premise). It deals with heavy content, but I think it's best (if possible) to go in knowing as little as possible about the storyline itself, because Winstead pulls it off so thoughtfully and expertly. Shay is a housewife in Texas, adrift, and in her search for what happened to her former best friend, finds herself caught up in a cult. I loved Shay and Jamie's relationship development, the use of podcast transcripts, the slow unfolding of Shay's past. The subtle ways misogyny manifested in this book (from Cal to Don, and everyone in-between) was handled so skillfully, and the ending both fit the book exactly and had me shocked in the best possible way. Brilliantly paced, brilliantly executed. I read this in a single setting (how could you not?!), but will be thinking about it for a long, long time after.

Holy. Moly. What a book. I didn’t know much about the plot going in, just that it included a cult of some kind (one of my favourite things to read about), and I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t this story, and, I you can, I recommend going in blind. This book was unbelievably fast paced, and I could not put it down. I loved the inclusion of the podcast interviews to provide backstory, and thought it read so much like true crime podcasts; it was clear the author has done her research. This book was chilling and thrilling and not for the faint of heart, but felt so relevant to our world right now. I loved it and can’t wait to read it again (yes, already!).

As a massive fan of Winstead's 2021 debut "In My Dreams I Hold a Knife", her newest thriller "The Last Housewife" was easily my most anticipated read of 2022! Ashley truly has a gift in storytelling, and her characters, setting, and plot progression are commendable. While this wasn't an immediate favorite like her previous novel, I did enjoy the drama and salacious nature of the narrative. I think my main letdown was the promise of a "pitch black thriller" that felt a little more "fade-to-black" compared to many others I've read. I wanted the gritty details on all the scenarios, but I understand why the author had to choose carefully what to include and what not to. Admittedly, my darkometer is not as sensitive as some (or most), so while the overall content is unnerving and disturbing, I found it to be dealt out in a telling more than showing sort of way. Some wonderful twists and turns, with a clearly heavy inspiration by the NXIVM sex cult, so if you've watched any documentaries on the subject you'll see many extremely similar details. Overall an enjoyable read, and I look forward to what the author brings to the table next.

TW: Suicide, rape, physical violence, sexual violence, trauma, self-harm, misogyny, gender essentialism, drug use.

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:While in college in New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were the only ones who managed to escape. Now, eight years later, Shay's built a new life in a tony Texas suburb. But when she hears the horrifying news of Laurel's death—delivered, of all ways, by her favorite true-crime podcast crusader—she begins to suspect that the past she thought she buried is still very much alive, and the predators more dangerous than ever.Recruiting the help of the podcast host, Shay goes back to the place she vowed never to return to in search of answers. As she follows the threads of her friend's life, she's pulled into a dark, seductive world, where wealth and privilege shield brutal philosophies that feel all too familiar. When Shay's obsession with uncovering the truth becomes so consuming she can no longer separate her desire for justice from darker desires newly reawakened, she must confront the depths of her own complicity and conditioning.
Release Date: 08/16/22
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 400
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 3.5

What I Liked:
• The writing is simply beautiful
• The plot is so interesting
• The book reads very fast
• The characters are likeable to a certain point

What I Didn't Like:
• Tongue-cut Sparrow is a terrible name for a club
• Sometimes this book breaks its on rules when it comes to certain characters
• Shay's treatment of Cal
• Shay wanting to go back and save all these women but it ends up getting them killed
• The ending was not good

Overall Thoughts: How stupid was it that she uses her real name and paid with a card to get in?! Here is this secret society and she's just throwing out everything about herself. Once she even suspects that Don is at the top of things she continues to throw her name around. Shay isn't exactly a common name.

I thought you couldn't bring anything into the tongue cut sparrow but how did the Nicole bring her purse into the place.

There's a part where Shay is talking about Don hitting Clam with a belt over his lap. It would be so awkward to hit someone with a belt on that position.

This starts off like Eyes Wide Shut meets The Killing. When we finally get to Shay's life story after she meets Don it takes a turn of a story you've heard before - NXIVM. In case you don't know the story of NXIVM it's about a leader of a cult like Multi Level Marketing scheme. Keith Raniere is the leader. The similarities to this book and that story is;
1. Used other women to recruit women into the group
2. Dominus Obsequious Sororium" (DOS) was the name of the group, which Dominus is mentioned in this book as paying Laurel's rent. 3. Would brand the women with his initial and his second in command (a woman)
4. Forced women to be on strict diets to get so skinny they'd be sick.
5. Believed in dominating them and belittling them
6. Very strict punishments
7. Started a woman empowerment group but was headed by Keith as the only man in power.

I thought it was odd how everytime she got freaked out and managed to leave that she kept getting invited out and no one punished her.

It was never explained how they got her number to text her. They just keep appearing on her phone and she doesn't question it and it's never explained.

You get a lot of times of Shay saying "let me tell you a story.(Sophia picture it gif)

I am confused how shay was able to feel empathy for these women stuck in these "relationships" but was so heartless to her own mother being beat up by a man.

The ending is where the story got the weakest. I think its ridiculous that Shay thought that she could go back into the Hilltop house to save Laurel. The fact that they continue to let Shay just in and out of all of these secret areas that are highly protected. Oh and then the FBI just showing up so fast and they happened to already know but didn't do anything - I'm guessing because they didnt have the evidence together, but were able to take James words to get a warrant together. Um okay.

Final Thoughts: The ending is one huge mess. I didn't like that the author didn't mention that she drew some inspiration from NXIVM when clearly there are a lot of similarities throughout.

Please read the content warning for this book - there are a lot as this book is dark, disturbing, and complex.
Shay Evans (now Shay Deroy) returns to upstate NY to investigate the suicide of her college friend Laurel. There are too many coincidences between Laurel's death and the suicide of their college roommate Clem and it brings up memories Shay has been trying to forget for the past 8 years. But when she returns to her college town, they all come flooding back.
She found out about Laurel's death from her high school classmate Jamie who is doing a podcast about it and the two of them set out to find out what really happened.
Without revealing too much, this is a dark cult thriller that will leave you mesmerized. It's about patriarchy, misogyny, desire, victimhood, power, and trauma. An edgy, thought-provoking book!

The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead Fast forwarded through many parts of the book. While I recognize some people like to be dominated, scene after scene of this brutality seemed totally pointless. Too many triggers in this dark, distrubing novel, Ishould have read the content warnings. Not my kind of book. Reading other reviews, there are many fans that will enjoy it. The Ms Winstead does have a flowing, descriptive writing style that brings the book to life.
Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.