4.5/5⭐️
Last Seen follows Halley as she returns home to care for her father after he takes a fall. The timing works out as she’s just been fired from her job and just initiating a divorce. Upon returning home she discovers files of paperwork indicating her mother was murdered by her sister. However, Halley was always told they both died in a car accident. With her life turned completely upside down she insists on tracking down her sister who’s been missing for 15 years. As she starts digging, people she contacts are being discovered dead and Halley is determined to get to the bottom of it.

I loved this book! It pulled me in from the start and as much as I wanted Halley to show some caution, I also needed to know what was going on. The alternate point of views from the killer also gave some major spooky vibes that added to the whole story.

I am utterly speechless!! I have so much I'd like to say about this book, but my jaw is hanging to the floor right now! Wow! Wow! Wow! I didn't expect an ending like this!! Stunning, brilliant, shocking, suspenseful and I must say frightening!! If I could give this book 10 stars, I'd give it double that! This book was that good!!

This story had a great premise and I truly enjoyed it! I love thrillers and this murdered mother story was just perfect!!

This book started off strong for me, but I lost interest the more I read. I'm not sure why it was boring for me, it just didn't click. It had an interesting premise but was a little too unrealistic.

🌲🛣️📖BOOK REVIEW📖🛣️🌲

🥰Thank you so much to @amazonpublishing for the gifted book!

📖Title: Last Seen
✍️Author: J. T. Ellison
📅Pub Date: August 1, 2025

🌲I'm always so excited for a new J. T. Ellison book! She always leads me down the craziest roads to the most surprising endings and this was no exception!

🛣️I love books revolving around family secrets and the family secret hidden in this story will shock you! The synopsis says what it is, so I think you'll have a lot more fun with this book if you skip reading the synopsis.

🌲This book definitely kept me intrigued and guessing (albeit wrongly) the whole time. There's not much I can say without giving anything away, but if you're a fan of mysteries feat. family drama, make sure you read this one!

🌲I can't wait to see what J. T. Ellison puts out next!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Last Seen is a chilling, atmospheric thriller that hooked me right from the start. J.T. Ellison weaves together a story full of tension, secrets, and shocking twists that kept me turning the pages late into the night. The characters feel vivid and real, and the setting added an extra layer of suspense that made the story even more gripping.
It’s dark, twisty, and absolutely addictive!

If J.T. Ellison is going to do one thing it’s hook me and make me binge read the whole book. Her thrillers are some of my favorites (I still think about Lie to Me all the time and I read it 6 years ago), and this one was no exception!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the arc!

Last Seen by J.T. Ellison hooked me from the very first page, pulling me through a maze of family secrets and a past that refuses to stay buried. The protagonist, Hailey James — a forensic scientist — suddenly finds her life in ruins: she’s lost her husband, her job, and then learns that her mother’s death wasn’t an accident at all, but murder. Worse still, her father has been lying to her for years.

What struck me most was the way Ellison captures Hailey’s disorientation. Her scientific mind keeps searching for logic, for evidence, yet emotionally she’s unraveling. And the seemingly quiet town of Brookville, Tennessee slowly reveals itself as a stage for something far darker — a place built on lies and control.

Characters like Kat — Hailey’s sister, long suspected of killing their mother — aren’t drawn as flat villains, but as complex figures, blurred between victimhood and complicity. That complexity gave the story a depth beyond the usual crime-thriller blueprint.

The plot is full of sharp turns. Every time I thought I had figured it out, Ellison threw in another twist that completely upended my assumptions. The pacing isn’t flawless — a few middle chapters felt stretched, especially around the Brookville investigation — but it never dulled the tension or my need to keep turning the pages.

Beyond the mystery, there’s also a balance of heart: Hailey’s relationship with her husband, Theo, adds tenderness and vulnerability that humanizes the narrative and grounds it in something deeply personal.

Intense, brisk, and riveting!⁣
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𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍 is a complex, creepy thriller that takes you into the life of Halley James, a young woman whose life gets turned upside down when she loses her job, her marriage comes to an end, she returns home to help her father after an emergency surgery, and the story of her mother’s death she’s always believed to be true turns out to be a lie.⁣
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The writing is sharp and crisp. The characters are relentless, intelligent, and vulnerable. And the plot is a menacing tale full of twists, turns, revelations, insecurities, lies, obsession, jealousy, manipulation, danger, indoctrination, troubled pasts, and familial drama.⁣
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Overall, 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍 is a twisty, addictive, unnerving tale by Ellison that is deliciously relentless, surprising, deceptive, and bursting with misdirection.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I had a fun time reading this one, but I think that for thrillers, the ending needs to hold up to the rest of the book, and this one just .. didn’t.

So, what’s it about? We follow Halley, who has spent her whole life believing her mother died in an accident. Only, when Halley’s life starts falling apart (she’s lost her job and her husband, and her dad’s in the hospital) she learns something that changes everything: her mother was actually murdered. In an attempt to take back some control, Halley decides to investigate what really happened, but she has no idea what dangers await her…

This was a pretty slow moving thriller, especially in the beginning, but I liked that. The writing was good, and I enjoyed getting to see the mystery unravel at the same time as Halley. And then I read the ending, which felt so far-fetched and left me with more questions than answers. I’m all for suspending my disbelief when it comes to plot twists, but the way this was done just felt lazy to me. I felt like there weren’t enough clues to justify it, a lot of plot holes are conveniently skipped over, and the author uses some tropes that I generally feel are a cop-out when used the way they were. Vague, I know, but I can’t say too much without spoiling the book.

I really felt for Halley. Poor gal was going THROUGH it. But does that excuse the downright stupid choices she made? I don’t know. I think that will depend on each reader.

As mentioned, the writing was solid. There were a few random sub plots that felt unnecessary, but overall, it was a fun reading experience, and had the ending been more solid, I probably would have given this a higher rating.

2,5/5 stars

I was so certain this was going to be a hit: lots of good reviews, interesting description, striking cover, well-known author.

It was not. The book struggled to get my attention from the prologue, and stayed that way until, I think, around the 65% mark? The problem is that Halley is just an annoyance. Reading a thriller, I expect the main character to be smart, so when they feel cornered, it really gives you the creeps. Halley? She jumps into trouble. She could see a huge, red, flashy sign that says "if you take another step you will be killed right here and now" and she would take the step. And because she was stupid and annoying, all of her struggles felt extremely secondary.
It doesn't help that, I think, a good half of the book could be culled because nothing is relevant to the mystery going on. What do I care about her getting fired and divorced and crying over it for 5 chapters? What do I care about her reuniting with her high school friends at the bar and deciding her high school crush isn't as good as her husband? Sometimes, the book was more about Halley deciding if she wanted to go back to her (saint of a) husband or not. Like, hello? Your missing sister? Your dead mother? But okay, let's just get stuck on stuff that we do not care about. Very immersive (not).

However, I enjoyed the Brockton part of the book. I LOVE a creepy, dissonant town and Brockton was absolutely it. I enjoyed the characters tied to the town and their internal struggles, all related to their father (and the town, by extension). I could picture Brockton really well in my mind and the horrific feeling that people here are hiding something was nailed. So that's my 2,5 stars. Out of 5, that's a lot. That's how much I loved Brockton and if the author wants to revisit the town with not Halley, perhaps a prequel about how it came to be? I would read it, I think.

On the topic of the plot of the book, I found it both bland and also very far-fetched, sometimes. It felt like the author started with a clear idea and ended with another. A lot of my gripe with it can be resumed in one question: why don't these people look their doors? What kind of houses these people have that someone can break in so easily? I'm perplexed and frustrated by that. It felt too easy, every time. And also completely irrealistic.

I'm really disappointed this was not a hit for me. But I might try another book by J.T. Ellison, because what was good in Last Seen was really good, and hopefully other books from her aren't as long and stuck on petty details.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #Thomas&Mercer for the book #LastSeen by #JTEllison. This is one of those books that you have to sit after and let it sink in. I was totally sucked in and absolutely loved this book. Amazing!!! Halley, named after the comet, has so many changes in her life-her marriage is falling apart and she just lost her job. So going home to take care of her father when he breaks his leg, seems like the perfect thing to do. While at her dad’s, she finds out he has lied to her all her life about how her mother died and that her sister is alive. She is determined to find out the truth and goes in search of it. Will she get the answers she is after?

Last Seen is a twisty thriller that kept me hooked from the first page.
A chilling, addictive read that fans of psychological suspense will love.

The book began with a bit of a slow burn but as it got going I really found myself hooked and turning the pages faster. There were many plot twists to keep me interested and there were times when I was suspecting other characters as the killer. I really did enjoy the cult story line and wish that could have been explored more but that's just my personal opinion and it didn't affect the book in any way, I just find cult story lines quite interesting. There were scenes that were described so vividly you can picture it perfectly as if you were there and I really liked how some seemingly minor details came back around in the book, for example, Halley's interest in the stars and constellations. Overall this was a great, binge worthy read that I highly recommend!

This was such a twisty thriller. I loved the family secrets. This book had so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. I loved not being able to guess where everything was going. I really loved the way this one ended. It wasn’t too neat but it all came together in its own way. I think thriller lovers will love this one!

If you love J.T. Ellison like I do, this book will not disappoint. While Halley is already going through a hard time in life with a separation from her husband and unexpectedly losing her job, she gets news that her Dad has been hurt and has gone back to her hometown to help him recover. While searching for some paperwork she finds evidence that her mother's death when she was six was not the accident that she thought. Not only that, her sister she believed to be dead is the one who murdered their mother.

Halley has decided that she has to find out the truth and she feels she is the key to finding it. Halley was present when her mother was murdered but has no memory of the event. As she digs through her past she finds that her father's story about the events are not lining up.

I loved the twists and turns as Halley digs through her past. There are so mixed emotions that Halley must work through. Emotions are high, tensions are high, and the stakes are even higher as Halley finds that maybe the story isn't finished and she is in danger.

I highly recommend this book. Kept me engaged and guessing through it all. My emotions were all over the place as more and more of the story untangled.

Thank you for the advanced reading of "Last Seen" Netgalley, J.T. Ellison and Thomas & Mercer. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book had a little bit of everything in it: missing persons, serial killer, a creepy idyllic town. *chefs kiss* just couldn't wait to listen and finish this one.

This is my first book I have read by JT Ellison and wow. This thriller kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. From the first chapter, it immediately pulled me in and I could not stop reading. Stayed up til 2am to finish the book. It will give you chills. And that ending?!

Definitely will be reading more from this author

Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC!

Last Seen by J. T. Ellison is a twisty psychological thriller that broke my brain in all the best ways! This was my first book from this author and it looks like I’ll need to go check out her back list for sure!

Halley loses her job at a forensic lab, her marriage falls apart, and her dad needs emergency surgery. All at the same time. She drives to her hometown to be with her dad and while there finds out she didn’t lose her mom when she was six from a car accident as she thought. Her mom had been slayed, and her father had lied to her all of her life.

Halley goes down a rabbit hole trying to find out the truth and chases lead after lead whereby she ends up in a Stepford Wives kind of town where not everything is as it seems.

As the story unfolds, the twists and turns come fierce and fast. I gave up trying to guess what would happen next. Last Seen absolutely blew me away with all of those delicious twists!

I can’t wait to see what J.T. comes up with next! She’s definitely gained a new fan!

*Thanks so much to partners Thomas and Mercer / Amazon Publishing and Over the River PR for the gifted beautiful finished copy!*

A very suspenseful and intriguing read. It had me on edge the whole way through. I kept guessing in my head on who might have done what, I enjoy a book that has me invested in the characters that way. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in one sitting. I definitely look forward to reading more of this authors books!