After her dad breaks his leg Halley heads back home to help look after him, whilst searching for his insurance card she makes a shocking discovery, her mother didn’t die in a car crash, she was murdered.
In an attempt to find the truth behind her mothers death she ends up in Brockville , a utopian idyllic town in Tennessee but Halley can’t help but feel there’s something sinister hiding beneath the quite exterior of the town.

OMG the ending of this had me shook!
I couldn’t stop reading and my heart was racing along with Halley.
I really enjoyed how you get slivers of information and hints about the ending throughout the book.
J T Ellison has done a great job of making sure you suspect and distrust every person you come across while reading Last Seen

Last Seen was a great book! Easy to get through, interesting, engaging, and just an all around good read. If you like thriller/suspense, or if you’ve read and enjoyed any of Ellison’s other works, you’d enjoy this!

If you like a thrill, you’ll really enjoy this book! On the hunt for the sister she thought was dead, Halley finds that her questions lead to death. She is determined to find answers to her childhood trauma, but at what cost? This was truly a page-turner! Loved it!

3.75 stars

The story opens with a compelling mystery that immediately draws you in. As the plot progresses, it slows down in places, and some of the FMC choices feel questionable. Around the three-quarter mark, the pacing picks up again with a flurry of twists—almost too many at once. Still, the reveal of the killer genuinely shocked me. Overall, it’s a solid thriller that leaves the door open for a potential sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

After Halley’s mother and sister were killed in a car accident when Halley was 6, her father moved her away to a new town and raised her the best he could. She became a forensic crime analyst in D.C.. After her father had a bad fall and she goes back home to take care of him, she realizes everything she’s been told about her mothers death is a lie and she is determined to find out the truth even if it kills her.

I enjoyed this book, but I thought it could have been at least 100 pages shorter. There was a bunch of filler stuff that felt out of place and very redundant.

I will say I was shocked with who the killer was, I honestly didn’t guess that. Miles being a cult leader, that was so obvious. I feel like from the ending there will be a sequel or could be one

This was a well written book with well-developed characters. J.T. Ellison made you feel as if you were there and could actually visualize the scenes in the story. I had the wrong protagonist at the beginning and was surprised to find it was a different person about 3/4 of the way through.
I will say, it took me a long time to read this book, it felt like I had read 100 pages when I had only read 30-40, likely because of how detailed everything was. Looking forward to their next book.

Thank you NetGalley for early access to this book

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The character arcs had me gripped from the first page and had me struggling to put it down

Will definitely be reading more books by J.T Ellison

Halley may have been the one to open a phishing scam email.. but I feel like I was the one to suffer for it.
I have only read this author once and it was a life changing 5 star read.. so I dont even know how this book came from the same author.
The characters are all 1D, I didnt care for any of them, the change from the character POV from 1st to 3rd with no rhyme or reason and then back made my head hurt.
It didnt give psych and it didnt give thriller.. it gave drawn out and boring and overall confusing on how any of this took place.

This thriller starts with a very gripping premise and a mystery that feels both personal and dangerous. I enjoyed the dual timelines and the mix of POVs, especially the flashbacks to Catriona’s last days.

However, I felt the plot lost some focus in the middle. Halley’s choices sometimes veered into overly reckless territory, and a few elements (like the compound setup) strained believability for me. The ending delivers answers, but so many revelations arrive almost at once that it can feel a bit crowded.

Still, there’s a lot to like here: strong atmosphere, layered family drama, and an ending that keeps you on edge. Solid read for fans of tense, small-town psychological thrillers.

So good! If you like audio, this one is exceptional. It’s a great story brought to life by two really good voice actors. I don’t suggest listening at night though!

What a wild ride - I had no idea where this was going, and that made for a fantastic read.

Intense, fast paced, different towns, murders! The town of Brockville was incredibly creepy and unsettling, there were so many twists and turns - it was just great, like a really good episode of Criminal Minds.

I loved the characters - I thought they were well developed, particularly Halley and Theo (despite Theo no featuring massively I warmed to him a great deal). A lot of thought clearly went into each element of this book, and it all tied together wonderfully.

Creepy, dark, twisted and beautifully crafted.

3.5/5★

I finally finished this one, but I’ll admit it took me a while to get into. The first 75% felt slow, with a lot of description around parts that didn’t feel essential to the story.
That said, the premise itself is really interesting, and once the pace picked up, it became much more engaging. The ending was unexpected, though it leaned towards the unrealistic and surreal for my taste.

Overall, this is a very slow burner – but if you enjoy detailed writing and don’t mind a gradual build-up, there’s a unique story waiting for you here.

Last Seen by J.T. Ellison is a fast-paced and exciting read! I thoroughly enjoyed Ellison's style of writing and how well the book flowed.
The characters are fully fleshed out and real.
It was well written and had just the right amount of suspense and build up.
Excellent writing and an absolute must read.

Last Seen follows forensic scientist Halley James as she goes back home to Marchburg to help her sick dad, expecting some peace. Instead, she finds out her mom’s decades-old car crash wasn’t an accident—it was murder. As she digs deeper, she ends up in Brockville, a picture-perfect wilderness town hiding some seriously dark and sinister secrets.

This book grabbed me from the start and didn’t let go. Ellison mixes emotional drama with suspense so well—the case feels personal and raw. The pacing never slows, and the secrets keep piling up. I really loved the whole isolated small-town vibe, the kind that looks perfect but hides chilling, hidden dangers beneath the surface. The story jumps between different characters and timelines, which added layers to the mystery and kept me hooked. And the ending? Full of twists and turns that totally satisfied.

Read this if you like:
• Domestic thrillers with high emotional stakes
• Small Town Wilderness Society settings that hide dark secrets
• Cult-like vibes with a charismatic leader
• Multiple POVs and dual timelines that deepen suspense and character insight
• Slow-burn investigations that reveal a community’s rotten core
• Twisty reveals that reframe relationships and loyalties
• Themes: family secrets; childhood trauma; the slipperiness of memory and truth; identity and grief; the cost of buried lies

Rating: 5 out of 5

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this eARC which will be published August 1 2025.

i mean come on. this was brill.the cover of this book as exactly the kind of dark chills vibe i was getting from this. i was on a dark road,creeped out and not knowing where it was going. the difference to actually being on that road in reality though is that for this ride i bloooomin loved it!
our main characters life is pushing her to her limits. it seems to all be falling around her ears and all at the same time. her job is gone, her marriage is going or gone and her dad needs her home after a medical emergency. yeh, so everything is rubbish but at least things cant possibly get any worse. ermm i think, i think we might be wrong there. because now she goes and finds out how much worse it can be...
it turns out her mother that died in a accident,didn't. she was murdered. and her dad never told her. he kept it all from her for decades.
the thriller type excitement i got from this book was awesome. it was wild. it was wiiiiild. i tired to have my theories but couldn't. i tried to follow links but i couldn't. Ellison was too clever for me so i just let myself go along and got so much joy and shocks from doing so.
i'm not sure i would be quite like Halley and try and find the answers though. but then again i suppose how could someone not? but as she does dig things get dark. especially as she explore Brockville. and finds that all that glitters is not gold and all that glitter might just be a shiny knife to stab you in the back with! this place was so dark and it made you have all those uneasy feels.
this was a fab book.

Thank you net galley and publisher for this ARC. This was a slow burn and the story didn't hook me. Others really seemed to enjoy it though!

When Halley returns to Marchburg after losing her job and separating from her husband Theo, she expects to help her recovering father. Instead, she uncovers the truth about her mother’s murder, her half-sister’s dark past, and a string of killings that all seemed tied to her sister, Cat. She also finds out her sister Cat has been missing for years. The last trace? Brockville, a town built by Miles Brockville and ruled by his sons, a place steeped in secrets…and the key to unlocking Halley’s own past.

A younger sister believes her mother died in a car crash but, as an adult, she discovers her father fed her lies. She seeks out the truth in a small town that is all too perfect, but people are killed after they speak with her. I liked the premise of the story but the pace was too slow for my liking until the end.

I still have shivers coursing down my spine, my breathing labored, my neck permanently swiveled and scanning what is behind me. This book's level of dark and twisted is overflowing. I enjoyed the characters. Yet I was still yelling at them. To run, to not look back, to stay protected. Do they listen? No! The air is thick with anxiety and anticipation that something bad is going to happen. The buildup is enormous and ready to crest. But wait there is another twist. Will Haley ever find out the truth?

Haley James has had one heck of a day. She is fired from the job she loves. She was supposed to meet her husband, Theo, to sign the separation papers. She has moved out of her home and into a basement apartment. Oh, and her father calls. He has had a horrible fall and is heading into surgery. I think she can totally handle one more thing on her plate. As she is going through her father's things looking for his insurance card. Haley comes across an old envelope that is screaming open me! What she finds inside completely changes the outlook on her childhood and life. Haley's mother and sister were not killed in a car accident. Her sister Cat murdered her mother. Cat has been free since she turned 18 years old. Haley has so many questions, so much anger, and needs to uncover all the secrets. She finds more than what she is hunting for.

This is a fantastic book that sinks its teeth into you and does not let go. I hope there is a sequel since I am not a fan of being left hanging. But man, that was one intense ride and that ending!!! Ellison nailed the setting of Brockville. It made the hair on the back of my neck rise. The four teenagers are still giving me the creeps. This is one you do not want to miss. What are you still doing here? Run and put it in your cart. The hunt is on! Thank you to J.T. Ellison, Thomas & Mercer, and Over the River Public Relations for my finished copy.

𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ★ ★ ★ ★
𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪:

I will always be game for an Ellison read ALWAYS and when I saw that this one was available I jumped right on it. This was a good thriller, not my all time favorite by J.T. but it was good. You get the turn after turn twists and the thrilling feel as usual and that dark looming sense throughout the book and the characters I personally feel were really well written and the end will get you as well. If you love a good gothic style thriller that combines drama and secrets that will mess with your mind then this is one that you want to immediately pick up and read.

𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗦: Dark And Twisty, Secrets, Cult, Drama, Gothic Style, Creepy, Mysterious

Large thank you to our Author, NetGalley as well as Thomas & Mercer