Yesterday I was unlucky enough - or should that be lucky enough - to be unwell (not at death's door I hasten to add) so I took the opportunity of a day off work to read this book in almost one go. I only put it down to nap. Wow what a read! What started out as a routine murder-suicide became something very sinister and terrifying in small town 'Bartonville', Oregon. Not exactly the murder capital of the US.

The Bartons live in a crumbling mansion. Two sisters Emily and Madison and three eccentric aunts who always wear the same colour jumpers as each other on a given day. There were three sisters but twenty years ago their father was found murdered and hanged from a tree. 10 year old Emily saw him swinging from the tree and also saw older sister Tara running away. Tara swore she was at a friend's all night and wasn't there. A few days later their mother committed suicide and sister Tara disappeared. They never heard from her again. The killer was caught and brought to justice.

Back to today. Emily's family own the diner in the town where everyone meets and eats. On this fateful morning waitress Lyndsay fails to turn up for work so Emily goes to check she's OK. What she finds is a gruesome discovery. Lyndsay has been stabbed to death and her husband Sean is hanging from a tree outside. For Emily the shock of another hanging is overwhelming.

Enter Zander and Ava from the FBI. And that's all I'm going to say about the plot! Why the FBI you ask? Well that's for me to know and you to find out. Utterly compelling, this is an intricately woven tale of murder, secrets, race, hatred and romance. I just loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Great story. I love a book that slowly reels me in to the point that I can't put it down and keeps me guessing to the very end.....this is one of them!

The characters are easy, the story solid and overall another great read!

Beautifully written, the story puts you in the setting of the small Oregon coastal town with mansions and diners and quirky families.  However, the history of this family is dark with murder, suicide and disappearance.  A good mystery with a great cast of characters.  Looking forward to Book 2.

A great start to the Columbia River series. Twist and turns, secrets and lies, The Last Sister is a compelling read with engaging characters and an edge of you seat storyline throughout. I am excited to see what book two will bring.

I enjoyed reading this book. Interesting plot line, however I felt there were some storylines that were unnecessary. Especially the romance between the FBI agent and a witness.  

Thank you to NetGalley, Montlake Romance and Kendra Elliot for a copy of "The Last Sister" in exchange of an honest review.

The Last Sister is Book 1 in Kendra Elliot's new Columbia River series. I'm still making my way through her backlist so I haven't gotten to read Mason and Ava's story yet and while I'm more eager than ever to read their story, it wasn't a deal-breaker for me to follow along.

To date, all of Ms. Elliot's books that I have read lean more heavily on the suspense side of things with minimal focus on romance. This story was no exception. It was a very intriguing story filled with murder, close calls and secrets starting to unravel. The author kept me guessing until the very end.

This author knows her art and it’s when you read a book like this that you realise what is lacking in other books. 
Beautifully written this book just flows. The storyline is engaging and keeps the reader interested but for me the delight of this book is the descriptions of the characters and their interactions. 
My first time reading a book by this author but I think I need to read more.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher  for the opportunity to read this book. This book was an absolutely brilliant book. It had me sucked in from the first page. The characters worked well together. The storyline was second to none. For me it was a real page turner.

Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the Author and Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an fair and honest review.

I enjoyed this engrossing story and was surprised to finally learn the details of Zander's backstory. the mystery tackled the sensitive subject of racism and raised some thought provoking questions for those who have racist family members. Since there was only one chaste kiss, I don't think you can call this a romantic-suspense, but Zander and Emily were certainly attracted to each other and their relationship seemed to be heading toward romance.

In this small Oregon town secrets are as plentiful as the rain. Emily Mills has held a secret for twenty years, since she found her murdered father hanging from a tree. Now, history seems to be repeating itself and she had found another murdered man hanging from a tree. Not an experience anybody wants to have once, let alone twice in a lifetime.

Twenty years ago Emily Mills’s father was murdered, and she found his body hanging in the backyard. Her younger sister, Madison, claims she was asleep in her room. Her older sister, Tara, claims she was out with friends. The tragedy drove their mother to suicide and Tara to leave town forever. The killer was caught. The case closed.

FBI Special Agents Zander Wells and Ava McClain are sent to investigate what could well be a racially motivated double murder. They find a well meaning but clueless sheriff and a lot of clues that lead them back to the death of Emily's father. Finding out how the two crimes, twenty years apart, are connected could solve these current murders.

Only when Emily and her sister, Madison reveal the secrets they have long held can they uncover the secret that the town has long buried, understand why their oldest sister, Tara, disappeared that night and find out exactly what happened both now and twenty years ago. But there are those who will stop at nothing, even murder, to keep those secrets buried.

This is a fast paced, detective thriller, full of suspense, which draws you in from the first page. 

FBI Special Agent Zander Wells has been called in to a small Oregon logging town to investigate the death of two characters, and discovers the similarity to events which had previously happened in the area.  The story is well plotted with believable, likeable characters, and explores the connection between past and present, along with secrets which have remained hidden for years.

Lots of mystery and suspense draws you into this well plotted story, and keeps you reading wanting to find out what happened.  Characters are well drawn and develop as the story unfolds.  I hadn’t read any previous books by this skillful, talented author, but enjoyed reading this book, and will look for others in the series.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Great crime thriller! I enjoyed it a lot. I felt the book was well paced and it flowed really well. I normally figure out the ending way before the end of the book, but this one kept me on my toes. I particularly enjoyed the depth of the characters in this book. 

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and netgalley for this review copy.

This was such a compelling crime thriller. This is the first book in Kendra Elliot’s new Columbia River series. Mystery, history, romance, sisters, small town, racism, Family secrets, zany aunts. Emily is shook to the core when she finds her friend’s dead body stabbed multiple times and her husband dead as well hung from a tree. The first thought is that this is a murder suicide, but Emily is not convinced. This is too similar to a prior murder in this small town years ago when Emily‘s father had been killed by  hanging. Her father‘s murder also led to her mother’s suicide and her older sister’s disappearance. This brutal murder brings in the FBI and agent Zander Wells. What follows is a fast paced cleverly plotted investigation into the murders both in the present and the past. The investigation also brings together Zander and Emily.

   This book was much more Mystery than romance in fact I’d be hesitant to call it romantic suspense. There is an obvious attraction between Zander and Emily although it is not acted on, much. I had no problem with this because I was completely invested in this mystery. I love the big old house that Emily and her sister Madison lived in with there great aunts. I was intrigued by the past. Why was their father killed? And where was their sister? I also was extremely fascinated by the history of Oregon, I truly had no idea Oregon had such a dark history. I loved playing detective and trying to puzzle this together with Zander and Emily. And even though there was very little romance in the story I am really hoping that there will be a little more in the next book and it will continue the story of Zander and Emily, I really like these two together.

This book in emojis. 🔪 🩸 🌲 🌊 

*** Big thank you to Amazon Pub for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

This was a great read set in the Pacific northwest.  Three sisters, Emily, Madison and Tara lose their parents at a young age..  Their father was hanged and their mother commuted suicide shorty thereafter.  Twenty years later a couple that the sisters were close to were murdered and the husband was hanged.  Is this coincidence or somehow related to the crime twenty years ago?  FBI agents Zander and his partner Ava were.brought in to work the crimes. .Emily and Madison live with their three aunts in the small towns family mansion and Tara left immediately after her father died and has never contacted anyone in her family since.  This is a great story with lots of twists and turns and a completely surprise ending.I will be recommending this one to my friends.
Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest opinion.

A super crime novel. A young couple are brutally murdered and, with suggestions that it might be a hate crime, Zander Wells of the FBI is sent to investigate. He soon discovers that the murders may have some link with a hanging many years earlier.

The plot is well constructed and the pacing is excellent. A story begging to be put on screen, with a range of interesting, dangerous and engaging characters. Family secrets, dark pasts and even an understated romance, with a tense denouement. Excellent.

(I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

A couple are found brutally murdered and theres a possible racial motive for the killing. The first person on the scene had experienced a similar loss many years ago but could it be connected. Can FBI agents Zander and Ava figure it all out before the killer goes after anyone else. 

This was an interesting story dealing with the heavy issue of racially motivated crime. The mystery is interesting and the killers identity was cleverly hidden. The plot is quite slow at times but builds to a dramatic climax. The ending itself was good and finished the story well. I found myself liking Zander a lot but Emily and her sisters just didn't quite win me over enough. A solid mystery.

This isn't my first book by Kendra though I am missing some background in this, but it is easy to breeze right through. This is a solid thriller which pulled me in from page one with a violent crime to start us off. I have sworn off series books for awhile but I will be keeping up with this new series for sure. 

Zander and Ava are in a small Oregon town that has just had a murder that was so unexpected. A couple was slain in their home and it looks like it could be racially motivated. But it also looks like maybe there is a connection to a long ago murder that this small town has buried. It is too similar and brings back too many memories of the remaining family members from that long ago crime.

We are taken along with the two agents as they set out to solve the most recent murder while the murder of the past calls to them.

I was hooked from the start of this book. It’s got mystery, murder, historical murder, family dynamics and a surprising killer which I didn’t see coming. I’ll look forward to more in this series. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

As a fan of Kendra Elliot series I couldn't wait to see Zander story as well as is back story.  Kendra Elliot is a gifted story teller bringing readers into the heart of her story that will cling to every word that is written wondering if the story will have the ending readers have comes to know from the author of if she will change her style and bring readers a unexpected surprise.

 No matter what the author does she is the master of Romantic suspense with a balance of back story, romance, mystery and heart pounding moments.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for a copy of Kendra Elliot Last Sister. Thighs is a can't miss series!

Small town in Oregon gets a shock when a man is found hung and his wife killed. For Emily Mills, who found the couple, it brings back the death of her father who also died by being hung.
Are the two linked?
I liked this book and Kendra has researched the themes in the book well. Worth a read

This was a fast paced story with many twists and turns.  It starts off quickly with the murder of a young couple in a small Oregon town.  Turns out the woman who was first on the scene, Emily, found her own father murdered in a similar fashion 20 years ago.  The book breaks into both the story of Emily and her family (which includes her sister Madison, her 3 elderly aunts, and a mystery around what happened to her other sister Tara), in parallel with the recent story line of solving these current murders.  It was part mystery and part domestic thriller, as the reader joins Emily and Madison in their quest to figure out what really happened to their father, and to bridge the gap between them.  Zander, the FBI agent, is also a key player in the story, having been called in to help the local police with the case.  Seems like a whole lot of characters, but they were done really well, and even minor characters like Sheriff Greer were built out as the story continued, and grew on me by the end. 

The story itself was action packed and I wasn't sure who the villain was until it was uncovered by the characters- the author did a great job of keeping that mystery going and throwing in enough info to make it hard for you to figure it out.  I also liked the relationships between the characters, even though some of the story lines were tied off a little too neatly to feel realistic.  Some of the subject matter around racism was uncomfortable for me to read,  but this theme did help to make the story compelling and further endeared me to the characters who were trying to solve the mystery along with me.  I felt for those who were affected by the actions that happened, both in the past and recently, in realizing that people important to them were not actually what they seemed to be.

Overall, I would recommend this story for those who like domestic thrillers, mysteries, and police procedurals because you get a piece of all of those in this book.  I am excited to read more by this author!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.