I ADORE YA thrillers and the AMAZING Caleb Roehrig, debut author of Last Seen Leaving, agreed to come onto the blog, I was SO EXCITED! Caleb is SUCH fun to talk to (albeit is was just through emails) but I had such fun anyway.
Last Seen Leaving is a YA Mystery about a boy who's girlfriend goes missing, and he's the number one suspect in her disappearance!
It's also an amazing sounding LGBTQIA Novel that I NEED TO GET MY HANDS ON ASAP! All of the reviews I've read are positive.
Caleb is here with a Guest Post on the Top Ten Book Endings That Shocked Him. Please do say Hi to him in the comments!
Welcome to A Thousand Words A Million Books, Caleb. It is AMAZING to have you here.
Last Seen Leaving is a YA Mystery about a boy who's girlfriend goes missing, and he's the number one suspect in her disappearance!
It's also an amazing sounding LGBTQIA Novel that I NEED TO GET MY HANDS ON ASAP! All of the reviews I've read are positive.
Caleb is here with a Guest Post on the Top Ten Book Endings That Shocked Him. Please do say Hi to him in the comments!
Welcome to A Thousand Words A Million Books, Caleb. It is AMAZING to have you here.
TOP TEN ENDINGS THAT SHOCKED ME:
10. THE SONG IS YOU, by Megan Abbott. I
adore Megan Abbott, and will read anything she writes, but this atmospheric,
noir mystery—a fictionalized look at the real (and still unsolved)
disappearance of actress Jean Spangler in 1949—is perhaps my favorite of her
works. Full of twists and turns, it’s a seamless blend of reality and Abbott’s
sly imagination, and the ending is one I never saw coming.
9. DAMAGE DONE, by Amanda Panitch.
Sardonic, witty, and deliciously sinister, DAMAGE DONE is a real page-turner
about a girl haunted by a dramatic and violent incident—which she claims not to
remember clearly, owing to trauma. When her past unexpectedly catches up with
her, however, it becomes clear that she’s hiding something. With bold
characterizations and an unforgettable voice, this book boils to a conclusion
that definitely belongs on this list.
8. THE FIXER, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
Okay, I’m cheating just a little bit
with this one. I chose THE FIXER not because it has an especially shocking
ending (although there is a big plot
twist that gets delivered near the end of the story,) but because Barnes does a
brilliant job of repeatedly shifting perspective on established bits of
evidence to suddenly reveal them to the reader in a dramatic new light. As a
result, this book bombards you with constant surprises, and keeps you on your
toes.
7. THE STONE BOY, by Sophie Loubière. This
French mystery novel is one of the better entries in the lately-popular
subgenre of the Unreliable Narrator. When Madame Préau becomes convinced that
something untoward is happening in her neighbor’s home, she fails to persuade
anyone of what she claims she’s seen. This is in part because Mme. Préau has a
history of delusions, and guilt over a tragic event from her past may be
causing a relapse of her condition. To the very end, this book had me
second-guessing what was real and what wasn’t.
6. SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN, by SaraShepard. Nobody is quite as deft with misdirection, red herrings, and shocking
twists as Sara Shepard—and SEVEN MINUTES, the sixth and final book in her LYING
GAME series, delivers all three of these in spades. I don’t want to give too
much of the plot away, but it goes a little like this: a girl assumes her
murdered, long-lost twin’s identity and tries to catch her killer. Each book
introduces new layers and new motivations, and just when one suspect is ruled
out, another one appears. A lot hits the fan in this last book, and the final
showdown is shocking, exhilarating, and downright scary.
5. THE KEY, by Sara Bergmark Elfgren &Mats Strandberg. THE KEY is the final book in the ENGELSFORS trilogy, a Swedish
series about a disparate group of teenagers in a failing mining town who learn
overnight that they are all prophesied witches—and that it falls to them to
save the world from an approaching cataclysm. I’ve also included THE KEY not
because its ending is especially
shocking, but because the entire book functions as a shocking conclusion
to the ongoing story. There are huge reveals, major characters bite it, and the
climactic sequence will leave you breathless.
4. BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, by SJ Watson.This is a thoroughly ingenious take on the Unreliable Narrator trope. The story
is told in the first person by a woman with anterograde amnesia—the loss of
ability to create new memories after a traumatic event. Every day she wakes up
with no knowledge of who or where she is, and has to rely on her husband, her
doctor, and a daily journal she’s been keeping in order to re-learn her life.
Simply put, it’s a brilliant approach; through warnings she finds in her
journal, and small clues she’s able to piece together, she begins to realize
that something in her life is out of place and that she cannot trust anyone
around her. But what are they hiding from her? It’s the book version of the
movie Memento, and I simply could not
put it down until I reached the last, thrilling page.
3. UNBELIEVABLE, by Sara Shepard. Sara
Shepard gets two spots on this list, because she is just that freaking good at writing a twist ending. UNBELIEVABLE is
the fourth novel in the PRETTY LITTLE LIARS series, in which the identity of
the mysterious and malevolent A is finally uncovered. (Well, the first A.) These books are addictive,
twisty af, and filled with surprises. This book, where the girls finally figure
out who’s been tormenting them all along—and why, and how this person learned
their secrets to begin with—made my jaw hit the floor.
2. DANGEROUS GIRLS, by Abigail Haas. I
read this book in one sitting while speeding across the Mojave Desert. (I
wasn’t driving.) A non-linear thriller that jumps time frames, it tells a
grisly story ripped from the headlines—one part Amanda Knox and one part
Natalee Holloway. A group of friends go on spring break in a foreign land, one is
murdered, and another stands accused; she swears she’s innocent, but
circumstantial evidence is damning enough to make her the primary suspect.
There are so many twists and turns that you reach a point where you just can’t
tell who’s being honest and who isn’t anymore. When I got the final reveal, I
was gasping for air.
1. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, by AgathaChristie. It is honestly impossible to overstate the effect that reading this
book had on me as a teenager. Agatha Christie is the undisputed master of the
twist ending, again and again building intricate puzzles with confounding
solutions. DEATH ON THE NILE, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, and WITNESS FOR THE
PROSECUTION are all deviously plotted and satisfyingly shocking—but ATTWN is
her pièce de résistance. Ten people trapped on an island, dying one by one,
lured there and targeted by an unknown maniac who wants to punish them for
crimes they got away with in the past…the premise alone is goosebump-inducing;
and, as the suspect list is slowly whittled down, you’re forced to rethink
every one of your previous hypotheses. When the answer arrives in the last few
pages, it will knock you to the floor. Number one with a bullet. (OR MAYBE WITH
A NOOSE???)
Caleb Roehrig is a writer and television producer originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having also lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Helsinki, Finland, he has a chronic case of wanderlust, and can recommend the best sights to see on a shoestring budget in over thirty countries. A former actor, Roehrig has experience on both sides of the camera, with a résumé that includes appearances on film and TV—as well as seven years in the stranger-than-fiction salt mines of reality television. In the name of earning a paycheck, he has: hung around a frozen cornfield in his underwear, partied with an actual rock-star, chatted with a scandal-plagued politician, and been menaced by a disgruntled ostrich.
Title: Last Seen Leaving
Author: Caleb Roehrig
Publication Date: October 4th 2016
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
Blurb Description: Flynn's girlfriend has disappeared. How can he uncover her secrets without revealing his own?
Flynn's girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking questions he can't answer, and her friends are telling stories that don't add up. All eyes are on Flynn—as January's boyfriend, he must know something.
But Flynn has a secret of his own. And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January's disappearance, he must also face the truth about himself.
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