Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a free copy of The Last House Guest in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

This book might just be the perfect summer read for mystery and suspense lovers.  If you have followed my reviews for a while, you know that a great setting is one of my most favorite things in a good book. The Last House Guest takes place on the rocky cliffs of Maine, overlooking the ocean. Miranda used that setting to create such an unsettling atmosphere and I enjoyed her landscape descriptions throughout the novel.

The characters: Avery, a simple girl from modest upbringing, is the black sheep among the crowd of wealthy summer-home-by-the-ocean crowd she has fallen into. I found Avery to be very relatable, yet all of the snobby people she hung out with as the love to hate  variety. Their snarkiness and cruelty made them all easy suspects for the crime at hand.

Taking place at a party on the last day of summer and alternating with the summer after, Avery looks back at what everyone thought was an accident and starts to piece to together what is beginning to look like a lot more like a crime. The setting, the characters, the party all made for a very atmospheric (and summery) suspense novel.  It did start off a little slowly but after the halfway point I couldn’t put it down. I recommend this one for suspense lovers and anyone else who is looking for a little more excitement in their beachy reads!  I rate this one 4 out of 5 stars.