Author: Taylor Adams
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date:
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I'll be honest—I'm a huge Taylor Adams fan ever since I picked up No Exit, and Her Last Breath reminded me exactly why I keep coming back to his work. Tense and taut thrillers, traveling at breakneck speed. This is no exception.
Taylor Adams has this wicked talent for making you feel like you're suffocating right alongside his characters, and Her Last Breath might be his most claustrophobic yet. What begins as two friends on a caving trip—shy, broke Tess and her influencer bestie Allie—turns into something so much darker when they meet a stranger underground who clearly has no good intentions.
But here's where Adams gets you: just when you think you know what's happening, he pulls the rug out. Twice. Those plot twists hit like physical blows, completely flipping everything you thought you understood about who's the victim and who's the predator.
The whole thing unfolds through different timelines and perspectives, but it never feels gimmicky. Instead, it's like watching someone slowly peel back layers of lies until you realize the most terrifying question isn't "Will she survive?" but "Who exactly survived?" Because as one character puts it, "the killer always gets to tell the story, and the victims are only ever trapped inside it." This becomes the novel's central tension—questioning whose version of events we can trust when there's no one left to dispute the survivor's account.
I've never been caving and now I definitely never will. Adams doesn't just trap you in those narrow crawl spaces and rising water—he traps you in the horrible realization that sometimes the people you know the best are the people you know the least.
A big thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
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