Name: Last Girl Ghosted
Author: Lisa Unger

About this book

Summary

Book Summary

Secrets, obsession and vengeance converge in this riveting thriller about an online dating match turned deadly cat-and-mouse game, from the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45.

Think twice before you swipe.

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him—hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love?

But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared—profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted.

Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. But isn't that always what women think—that they're the ones to blame? Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. She had been looking for a connection, but now she's looking for answers. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past—and hers—she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator—or the prey.

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Media Reviews

"[An] enthralling psychological thriller...Believable plot twists related to questions of identity and the value of friends who become family further elevate the story. Unger is on a roll." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Unger always ratchets up the tension, and the revelations, in her final chapters. But in this book, she spins like Simone Biles—and sticks the landing. A young woman's foray into online dating becomes a heartbreak—and then a deadly nightmare." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"An immersive tale of passion and vengeance with a startling ending." - Booklist

"With Last Girl Ghosted Lisa Unger proves herself the premier thriller writer in mining the anxieties and risks of our digital culture. This is a captivating, deeply identifiable and deeply humane story that goes far deeper than apps and into the harrowing, complicated experience of being a woman in our online age." - Megan Abbott, bestselling author of The Turnout

"Last Girl Ghosted is brilliant and compelling, full of fascinating characters that take us to the darkest places imaginable. Lisa Unger writes with compassion and deep psychological insights, giving us a story that is both shocking and wrenchingly emotional. I read straight through the night, couldn't put the novel down till I turned the last page, and am haunted by it still." - Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Box

"Staggering. Unsettling. Vivid and intense. Lisa Unger is our most inventive suspense author, and she's created another fascinating, timely, and insanely good story with Last Girl Ghosted. Wren Greenwood is one of Unger's most nuanced characters, and her story, her life, her secrets, explode off the page. Clear your calendar and lock the doors. You will not be able to stop reading." - J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Her Dark Lies

This information about Last Girl Ghosted was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Cloggie Downunder

A guaranteed page-turner.
“Once you ditch that phone, everything that you think tethers you to your life will fall away. Cash. A burner phone. A map—a real paper map!—marked where she should stop for gas, to spend the night. Places that took cash, that didn’t have cameras. It’s not forever, he told her. Think of it as a life reset.”

Last Girl Ghosted is the nineteenth novel by award-winning best-selling American author, Lisa Unger. After three intensely romantic months with Adam Harper, Wren Greenwood is suddenly, inexplicably, ghosted. What was a hook-up from the Torch app soon developed into more; it felt like the real thing, and Wren just can’t believe she got it so wrong. Her best friend Jax tells her to chalk it up to experience and move on, but Wren can’t let it go.

Then PI Baily Kirk turns up on her doorstep, looking for Adam Harper or Raife Mannes or the man who goes by any number of other names. His client’s daughter hooked-up with the man on Torch: now she and all her money have been missing for nine months. She’s one of at least three similar stories, all of whom have had some trauma in their early lives, all of whom have connected with this apparently charismatic, Rilke-quoting ghost.

Wren too, has had trauma in her youth, but she’s a survivor, a success: her popular advice column, Dear Birdie runs in the New York Chronicle, helping many; she owns a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights; she has friends and interests. But she wants to find Adam too. Do she and Bailey join forces? Does she actually believe the disturbing things that Bailey tells her about the man she had fallen in love with? And what happens if she finds him?

The story is told in a first-person narrative that is addressed to Adam, which sometimes makes for momentary confusion, but ultimately works well. While Wren is a protagonist with whom many readers can empathise, it’s disappointing that Unger inserts her into that overdone trope of naïve arrogance where she enters an almost-certainly dangerous situation alone, without any protection or means of summoning help, and without telling anyone what she is doing. Sure, it does later allow her to be kick-ass, but it’s getting a little tired.

However, she does give the reader a gripping thriller, the bones of which are easily believable: the potential dangers of online dating are well-documented. There’s plenty of enjoyable banter between friends, some good detective work, and a few action scenes in the lead-up to a nail-biting climax (or two). The support characters are an appealing bunch that Wren is lucky to have beside her. A guaranteed page-turner.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and HQ Fiction.

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Author Information

Biography
Books by this Author

Lisa Unger Author Biography

Photo: Tanya Sharkey

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six, Last Girl Ghosted, and Confessions on the 7:45 — now in development at Netflix, starring Jessica Alba. With books published in thirty-two languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger's critically acclaimed novels have been featured on "Best Book" lists from the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award ...

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Link to Lisa Unger's Website