NetGalley ARC | Last Girl Breathing

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Eight years ago the rain started, and wouldn't stop. Water levels rose and the dam broke. Families were caught in the flood and several lives were lost. Among those was Lucy's little brother. While she was able to help save many, Clay was not one of them, and his body was never recovered. Despite having just been a child herself, this is a heavy burden Lucy continues to carry.

Slowly but surely the town rebuilt what had been destroyed and they tried to move on, though this singular event shaped so many of the characters' lives from that point on. Lucy and her friends came of age, bound together by the trauma of losing so many.

Fast forward to the present day and Lucy is about to graduate from high school. She's also looking forward to competing at the Olympics in the air rifle competition. But then her stepbrother Martin goes missing and the search leads to the same area of land where Clay died nearly a decade earlier.

Everyone has secrets, including Lucy. She knows what her stepbrother was up to the day he vanished, but she isn't sure who she can trust with that information. It turns out Martin was asking questions about the dam and why it broke, questions someone didn't want anyone to know the answers to.

And then the search for Martin turns into a murder investigation, though he is only the first victim of several. All clues start pointing toward Lucy's ex-boyfriend, Neil. She is sure he isn't responsible, and is determined to find the real killer. Even so, Neil is arrested and Lucy knows she does not have much time to prove he is innocent.

This story was immensely engaging and despite me having read so many in this genre, there were times where I suspected nearly every single character in the book; everyone looked guilty in one way or another. The author does a fantastic job of creating fully fleshed-out characters, distinct despite a somewhat larger cast to keep track of, and I did not feel overwhelmed trying to remember who was connected to who, and how.

This is a well-written, emotionally-charged novel. The author weaves a fantastic story with plenty of twists and turns, a little misdirection, and a lot of trauma. It's impossible not to be pulled into this little corner of the world in rural Kentucky. Lucy is compelling main character, one who is easy to root for as she tries to understand what is happening to this place she loves so much.

Highly recommended.