The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

          There's something about the coast of Maine that seems to cause writers to create locations that become characters in and of themselves.  Now, this may be because I have read far too much Stephen King, but that is certainly the case in The Last House Guest.  There is a tangibility to the air of Littleport and a creeping sense that the town itself is alive in a way that the people who inhabit it simply aren't; a sense that Littleport lives, breathes and directs the behaviour of it's inhabitants.  Strip away the bluffs, the beaches and the cliffs and you would be left with a heart that pounds erratically and is black as night.

Ostensibly the story is about Avery, a lifelong inhabitant of Littleport and her association with The Lomans.  A summer family who more or less own the town.  Avery has lost her family to the town, her parents in a car crash and her Grandmother a handful of years later.  Her friends stick by her until she falls under the spell of Sadie Loman and then to the wider family; gradually becoming, as one summer visitor coins it, Sadie's Monster.

The story jumps between several timelines as seen from Avery's point of view.  We get glimpses in to the aftermath of the accident that took her parent's lives, Avery's first meeting with Sadie, that fateful Plus One Party and this final summer.  You see, Sadie washed up on Breaker Beach when she should have been at the Plus One Party and this year they are having a dedication to Sadie - a clangerless brass bell to call the lost souls home.  The local Police seem to believe that Sadie went willingly in to the sea, Avery is not so sure.

The story itself is delightfully claustrophobic.  A small coastal town that only really comes alive for three months of the year when the summer visitors gather.  A small coastal town where no resident's past transgressions can ever be forgotten or forgiven.  A small coastal town in thrall to the Loman family who are gradually turning it, and it's residents, in to their private property.

There is a nicely crafted twist towards the end regarding Sadie's death.  The menace creeps slowly up on the reader throughout the book until you begin to feel as jittery as Avery.  Unfortunately there are a couple of plot holes that never get resolved or explained away in a satisfactory manner which did leave me wondering "but what about..."

On the whole this book has terrific pacing and a strong narrator in Avery Greer.  The strongest character, by far, though is the setting.  Not just because of it's perceived beauty but because of how insignificant Littleport makes the people seem.  Truly creepy and with a true sense of terror building through the story.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.