Author Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me is a suspenseful page-turner, soon to be turned into TV series

In Laura Dave’s latest novel, The Last Thing He Told Me, Hannah’s husband, Owen, disappears leaving behind a note instructing her to protect his 16-year-old daughter and Hannah’s stepdaughter, Bailey. That’s it. Hannah is processing what that means when the other shoe drops: Owen and his business are under investigation by the FBI. Hannah and Owen are newly married and she’s new to the whole stepmom thing, and one thing that’s certain is that she’s the last person Bailey wants to be around. As Hannah questions her husband’s true identity and whom she can trust, she must be the parent that Bailey may not want but who she certainly needs. This becomes harder to do as Hannah realises there’s more to her husband’s life story than she knew. Dave, whose previous books include Hello Sunshine and Eight Hundred Grapes, writes about women adapting to some change in their lives but suspense is a new genre for her and it works. Set aside some time because this one is a page-turner with a mystery you’ll want to get to the bottom of quickly. You can almost imagine the race against time that Hannah is under with a Jack Bauer-esq “24” clock ticking away. Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts like the book, too, and are turning it into a series with Roberts in the role of Hannah.