Readers Guide to Last Seen by JT Ellison

I have notes on this, so I can answer any and all questions, but I think I’m just going to freestyle a quick plot summary.

Halley gets conveniently fired and her father conveniently falls and breaks his leg, meaning that can return home to Marchburg, Virginia.

If you’ve read Good Girls Lie, you’ll remember this town and the Goode School. Halley’s father teachers there.

But Halley also discovers a BIG SECRET her father has been keeping for her for decades:

Her mother, Susannah, didn’t die in a car accident along with Halley’s half-sister Catriona “Cat.” No, Cat murdered Susannah, was institutionalized, and is now missing.

This is obviously a shock to Halley, who wants to know more. Her father insists that she can NOT try to find Cat, who is dangerous. But of course she wants ANSWERS.

Here’s where things lost their way for me:

• Sorry, but if Cat was on the loose and dangerous, why did Halley’s father keep this important information from Halley? This makes no sense.
• Halley starts investigating and EVERY SINGLE PERSON she talks to ends up dead.
• But Halley will NOT be deterred. She learns that Cat went missing from a writers’ retreat in a town called Brockville, so she heads there and starts poking around.
• She also starts remembering the day her mother was murdered.

So it’s looking like Cat is killing anyone with any connection to her past. But this makes no sense, because WHY do it now? Why not kill Halley, the only living witness to her crime?

The answer: Cat didn’t kill Susannah.

Cat’s boyfriend, bad seed Ian Brockton, killed Susannah, who didn’t want Ian and Cat to be together.

Okay, here’s where things got REALLY weird:

• Cat has been hiding in some weird underground lair.
• The town of Brockville is a cult with witchcraft and devil worship and child sacrifice and sex slaves. (What???)
• Ian Brockton supposedly died in 1989, but no: he is alive too.
• Cat stayed hidden all this time to protect Halley (and Cat’s son Gray, who also lives in the lair.)
• Cat and Halley free all the women hidden in the lair.
• Ian shoots Cat, who dies.
• Halley shoots Ian, who is supposedly dead.
• But Ian was faking (again!) and escapes out of his body bag! This was the part of the ending I loved!! Didn’t Hannibal Lechter do something similar?

I really could have done without: the underground lair, the witchcraft/devil worship, and the imprisoned women, which just seemed thrown in there.

Your Questions About Last Seen

NO questions are “stupid” here. All of us don’t understand things in books sometimes!

I got a question by email that said:

In the last chapter of Last Seen, who is the boy who cried out in his room?

That has to be Grey, Cat’s son. Cat saved Halley, but as she died, Cat asked Halley to look after Grey.

So at the end, when the boy cries out (he’s been through an ordeal and lost his mother) she rushes to him and the book says “she is his light now.” That’s because of the deal she made with Cat.