The Last Stage by Louise Voss | @LouiseVoss1 @OrendaBooks | #RandomThingsTours

Author : Louise Voss
Title : The Last Stage
Pages : 306
Publisher : Orenda Books
Publication date : July 11, 2019

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life.

When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begins to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is … Someone who wants vengeance.

And this is only the beginning…

| MY THOUGHTS |

Despite having written eleven novels over the years, Louise Voss is still very much a new-to-me author. Her previous book, The Old You, is the only one I’ve read so far (still one of my favourites too!) and I was quite excited to see what she’d come up with next.

That next book is here and it’s called The Last Stage. Meredith Vincent was the lead singer of a legendary 1980’s indie band. Until one day, she turned her back on it all and retreated to a little cottage on the grounds of an old stately home; choosing a quiet life working in a gift shop, rather than the bright and dazzling lights of the stage.

Few people know what made Meredith decide to change her life like that and the reader is fed little clues along the way with chapters that take us back to Meredith’s rise and ultimate fall in the music industry. I enjoyed that journey as a fascinating ripple effect of decision upon decision, some extremely innocuous and innocent, take Meredith on a path she couldn’t have predicted at all. You just can’t help but wonder how different things would have been if she’d made other choices. Hindsight and all that.

Meredith now leads a quiet and peaceful life but things are about to change when the estate manager is found dead. Meredith starts to notice other little things but is she merely being paranoid or has someone found out who she is and more importantly, where she is?

The disturbing prologue pulls you in from the get-go, to be followed by something a bit murder-at-the-mansion like and what’s not to love about that? There’s a delicious kind of threatening vibe running through the storyline, this feeling deep in your bones that says something is coming but you have no idea what that will be. Just that it won’t be anything good, obviously. I couldn’t at all figure out who was behind it all or why, even though it seemed fairly clear that it had something to do with Meredith’s past. It’s hard not to feel for her, the terror she deals with, never feeling safe and constantly wondering what’s coming next. I’d be hiding too.

There’s absolutely no denying Louise Voss is a brilliant writer. The Last Stage is an unsettling read, with short chapters that urge you on to keep reading. A well-paced story of obsession and revenge that shows off Louise Voss’ ability to diversify and I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

The Last Stage is available to buy!

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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |

Over her eighteen-year writing career, Louise Voss has had eleven novels published – five solo and six co-written with Mark Edwards: a combination of psychological thrillers, police procedurals and contemporary fiction – and sold over 350,000 books. Her most recent book, The Old You, was a number one bestseller in eBook.

Louise has an MA (Dist) in Creative Writing and also works as a literary consultant and mentor for writers at http://www.thewritingcoach.co.uk.

She lives in South-West London and is a proud member of two female crime- writing collectives, The Slice Girls and Killer Women.