Famous Last Words

Alendar, Katie. Famous Last Words. 2014. 320p. ISBN 9780545639972. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Willa and her mother just moved to Los Angeles to live with Willa’s new stepdad, Jonathan. A big movie director, Jonathan caught her mother’s eye a few years after Willa’s father died of a tragic heart attack at the YMCA pool. Willa is happy for her mother, but not thrilled about moving away from Connecticut. She feels responsible for her father’s death because he had his heart attack right after they had a big fight about her boyfriend.

Jonathan lives in a sprawling mansion in the Hollywood hills that once belonged to famous movie star Diana Del Mar who was a darling of the red carpet in the 1930s but her star faded as she aged, and she eventually died in her own home. Immediately, things start to get weird for Willa. She feels a presence there, and something tries to drown her in the pool. No one else seems affected, however, and it’s as if there is a ghost trying to communicate with her.

She meets Reed, Jonathan’s assistant, and she also meets Wyatt at her school. Whereas Reed is all sunshine and happy, Wyatt is broody and is completely focused on the Hollywood Killer, a serial murderer who stalks up and coming actresses and kills them in overly elaborate scenes of famous movies. Not being an actress, Willa is not worried about becoming the next target of the killer.

But when her friend Marnie and her attend a movie premiere, pose for photographs on the red carpet, and pass themselves off as actresses, Willa and Marnie’s lives become dangerously twined with the Hollywood Killer.

As Willa’s ghost becomes more insistent, and as Willa discovers clues, she is getting closer to discovering the identify of the killer. Is it her stern and distant stepfather? Brooding Wyatt, obsessed with all things related to the killings and in possession of information no one else seems to have? Sexy Reed, with whom Willa shares a kiss? And who is the ghost, and what does she want from Willa?

A page turner building suspense from beginning to end, this paranormal tale will have you scared of a dripping faucet. Fans of Alendar should also consider Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer.