Her Last Breath: A Novel

"What Stephen King did for an empty hotel in The Shining, Taylor Adams does for a treacherous cave in his bracing, breathtaking Her Last Breath."
—BookPage

"Twisty, toxic, and totally original."
—People

From the critically acclaimed author of No Exit and The Last Word comes a story of two friends who embark on an ill-fated caving expedition—and the dark truth of what happens deep underground.

After years of excuses, Tess has finally agreed to go caving with her best friend Allie. Their lives have diverged sharply since high school—Allie is a self-made travel influencer, while Tess is a shy (and claustrophobic) legal assistant struggling to pay for law school. Maybe she’s a little jealous of Allie's globe-trotting life. Who wouldn’t be?

As Tess and Allie descend into the depths, they realize they’re not alone. A stranger who claims to be a fellow caver harasses them. Confident, take-no-shit Allie insults the guy—and he retaliates. Soon, Tess is trapped inside a narrow crawl space hundreds of feet underground, fighting to stay alive.

Twenty-four hours later, as a hospitalized Tess recounts her harrowing story of survival, the detective interviewing her shares new and shocking secrets about Allie's true past. Together, they begin to suspect the brutal attack wasn’t so random after all.

Who was Allie, really? Why did this man target them? And did Tess really leave the danger behind when she escaped the cave?

"Her Last Breath has so many twists and turns that it's impossible to see what's coming, and readers will feel as if they themselves are trapped within the Devil's Staircase. What Stephen King did for an empty hotel in The Shining, Adams does for a treacherous cave in this bracing and breathtaking thriller." - BookPage (starred review)

“An intricate thriller . . . Adams expertly manipulates readers’ expectations . . . a visceral tale of daring and deceit.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Readers will hold their breath with every page, desperate to see who survives. Fans of Adrian McKinty and C. J. Tudor will also find much to love in this adrenaline-fueled story, quite possibly Adams’s best yet.” - Library Journal (starred review)

"Unnerving. . . . With cunning pacing and carefully distributed revelations, Adams expertly explores the power dynamics of female friendships [and] the slippery nature of memory" - The New York Times

"Intensely, almost panic-inducingly claustrophobic, Adams's latest is twisty, toxic and totally original." - People

"Adams has written the best thriller that I have read in a long while - brilliantly plotted and very claustrophobic." - The Buzz Magazines

"A true thriller, with plenty of horror movie-style scares, this had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. It's also the perfect book to get anyone out of a reading slump." - IGN

“Taylor Adams’s fourth stand-alone thriller moves at about 150 miles per hour until its closing scene, which is still and tender . . . A novel that’s part action flick and part affecting rumination on moral responsibility within families.”

"If many thrillers suffer from an inability to live up to their initial promises, The Last Word is the opposite: It gets more clever and interesting as it goes along. It’s not just a suspenseful story about a woman in extremis fighting for her life, but a fine exercise in authorial misdirection and an incisive metacommentary on crime fiction and true-crime writing. Also, it’s unexpectedly moving." - The New York Times

“A white-knuckle, read-in-a-sitting thrill ride. In The Last Word, Taylor Adams ratchets up the tension to an unbearable pitch—then keeps going. Thriller fans, take note: You need to read this book!” - Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of The House Across the Lake

“There’s a cinematic propulsion to No Exit that commands the reader’s attention, and Mr. Adams times his shocks with a sure hand.” - Wall Street Journal

“No Exit is everything I want in a thriller: ingeniously crafted, unapologetically relentless, and shamelessly suspenseful. The twists go off like a series of expertly planted detonations and the tension never lets up. I was blown away. No Exit is a damn good time.”

“What a box of tricks! This full-throttle thriller, dark and driving, rivals Agatha Christie for sheer ingenuity and James Patterson for flat-out speed. Swift, sharp, and relentless.” - A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window on No Exit