When Delilah meets Sawyer Saffitz (son of the Anya Saffitz, aka Hollywood royalty), she becomes hooked on a decade-old scandal. In her quest for the truth, Delilah uncovers blogposts written by the mysterious “gottiewrites” and is soon caught up in a world of greed, fandom conspiracy theories … and murder. And the deeper Delilah digs, the more dangerous it becomes – because someone is willing to kill to hide the truth.
Lauren James has been quietly building a shared universe for several years now. The lynchpin of this universe is a TV show called Loch and Ness. All her main characters watch it or create for it or know about it. However, the show was marred by tragedy when one of the stars died in mysterious circumstances.
For eight glorious months, starting in October 2019, Lauren sent out a chapter each week of a story featuring a really creepy fan of the show. Gottie started out by trying to convince everyone that the two male stars of the show were in a relationship - using evidence such as 'they looked at each other during an interview' and 'they're sitting at a table and my hand drawn guess at their arm positions makes it seem like they might be holding hands' and other stellar pieces of investigative journalism - and pivoted halfway through to a murder investigation. This new book version is about a teenager finding the old blogs and coming up with some new evidence; I don't want to spoil anything but there's quite a different ending here than the one we were originally given! The original is still online, but it's been modified slightly to better fit with the new version; the original originals are now only on the harddrives of those fans who didn't delete the emails as they read. ::cough::
This is a great mystery, mixing the craziness of fandom - I'm especially reminded of the SPN fandom, but I'm sure every group has their crazy beliefs - with a warning about how much we're putting online and how easy it would be for someone to find it, even if Gottie was making up a lot of her stuff - which isn't completely clear! The frame story was intriguing as well, a really interesting look at fame and what it can do to people.
I loved all the little jokes and nods to other books - Romy Silvers Lives! - and I can't wait to see what Lauren comes up with next to keep this amazing universe going.
Last Seen Online publishes on the 1st of August, 2024. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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