Last to Leave the Room: A Novel

Caitlin Starling

Oct 2023 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Xe Sands

About this audiobook

"With her deep and husky timbre, Xe Sands is the perfect reader for this horror/sf blend." —Booklist

Last to Leave the Room is a new novel of genre-busting speculative horror from Caitlin Starling, the acclaimed author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.

As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.

As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads...

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

Ratings and reviews

The city is sinking. Whose door is that? Hello, doppelganger. A quick look at the synopsis before beginning and I knew whatever explanation for the many questions raised would never satisfy me. That's never the fault of a well written story. The magic is in the setup, wonder, and intrigue, not the illustration of how a trick was performed. That said, I enjoyed the slow buildup to the rollercoaster of questions and emotions this story stirs. The narration is fantastic -- somehow finding the perfect balance of pacing and tone to differentiate Tamsin from her doppelganger. Which was something I was worried about losing track of in an audiobook. I found the premise and execution to be wildly interesting and thought provoking. Listening was like absorbing an episode of Black Mirror in novel form. Definitely more sci-fi with elements of horror and gore than a horror book. I'd say more, but it's worth going in as blind as possible. Buy this book. Open the door.

About the author

Caitlin Starling writes horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, won the LOHF Best Debut Award and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. She is also the author of the gothic horror tales Yellow Jessamine and The Death of Jane Lawrence, as well as a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade audio collection, Walk Among Us. Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare and Uncanny. Starling also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.