The Last Housewife

The Last Housewife is a 2023 psychological thriller by Ashley Winstead. Winstead is also the author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, Midnight Is the Darkest Hour, Fool Me Once, and The Boyfriend Candidate. She has a PhD in contemporary American literature, and she began writing novels after working in academia. Her works have been selected as LibraryReads picks, Best of Amazon books, and Best of Apple Books selections. The Last Housewife has been included on must-read lists by Good Housekeeping, CrimeReads, and the Washington Post.

The novel follows Shay Deroy as she investigates the death of her college best friend, Laurel Hargrove. Shay must revisit her past and uncover her own desires as she looks for the truth with her childhood friend, Jamie Knight. The novel explores themes of Manipulation and Control in Relationships, The Impact of Past Trauma on the Present, and The Complexities of Gender Roles and Submission.

This guide uses the 2023 edition of The Last Housewife, published by SourceBook Landmark on Amazon Kindle.

Content Warning: This work contains descriptions of death by suicide, sexual violence, trauma, self-harm, misogyny, gender essentialism, cult activity, and drug use.

Plot Summary

Shay Deroy, née Evans, lives with her husband, Cal, in a large house in the suburbs of Dallas. Listening to a true crime podcast hosted by her childhood friend, Jamie Knight, Shay hears that her college best friend’s body has been found on the Whitney College campus. The police say Laurel Hargrove died by suicide, but Jamie has doubts, and he asks Shay to help with his investigation. Shay leaves behind her comfortable life in Texas and goes to New York.

In New York, Shay fights to avoid her memories of her time at Whitney. Shay and Jamie visit Laurel’s apartment, call her mother, and check in with the police. The chief of police is Adam Dorsey, the same man who dismissed Shay and Laurel when they came to report Laurel’s sexual assault in college. As before, Dorsey ignores Shay, and Laurel’s mother and apartment appear to be dead ends. However, they do find an old photograph of Laurel, Shay, and their friend Clem, with “Tongue-Cut Sparrow” written on the back. This leads Shay and Jamie to the Hudson Mansion, which houses a sex club called the Sparrow, where people buy and sell sex acts. At the Sparrow, Shay meets a woman named Nicole, who says that there is a more serious society at Fox Lane.

Jamie begins interviewing Shay periodically, during which Shay reveals more of her life. Shay explains to Jamie how she, Laurel, and Clem lived with their roommate Rachel’s father, Don Rockwell, during their last years of college. Don progressively became more domineering over the women, insisting that they share a bedroom next to his and wear only the clothes he allowed. When Clem died by suicide, Shay and Laurel left Don and never heard from him again. Shay suspects that the Sparrow and Fox Lane may be connected to Laurel’s death.

At Fox Lane, Shay finds a secret society called the Pater Society, which is a sex cult in which men, called Paters, or “fathers,” practice radical domination over women, calling them “daughters” and sexually assaulting them. Shay infiltrates the cult and quickly learns that the Paters are led by a man called the Philosopher, who may be Don. Revealing more of her life to Jamie, Shay explains how her father left her and her mother, Nina, when she was 10 years old. After her father left, Shay began competing in pageants at the urging of a friend’s father, and she won a number of pageants throughout middle and high school. Shay and Nina grew apart during high school, and Nina began dating Shay’s English teacher, Mr. Trevors, who abused Nina. At the end of senior year, Shay was sexually assaulted by a popular boy named Anderson Thomas, and she committed arson, burning down Mr. Trevors’s classroom. After high school, Shay went to Whitney College to start over, where she met Laurel.

Shay continues to attend Pater Society events, learning more about the men and women involved with each visit. Paters include the president of Whitney College, a former pastor, financiers, and artists, as well as chief of police Adam Dorsey. After weeks of ignoring Cal’s calls, Shay tells her husband that she is leaving him. Shay and Jamie begin a romantic relationship, but their focus remains on investigating Laurel’s death. At a Pater event on Campbell Island, Dorsey finds Shay and discovers that she intends to help Nicole escape. The Paters capture Shay and bring her to the Philosopher’s home at Hilltop.

At Hilltop, Shay discovers that the Philosopher is indeed Don. What’s more, Laurel is still alive, and she and Don are running the Pater Society together. The body that was presumed to be Laurel was actually Rachel, who was not Don’s biological daughter but a “daughter” in the Pater Society’s sense of the word. Laurel says she is in love with Don, and she helps Shay escape, warning that Shay will not be able to leave if she returns. Jamie finds out that key figures in the New York state government are involved in the Pater Society, and he resolves to send his evidence to the FBI directly, publishing an emergency podcast episode to ask viewers for support. Shay and Jamie go to an event held at Hilltop in the governor’s honor, planning to send in the evidence and alert the authorities during the party.

Shay runs into Don at Hilltop, and he kidnaps her, tying her to a chair in the basement. Laurel interrupts, jealous that Don is with Shay, and Don commands Laurel to kill herself. Laurel cuts her throat, and Shay attacks Don, hitting him with a chair and trying to escape. Shay manages to overpower Don as the FBI enters the room. Shay kills Don and gets arrested for his murder.