The Last Renter

What do you know about that person in your short-term rental unit?

In The Last Renter: An Archer Island Thriller, a dangerous mental patient escapes to Archer Island seeking revenge against her abusive stepfather and holds her elderly rental hosts captive in their remote farmhouse.

Millicent Kilvert has led a tragic life of mental illness, culminating in her being sent to an insane asylum to live out her life. She manages to escape and after killing her mother heads for Archer Island in late-November as a big coastal storm rolls into Maine. She rents the attached bungalow in an old farmhouse owned by an elderly couple, Hilda and Evan Olson. Evan leaves his wife alone with the renter as he takes the ferry to the mainland to help their pregnant daughter move into a new home. Hilda and Evan are excited to become first-time grandparents and are unaware of their renter's past.

That first night as the storm rages, Hilda hears strange noises coming from the attached rental unit. When she creeps downstairs to investigate, what she finds will change her life forever. Will her husband Evan be able to make it back in the storm to save her? Can Hilda convince her hallucinating guest to let her seek help?

The Last Renter is a psychological thriller exploring serious dissociative mental illness and paints a sympathetic portrait of a tragically damaged young woman.

Caleb Mason is the author of The Isles of Shoals Remembered: A Legacy from America's First Artists' and Musicians' Colony (1992), about which Allen Lacy of The New York Times wrote: "Provides a fascinating look at an important time period in the American arts." Caleb has authored five previous novels, including Thickafog (2025). He also writes under the pen name Don Trowden and has published: Normal Family (2012); No One Ran to the Altar (2016); All the Lies We Live (2019), and Young Again (2022), co-authored with Valerie McKee. Caleb welcomes reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, as well as constructive comments on his social media outlets, where he is mostly to be found under the pen name Don Trowden.