The Last Resort

The next evolution in storytelling from New York Times bestselling, Newbery Medal Winning author Erin Entrada Kelly!

Twelve-year-old Lila has two goals for the summer:

1. Win back the friends who ditched her for being "too dramatic"

2. Stop being so dramatic

But then Lila's estranged Grandpa Clem dies, throwing a wrench in her plans. Now she'll have to spend the summer in Ohio while her parents decide what to do with Grandpa Clem's creepy Victorian Inn. It's supremely unfair. How can she show off the "new and improved" Lila from so far away?

Even worse, strange things keep happening. En route to Ohio, the family gets into a scary car accident. No one's hurt, but the remainder of the trip is... odd. At every rest stop, Lila sees people in weird old-fashioned clothes. People no one else can see or hear...

Lila convinces herself it's just her overactive imagination until the day of the funeral when she spots an old man sitting in her grandfather's favorite chair. She does a double take -- it's him, Grandpa Clem. He tells Lila that he didn't die of a heart attack: he was murdered. Possibly by someone who wants to control the inn. Because it's not a normal bed & breakfast: it's a portal between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. A hotel for ghosts passing onto the afterlife.

With the help of her skeptical brother, Caleb, and their new ghost-obsessed neighbor, Teddy, Lila -- the girl who's vowed to be less dramatic -- must uncover her grandfather's killer AND stop the evil spirits desperate to make their way back into the human world.

Enter the world of The Last Resort! Ghosts from the story will emerge from the pages of the book, allowing readers to talk to spirits from the past and help solve the mystery!

Author: Erin Entrada Kelly
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: 09/02/2025
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 8.46h x 6.05w x 1.01d
ISBN: 9781546132431
Audience: Ages 9-12


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/26/2025
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2025
Booklist 07/01/2025 pg. 82
Horn Book Magazine 09/01/2025 pg. 67

About the Author
Erin Entrada Kelly is the New York Times bestselling author of Hello, Universe, which won the 2018 Newbery Medal; The First State of Being, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the 2025 Newbery Medal, and We Dream of Space, a 2021 Newbery Honor Book. She lives in Delaware.