The story follows recently widowed actor Casey Fletcher who escapes the press to her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with binoculars and plenty of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamourous couple who live in the house across the lake. After Casey saves Katherine from drowning one day on the lake, the two strike up a friendship. But the more they get to know each other, and the more Casey watches the couple – it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what has happened. She does not expect to uncover eerie dark truths.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The suspense makes this an utterly addictive read. It is a very cleverly written story with endless twists, I was continuously shocked right up to the very end. The Lake was the perfect atmospheric setting – It sounded picturesque and amazing, but also very dark and disturbing.

I highly recommend this one. It is my first book by Sager and I am keen to read ‘Survive the Night’.

Casey is. an actress that destroyed her career after she fell into alcoholism after her husband drowned in a lake. To escape media attention she retreats to the same lake and the house her family has owned for years where she secretly drinks herself into oblivion every night.

The good - I was surprised by the twists along the way. I don’t think you could predict them. I had to finish to see where it would go.

The not so good: This was unbelievably far fetched. I can read an out there thriller and enjoy it but this was way over the top. Everything from - why would she return to a house where her husband drowned? To the fact that multiple famous people live on this small lake? To the conflict and haunted aspect (trying to keep this spoiler free). The haunted aspect was particularly hard to believe and cheesy. I also don’t appreciate a main character who is unreliable due to a drinking problem.

I could go on but I hate to leave a negative review. I love Riley Sager and will continue to read his books but this was a miss for me.

Riley Sager is always going to be a hit for me! He’s one of the only thriller authors that I’ll read. This one was gripping from start to finish. It really sucks you into the story right off the bat.

Sager is back!!! after not enjoying LOCK EVERY DOOR and SURVIVE THE NIGHT, i lowered my expectations for his latest thriller and it blew me away. after reading the synopsis, i was nervous for another WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (🤮🤮🤮 don’t get me started) but thankfully, it didn’t go that route and brought so much more to the table 👏🏼

you guys know i’m a thriller snob and it’s hard to surprise me on the twists… well Sager did it!! the twist was shocking and kept on comin!! i’m just angry we had to wait about 65% to get to it!

there were a few things that bugged me but overall, i found it gripping, interesting and unique—which is hard to come by in thrillers these days! full review to come on my IG soon. this is one of my fave of his books for sure.

thank you Dutton Books for the gifted ARC!! this is out mid-June.

Casey Fletcher is a former actress who has left the business and retreated to a family home on a lake in Vermont.

She keeps an eye on a glamorous couple who spend their time on the lake. Casey saves the female of the couple from drowning. They strike up a friendship which is how Casey discovers that things are not what they appear. The female disappears and it is up to Casey to solve the mystery.

Another edge-of-your-seat thriller from Sager - an author that always keeps me turning the page

“What is marriage but a series of mutual deceptions?”

Grab your binoculars and take a seat on the porch because Riley Sager is back with a voyeuristic thriller that will have you guessing until the very end!

The House Across the Lake can best be described as a combination between Goodnight Beautiful, Misery, The Woman in the Window, and Behind Her Eyes.

Casey is an actress and alcoholic who has been banished to Greene Lake by her mother after her drunken behavior on set alerted the paparazzi. She must lay low for awhile if she wants to save her acting career. However, she grieving from the recent sudden death of her husband and instead drowns her sorrows in alcohol.

She passes the time by viewing her neighbors through a set of binoculars left by her husband at the lake house.

Tom and Katherine Royce just bought the new house across the lake. She is a super model and he is the owner of a tech company. He created the app named Mixer, a combination between LinkedIn and Facebook. They seem to be the perfect couple.

Boone Conrad is staying at the Mitchell’s place while he does work on their house. A stranger to this area and very good looking, he peaks Casey’s interest.

Eli is the only full-time resident of Greene Lake and has been there as long as Casey can remember. He brings her supplies from town and a much needed stash of alcohol.

One night, Casey witnesses Katherine drowning in the lake through her binoculars. She quickly saves her with her boat and starts a new friendship. How did Katherine end up in the lake? Casey isn’t sure, because she was very drunk at the time.

Soon after the incident in the lake, Katherine goes missing. Casey is determined to figure out what happened to her. Is Tom Royce behind this? After all, she has witnessed strange behavior in their house.

What happened to Katherine?

Casey is the ultimate unreliable narrator attempting to solve a locked room mystery.
Alternating between now and before, there are many shocking twists and turns to this plot. This was a five star thriller for me until the last 25% due to an issue with believability. However, I really enjoyed this one much more than Survive the Night. Riley Sager’s books are on auto-request for me because even when they are unbelievable, they are still very entertaining.

4/5 stars

Expected publication date: 6/21/22

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton publishing for the ARC of The House Across the Lake in exchange for an honest review.

This story has all the twists and turns and surprises you expect from a Riley Sager book, with an extra touch or horror and the supernatural, which I loved. This is my favourite Sager tale.

Riley Sager has been a must-read author for me since I read Final Girls in 2016, even if only because of how compulsively readable I find his work. I deeply appreciate a book that I can blow through in a day or two, and that's how his books function for me. They make great palate cleansers, and I think they're super fun. I guess the argument can be made that they're formulaic, but I don't find that to be a bad thing, necessarily. Most books are to one extent or another.

I'm not a guesser when I read books like this. Mostly because I'm not good at it. I usually just let myself be taken along for the ride because I'm just not great at piecing things together myself, so I usually have a blast with these kinds of thrillers. I'm shocked from every angle because I can NEVER figure out what's coming. For people who do guess, or are good at it, these might not be as fun.

Survive the Night was just okay for me, so I went into this with slightly lower expectations, but I ended up liking it a lot more. There was only one aspect of it that I didn't love; the supernatural plot line of it felt out of place and a little weak, and I think it would have fared better as a regular thriller/mystery/unreliable narrator witnesses something but nobody takes her seriously because of her unreliability story.

Overall, probably a 3.75 or so, but I'll round up to a 4.

The House Across the Lake
by Riley Sager
Pub Date: June 21, 2022
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
* Thriller *Mystery

I am a fan of Mr. Sager and I have been ruminating on this review. All of his previous books have been 4 and even a 5* for me. I’m sorry to say that this one was a disappointment. So much of the first half of the book seemed like a rehash of “The Woman In The Window”. I kept waiting for the pace to pick up but it didn't happen. The characters seemed very flat to me, I did not connect with them which was so unlike the other books I have read by Sager.
So for me, this was not a stellar read.
3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for sending me an ARC of The House Across the Lake in exchange for an honest review.

Casey Fletcher, an actress who is recently widowed, is hiding out in her family lake house in Vermont. In an attempt to avoid the press over her behavior following her husband's sudden death, Casey's mother sends her to the place it all happened; Lake Greene. Casey spends her days drowning her sorrow in various alcohols and spying on the new neighbors, Katherine and Tom Royce. She had planned to only observe, but fate changed that when Casey saved Katherine from drowning. Up close Casey now sees that the Royce's are not as glamorous as they seem and their marriage is far from perfect. When Katherine suddenly goes missing, Casey obsessively searches for an answer. While it may seem like a simple who-dunnit, people are never who you think they are leaving everyone questioning everything they ever thought was true.

Riley Sager is an incredible author and I anticipate every book that comes out to be captivating and engaging. The House Across the Lake did not disappoint. I love a story with an unreliable narrator. Not a lazy narrator, not an incomplete narrator, but one that you question every time you turn the page. As the reader, you start to become your own detective thinking "well, wait, now do I have to question the MC too?". Casey is unreliable, and albeit a little unrealistic (I don't know what hangover she's having, but I sure as hell could not fish someone out of a lake), but it made me question her along with everyone else. I always enjoy thrillers that make me think I have it figured out to then prove me wrong. I finished this book in 2 days and now cannot wait for the next one!

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!!

Wow! Riley Sager is my favorite thriller author, so I always have high expectations when reading one of this author's books. But this story went so above and beyond my expectations that I simply can't believe it!

Casey is a star of the screen and stage, but unfortunately her career has taken a dive which is why she finds herself secluded in her family lake house on Lake Greene. While boozing away her time there, Casey has a curious encounter with a neighbor and this is when things start getting really interesting!

I thought to myself so many times that I knew how this would end but from major twist to major twist I realized I needed just to sit back and enjoy the ride. I highly recommend this!

Out June 21st!

Ive read all of RS books and I will continue to pick up every book he writes. This one was just an ok for me, It did pickup after 65% of the way through the book and things got a little more interesting, but I just didn't care for the main character - Casey.

Casey has followed in your mother's show biz footsteps, she is an actress and was doing really well for herself. Her husband recently drowned out at Casey's family lake house from an accidental drowning. One year on, Casey is still struggling with Lens death, her drinking is out of control, she was fired from her play on broadway because she turned up to a matinée session drunk out of her mind.

The tabloids have wasted no time, filling the headlines yet again with Casey's spiralling drunken behaviour. Her mother is embarrassed, the unwanted attention its bought on her she ships Casey off to the family Lakehouse to get herself together away from the very public eye in NYC.

Casey continues her drinking at the Lakehouse, it's the same lake that her husband died on. She befriends a couple across the lake who are staying there for a few weeks. She ends up rescuing the wife from drowning in the lake and they become fast friends.... Casey uncovers there is trouble in the relationship.... meh.

Things start to take off 70% in there are a few twists to the story which I wont spoil, the last one was a bit obvious, it just fell a little short for me. But I will still read any book Riley releases.

Final Girls is still my favourite from him....

Every year I always look forward to Riley Sager's newest title and this one did not disappoint.

Actress Casey Fletcher is hiding out from the world after a bad situation splashed her all over the tabloids. Hunkered down in her family's lake house, she befriends Katherine Royce, a former model and neighbor across the lake. Casey can't but help stare into Katherine's home, which is full of windows and drama. One night she spots something odd, and Katherine is not seen again. Determined to find out what happened to her friend, Casey does some investigating of her own to find out what happened to Katherine.

THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE pulls you in right from the beginning. The mystery kicks of early with an interesting cast of suspects: Katherine's husband Tom, a social network founder whose app may not be as thriving as much as he says, is the obvious culprit in Katherine's mind. But what about new arrival Boone, a handsome stranger staying at the lake while he does some work for one of the homeowners? Eli has always been there to help Casey, but how much do we, as readers, really know about him? Can he truly be trusted?

Casey's trauma and what landed her in seclusion are secondary to the main storyline, but are nevertheless important to understand her state of mind and why she's so obsessed and irrational when it comes to Katherine's disappearance. Casey is not only traumatized by events of her past, she's also a severe alcoholic, which makes her narration very unreliable. Is what she's seeing and hearing even real?

Sager once again keeps readers guessing with his knack for writing thrillers with a twist.

Casey Fletcher is an actress going through a difficult time. Her husband passed away recently, and she is trying to avoid bad press.
She decides to stay at her family’s lake house in Vermont, to stay away from any publicity.

She spends her time drinking and spying on the couple, Tom and Katherine who moved in across the lake. She is quite intrigued by them. Casey also saves Katherine from drowning and they soon become friendly.

Casey feels that something is off with Tom & Katherine’s marriage and becomes obsessive about finding out more about their lives. However Katherine disappears suddenly and Casey wants to find out what really happened to her.

You think you know where the story is going, but it’s quite unexpected and there are lots of twists & turns along the way. The mystery is inventive and not the usual run of the mill story as it seems.

The main character Casey is quite fleshed out and is also quite likable. She is a character that one is able to relate to.

I enjoyed this mystery and would definitely recommend it for mystery and thriller fans.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy for an honest review.

I've read and loved most of Sager's books. Sadly, that wasn't the case with this one. I really struggled with his latest. I know Sager can write a gripping novel, so I kept expecting this one to pick up. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The commentary on various topics, including alcohol abuse, make up the bulk of the storyline, not the thriller angle. I never really engaged with the story, and I honestly didn't care about Casey, who wasn't as developed as I've come to find with the author's prior books. The supernatural element didn't work for me. I'm hoping that the author goes back to the formula he used in prior books, as this has been one of my go-to authors.

I love Riley Sager’s books. I’m not going to lie, this started slow at first but as soon as I was hooked, I couldn’t stop. The twists and turns are definitely on brand for Sager. Part so this also reminded me of Layla by Colleen Hoover.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of this in exchange for a review.

Riley Sager has another page turner with this one I finished in a few hours. Casey is a recently widowed actress trying to get away from it all at her family’s lake house. Little does she know she is about to be embroiled with the people at the house across the lake.

I enjoyed this one and loved the twist!

Wow, I am pleasantly surprised by THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE! After reading a few Riley Sager books, I was historically not a huge fan but this one was extremely bingeable. He does include the typical female MC with a drinking problem which usually bothers me right away, but I didn't mind Casey.

This book reminded me greatly of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW accept set on a lake with a splash of LAYLA. If you enjoyed either of those books I recommend picking this one up!

I absolutely loved this one! We follow an unreliable main character with a drinking problem. I know what you’re thinking, we see this all the time. But Sager does such a good job making this book stand out from others like it. Just when I thought I had this one figured out another twist left me like WTF?! I mean the twists in this book are so original it made me love it even more! I honestly couldn’t read fast enough. Highly recommend you get this one as soon as it comes out on June 21st!

5 stars, Absolutely love this, and how it played out. I thought I had considered very possible angle, but the big twist got me. It was just wild enough to be entertaining, and not frustrating.

* thanks for NetGalley for my ARC! Due out in June!!