As an avid Riley Sager fan, The House Across the Lake did not disappoint with a twist I did not see coming. With twists different from some of his other works, this story with an unreliable narrator will keep you guessing.

This is my second Riley Sager book. The first one I read left me speechless so I had high hopes for this one. This book is the definition of “they had us in the first half”. I started to hate this book because it was leaning too hard into the whole “the woman in the window across the street” trope. But just when I was about to give up, the twist happened. I should have known. It was a beautiful addition to the book. And just when I thought I was all wrapped up with a nice little bow… a second blow. Stunning. What’s next Sager?

I'll start off by saying I love Riley Sager. But this one left me a little disappointed. I wanted more from this storyline and didn't get it. It took me a while to get into this one and I forced myself to finish it. I am looking forward to Sager's next book though!

If you can completely and totally suspend disbelief, then you will enjoy this ridiculous but somehow still engaging book. Shallow characters, but a crazy fun plot, make this a super quick read with twists I definitely didn't see coming.

I've officially read all of Sager's work at this point. His latest, The House Across the Lake, was good but not great. I feel like Sager's writing style is either loved or hated. Reviews on his books often seem to be mixed. For me, his writing is always entertaining enough to keep me engaged. I love a fast paced thriller and his books are always that. I read them so quickly. In this one, I enjoyed the eerie setting.

I do usually love an unreliable narrator and this story has that. What I'm getting a little tired of is the whole woman drinks too much and therefore nobody listens to her and just thinks she's crazy. It's a trope that's getting a little tired for me and I didn't love it in this story.

I was also expecting a pretty epic twist here. I was lead to believe it would be mind blowing. I read a lot of thrillers, so it has become easier for me to predict things. While I can say honestly that I didn't really see the twist coming, it felt very weird. It wasn't what I was expecting, but not in a good way. It didnt really work for me at all. I don't want to comment on it too much because I don't like to spoil things. Alot of people have loved this book so don't hesitate to pick it up if it sounds interesting to you or if you've liked his other works.

Like I said earlier, this book was entertaining enough and I liked it just fine. Was it a favourite of his? No, definitely not. There were good things about the story but it also had moments that had me rolling my eyes wondering why.

initial thoughts: liked, didn’t love like a lot of readers did. the big twist in the story was a bit far fetched for me, but then again, it is a Riley Sager book.

This was fun! There was twists and turns I didn’t expect and I loved that it was Taylor swift inspired. Riley is a great author!

Holy poop I loved this! Thank you NetGalley for this review copy. I know I'm writing this late but I'm very much a Riley Sager stan. I can understand why some readers may not like the twists in this book but I was shook in the best way. The ending was a bit over the top but honestly this type of mystery is for me. I really enjoyed this one and it's easily the top of my Riley Sager love now.

Sadly this turned out to be a mediocre Riley Sager for me!

While I did understand the purpose in pulling inspiration from other various thrillers, it just didn’t work for me and felt like nothing unique. It was very redundant in the topic of alcohol especially, which I found frustrating.

What I did really enjoy was the setting surrounding the lake! It was very reminiscent of The Last Time I Lied which is my favorite Sager.

I really enjoyed the first 65% of this book. Some of the things I didn’t like were the alcoholic, unstable female main character trope (just kind of over it). I also wasn’t a fan of the twist which I can’t really say more. If it weren’t for the twist, this could have been a 4 star read. Definitely not one of my favorite Sager books but I’ll still be picking up his next book!

There are stories about the lake. How you shouldn't be in it after dark. How other things live there.

Rear Window mixes with Carrie Fisher's life in Riley Sager's The House Across the Lake. An alcoholic hot mess, Casey Fletcher has been banished to her family's summer home on the lake on a semi-permanent basis after essentially falling off the stage in a drunken stupor following her husband's drowning on this same lake. Casey befriends the model who has moved in across the lake with her husband. The husband gets Casey's hackles up, so she resorts to spying on them constantly to make sure everything is okay.

Everything is not okay. After a very short acquaintance, Katherine goes missing. Tom, her husband, does not appreciate Casey butting in despite his explanations. But drunk or sober (and it's mostly drunk), Casey is both tenacious and bored. Even the hot neighbor next door can't draw her attention away once she discovers that he's on the wagon. When Casey finally uncovers something instead of just flinging about conspiracy theories, it puts her own life in danger, but from whom? One of the men living around the lake? Or the lake itself?

This was my first Riley Sager, and honestly, I didn’t love it. Sager’s writing to me was a little juvenile and didn’t always keep me engaged. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters in this one, but I will say that it was definitely a thriller.

Without spoiling anything, the ‘twist’ of this book really let me down. While I understand where the author was coming from, I personally thought the book went in a sour direction and I didn’t enjoy the end part of this book, which really pulled down my rating.

In saying this, I did enjoy the first half of the story and I did find it suspenseful and fun to read, but I just can’t get past the pitfalls of this one.

I’d recommend it to thriller lovers. Of course check the trigger warnings, I gave this book 2/5 stars.

Sager has done it again. He is one of my favorite thriller authors and never fails to deliver. The twist at the end was absolutely perfect. Sager developed such a fantastic backstory for the characters it really gave you an emotional connection to them. If you're questioning this book, don't. Pick it up and start reading!

The main character being an alcoholic and used as a plot point and twist driver… that’s a no from me.

How reliable are the words of a heavy drinker? Casey Fletcher is a young window, a heavy drinker, and an actor hiding out at her family's lake cottage in Vermont. Casey saves Katherine, a former supermodel, from drowning; she befriends Boone, a former local police officer working as a handyman' and she becomes a nuisance to Wilma, a police detective. Riley Sanger has created a good intriguing novel with a now and before timeline that keeps the reader's attention. The House Across the Lake will keep readers glued to the final pages. Recommended.

This book was a trip. I was pretty convinced I knew where things were going early on .... and boy was I wrong!

I always love an unreliable narrator and Casey was certainly that. Always drunk, bored, and shady about her past, it was hard to trust her and I constantly questioned her version of events.

To top it off, the narrator for Casey was an interesting choice. This narrator was used in another book where the character was actually pretending to be someone else and I had a hard time separating her from that book. I kept waiting for a big reveal (and there was, just not in the direction I thought it might go) and I think the narrator kind of led me there unfortunately.

That being said, this was a great choice for audio because I felt like Casey had so many rambling monologues and I'm not sure my attention would have held as well if I had been reading the novel.

Overall, this was a decent read. I can't give it more than three stars because honestly it started out pretty straight forward and a good but not stellar read and then it went totally off the rails which was interesting I suppose but also didn't quite fit and definitely wasn't really what I wanted. So, all in all, not my favorite Sager but definitely glad I picked it up.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and to NetGalley for the copy.

I enjoyed all of Sager's other books, but this one was not for me. Between the cop romance, the unexpectedly supernatural twists, and a few plot holes, this one didn't land.

Another mediocre showing by Riley Sager. I keep reading his books hoping for something special, and they continue to disappoint or mildly entertain.

I had to read this for Book club but I should've DNF. It felt like nothing was happening & another drunk female MC was leading the way. I was a fan of Riley's earlier work but this was ridiculous.

What: one of those mystery thrillers that plays with the “is this real or a dream/alternate reality/supernatural” trope
About: a former actress escaping the world ends up spying on the perfect neighbor couple until she start seeing maybe-problems and sinister goings-on in the marriage.
Features: spooky, keeps-you-guessing
Assets: accessible, quick read
Obstacles: readers may find it hard to connect with characters, and/or feel like there's information deliberately withheld so they can't solve the mystery
Who it’s for: