This book was an absolute RIDE. I loved the way the mystery unfolded and just when I thought I'd figured it out, it was all pulled out from under me. My favorite Sager will remain Home Before Dark, but this one got much closer to that same feeling I had when reading that book than any of the others have. I absolutely recommend this book!

Nice rebound from “Survive the Night” which got the job done but wasn’t Sanger’s best work.

Inclusion of supernatural & traditional thriller elements was a nice change and brought something different to the genre. Multiple twists kept the story going where a lesser author would have stopped.

I loved this novel. Riley Sager excels at creating suspenseful books. This felt like a modern day Rear Window, but far more exciting.

Casey Fletcher is an actress, banished to her Vermont lake house by her mother. She is recently widowed and has a drinking problem that has led to bad press and unwanted attention. Bored and alone, she binge drinks constantly and watches her neighbors Tom and Katherine Royce to pass the time. They make for great entertainment, especially when paired with her own binoculars.

One day, Katherine is drowning on the lake and Casey rushes to save her. From there, a friendship blossoms as it becomes clear that Tom and Katherine’s relationship isn’t as great as it seems. Katherine suddenly vanishes and Casey is adamant to find her friend or figure out what happened to her. She soon discovers that things are not what they seem even a little bit.

Casey is a great main character and great friend to Katherine. She’s determined to find out what happened to her even though she barely knew her. Casey has a few flaws which were much to be left desired, but this makes her character so real and easy to root for.

Riley Sager returns with a new thriller with a huge twist you will not see coming. The build up is very slow but you will be absolutely shocked from the ending. Sager definitely tries something new compared to his other novels. Go into the book blind for a full experience. The clues are definitely there for you to piece together but I was still surprised. You will be questioning everyone and everything, making this book such a fun read. It is very clear that Sager is a creative author with his storylines in past novels but this is truly apparent in The House Across the Lake.

Thank you so much the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book. The House Across the Lake is set to release on June 21st, 2022 so be sure to keep this one on your radar!

Exhilarating, bone-chilling and suspenseful!

"But the Royce house is like a silent movie playing just for me. No voices. No music. No sound at all save for the ambient noise of the wind in the leaves and the lapping of water along the shore."

I was elated to receive an early copy of The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager. I have devoured every single one of his books in one sitting and this one wasn't any different.

The story follows Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress, struggling to cope with loss. To escape the public eye and clean up her damaged image from her now public drinking problem, Casey seeks refuge in her families lake house in Vermont. One day, Casey saves Katherine Royce, a former super model, from drowning. The two develop a fast friendship and Casey begins to learn more about Katherine and her husband, Tom. The two are fascinating to Casey, Katherine the former super model turned housewife, Tom, the tech innovator. They seem like the perfect couple. But, the more time spent with Katherine, the more imperfect their marriage seems.

Using a pair of binoculars Casey begins to spy on Katherine and Tom and the more she watches the more unsettled she becomes. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey is left with questions. What happened? Where did Katherine go? Did Tom kill his wife? Or is there something more sinister lurking beneath the surface?

This truly was a book worthy of not putting down. I loved the setting (I've always wanted to own a lake house in Vermont), the way the story unfolded in a way that you never knew what to expect next, and the overall storyline which was so unnerving and unsettling that it forced you to keep reading just so you knew how it would all end.

Those twists and turns were something else. Just when I think I had it all figured out, Sager proved me wrong.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Publishing for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The first 75% of the book is drink, drank, go home, you’re drunk. I personally am over the sad, under the influence, unreliable woman trope but it was Sager doing it so I stuck with it. White Claw Lindsay has nothing on Casey Fletcher y’all. This lady pounds through booze while closely watching her neighbors through her late husbands binoculars. There are a few twists in that last 25% that completely saved the story…for me at least. Books like this are why I never DNF even though sometimes I should. For this one I will say the end justified the means, and I ended up enjoying it. If you can make it through the drunken haze I think it’s worth the effort. 4⭐️’s for me.

There seems to be no shortage of thrillers in the last few years that put their own spin on the Rear Window trope — a neighbor thinks they’ve witnessed a crime, but there’s no evidence and no one else seems to believe them. We have the usual contemporary thriller novel trademarks here. There’s an unreliable female narrator who drinks too much and has a past she’s trying (unsuccessfully) to put behind her, and when a new friend vanishes under mysterious circumstances, she decides to take it upon herself to figure out what really happened.

But what we have here is… not exactly the usual contemporary thriller novel fare, and it quickly proves to be a considerable departure from Riley Sagar’s previous novels. The denouement in this story is certainly unexpected, although many of the twists are not. I found the plot a little too bizarre for my tastes, but Sager’s fast paced writing kept me riveted until the big reveal. This is not one of his better works, but it’s a nice beach read.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t love this as much as Sager’s other novels, but still compulsively readable. It had a supernatural twist thrown in midway through that seemed a little out of left field, though I suppose I should have expected it from an author who writes horror? Anyway, a more than decent suspense read.

Ok, I know I’m going to catch some heat for saying this, but whatever. All I have to say about this one is: Yikes. I’m pretty disappointed, but at the same time, I kind of expected it, given the synopsis.

The best way I can describe this one is The Woman in the Window, meets a ghost story. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty over the whole “drunk widower who spies on her neighbors” trope. It was about 75% the MC drunk, obsessing over her neighbors. However, the ending redeemed itself. The few twists that did happen were enjoyable, but that’s pretty much it. For me, it was a dud. 2.5 ⭐️(rounded to 3 on Netgalley & Goodreads)

Thank you to Penguin Group, Dutton, Riley Sager, and Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Have you ever been excited to go on a vacation but then you have the travel day from hell? Missed connecting flights, screaming babies on the plane, lost luggage and by the time you finally get to your destination you’re almost too exhausted to enjoy yourself? That was this book for me.

I was really excited to get approved for this book because I’ve really enjoyed some of Riley Sager’s past books. Unfortunately a little over half of the book was painfully slow going for me. Not only does it focus on a cliché I’m tired of seeing (female MC with substance abuse questions what she sees) but it hammered us over the head with it. You can check my goodreads for a full breakdown, but for types of alcohol alone there were Wine 64 Bourbon 67 Vodka 10 Whisky 7 mentions. It felt very repetitive.

The book finally does pick up and I was highly entertained by the last half of it, and I didn’t predict the outcome which is always fun. Like that travel day from hell, it was worth it for me to finally arrive at the vacation destination but I wouldn’t be in a rush to repeat it. I’d still recommend this one to thriller lovers, but be ready for the slow journey. 3.5/5⭐️

Thanks to Dutton Books and NetGalley for this DRC. The House Across the Lake will be out on June 21.

🏚REVIEW: This is going to be one of the BIGGEST thrillers of 2022. I have read every one of Sager’s books at this point, so needless to say, I was hyped for this one. If I could sum it up in one sentence, let me say this:

Thank God for the ending.

This book could have almost been called “Casey Gets Drunk” because the first 76%, that’s all it was about. @ohiobookgal did a word count, and by 60%, the word wine was mentioned 64 times, bourbon 67, drink 104 and drinking 43. Yall, I am just over the trope where the female MC is under the influence of a substance and therefore unreliable. It’s played out, tired, and boring. While it DOES make sense later on, I am simply not a fan, but at least Sager does address her SA issues in this book unlike many authors.

You’ve also got the main characters trying to do the police’s job for them, which annoys me to no end. Say it with me - YOU ARENT A DETECTIVE! Leave this work to law enforcement!

I truly hate-read this book and would have DNFD it if it were not one of the most hyped books of the year and I was not part of a buddy read. It was just nonsensical and boring up until 76%. Here, in true Sager fashion, he delivers a twist I didn’t see coming that saved the book. It was well-thought out, creative, and kept me on my toes. I appreciated the element of surprise and how inventive it was and it made me glad I stuck around.

I don’t think my opinion of the first 2/3 of the book is going to be an unpopular one. If you can hold out for that long, it IS worth it, but I’m just begging you - can we leave the drunk and/or high female MCs in the last?!

🏚VERDICT: 3 STARS ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Once again I am left completely blown away by another Sager novel! This book starts off with a very familiar premise of unstable, unreliable narrator turned amateur sleuth as her alcohol-induced spying on the house across the lake turns into solving the disappearance of the women who lives in said house across the lake. This may seem like a familiar plot but trust me, Sager takes you on a twisty ride and just when you think you have something figured out, he shocks you with some very interesting and fun surprises! I really enjoyed this one and love the direction that he took with the reveals. Besides Sager’s ability to write truly unexpected and shocking twists and intriguing characters, I also love his descriptive atmospheric settings and nods to classic movies, like in this case, Rear Window! This is my 6th novel and another five star win for me to add to my Sager collection! Thank you so much to Netgalley and Dutton for providing me this ARC copy! This is easily one of my favorite thrillers of the year!

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book! I have to say that I really wasn't a huge fan of Sager's previous work Survive the Night. So, I was apprehensive about this work but I have to say I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I will say that there is a HUGE trigger warning for alcoholism, so if you're recovering or struggling I would absolutely not recommend this book for you. I also think that the characterization of the main character and her struggles with alcohol felt a bit sitcom-y. She, nearly every chapter, thought about having like three shots of vodka and a grilled cheese and then like 3 burbon on the rocks. Which, I agree will most likely get most people drunk, but the way it was described was like a soap opera. It wasn't gritty, and raw and intense, or emotional. I also took issue with the fact that the "culprit" is a character from which we get inner thoughts and feelings, so the reveal of what they did makes....literally no sense. I think this book was pretty entertaining, but...I'm not sure, something was just off. It was a huge fuck you what ended up happening to the MCs husband. And that combined with the literal fantasy and supernatural elements was just really weird tone-wise. Also Boone and his story felt so randomly interjected--he was supposed to be a former cop yet wasn't even remotely characterized like that, or like someone who's wife died like a year prior. I'm giving this work 3 stars because it was entertaining and fast paced, but the reveals were frustrating and implausible (you're telling me that the MC killed her husband who she knew was a serial killer--a character from whom we get thoughts and feelings--and that doesn't come up until the last 15 percent? No. That's not how that works, lmao.) That combined with the random ghost possession was just not it, for me. If you like Sager's previous stuff I'm not really sure how you'll feel about this one but I still recommend you give it a shot!

Once again, Riley Sager has written a psychological and physical thriller that had me gasping at twists well before the end, and then gasping at twists at the end, as well.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish SURVIVE THE NIGHT. I was worried that HOUSE would be similar, but I was so very wrong. This had me hooked right from the beginning and kept me gripped well into the middle of the night.

Also, snaps for the Taylor Swift song epigraph at the beginning of the story. One of my favorite songs by her!

Throughout most of the story, our main character, Casey Fletcher, is an unreliable narrator. Is she really seeing things? Or is she making it up? Is it all a drunk delusion? (Not so spoiler alert: You do find out if you can trust Casey or not.)

The other characters are well-drawn, from Eli, the Hemingway-esque grandfather figure who lives at the lake all year; the mysterious widower Boone, who is staying at the neighbors' house to do some fixing up; and the Page Six couple, who the story centers around.

The atmosphere is great. A small, ultra-enclosed community around a lake in Vermont. The surrounding woods and impending storm add to the urgency and darkness of the plot.

The plot is well-done. The pace works to keep the reader guessing, and as I said - twists!

If you didn't like SURVIVE THE NIGHT but did like THE LAST TIME I LIED, I'd highly recommend this one.

I won't lie this book was a little bit of a let down for me but that doesn't mean it was a bad book. Overall it was a solid read but there was just something about this book that didn't really work for me. Maybe it was because I just came off of reading The Last Time I Lied (which there was a nice little tie-in within this book's pages) and so far that was probably my least favorite of Riley Sager's books. In fact, The Last Time I Lied put me in a little bit of a funk. So in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have started this one almost immediately after but it's a little late for that now.

I did enjoy the story of The House Across the Lake, even if it did remind me a bit of The Woman in the Window for about the first 50% or so and it got off to a bit of a slow start. The story did pick up eventually I just would've preferred it to happen sooner. Casey, was an interesting character to spend time with. I have always been a sucker for an unreliable narrator so even if I didn't like/agree with Casey's actions a good chunk of the time I couldn't stop myself from reading more. It was almost like watching a train wreck. You know it won't end well but you can't bring yourself to look away. Now, one thing I will say is Riley Sager does seem to be an expert at plot twists. Not once have I ever been able to see any of the twists coming in any of his books. He is an expert at keeping me guessing and leaving me scratching my head. As always, I look forward to whatever he will put out next.

A big thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for letting me read this early.

I've been a Riley Sager fan since his debut and he has never been a miss for me... until now.

The House Across the Lake was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022. I started the book immediately after getting an ARC and binged it in a day. I so wanted to love this and continue Sager's winning streak, but alas! What a letdown.

I know a lot of people said that the trope of an alcoholic recluse who spies on her neighours is overused but I didn't mind at all! I was interested to see how the author would put a fresh spin on things. Even though Casey was quite a cliche character and at times I felt like she really needed to get a life, I thought her POV as an alcoholic was realistic and so on point. Goodness knows how I used to drink so that I could forget as well.

I was afraid that this would turn out to be a typical domestic thriller. Then came a brilliant twist slightly more than halfway through that I didn't see coming at all and loved! Ah, there's the Riley Sager that I know.

Unfortunately, as the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for. Turns out there's nothing typical about this book, because suddenly there's a twist so outlandish and awful that it ruined the entire book for me. I also felt like the author tried to squeeze too much into the ending so as to be even more twisty but it didn't have the desired effect for me.

Now I'm wishing this was a typical domestic thriller and I would have still enjoyed it much more. Seriously, I'm so bummed. Not that it will stop me from continuing to read Riley Sager 😂

This time Sager takes the path of an unreliable narrator living alone, indulging in some voyeur act of watching her neighbours across the lake. This trope has been done to death and Sager decides to put his take on this plot. As a whole, i think he successfully pulled it off... somewhat. Eventhough the first third was quite tiring to read if you have read plenty of similar plot stories like The Woman In The Window and The Girl In The Train.

Trippy dual timeline. Dodgy characters. A murder mystery. I was in suspense for most of the story, each chapter gripping you. Leaving you to question a lot of things that's happening. The suspenseful writing and twists were Sager standard. But somewhere along the way, Sager decided to throw in a major twist that left me like... 😩 Not to say it wasn't good cause overall yes, i still really liked the story. But tsk, there's just something about pulling off a murder mystery quite well then suddenly throwing in some other weird stuff to tie up the loose ends that just seem meh to me.

I'd still ask fellow Sager fans to grab this when it gets released, of course cause he is still a master in doing thrillers. But this left me with mixed feelings with that little direction he took with the reveal twist.

What an amazing thrill of a book. I thought I had pretty much figured out how the book was going to end about halfway through it. What I was not expecting was the twists that happened within this book. Talk about a joy ride from beginning to end. We start off the book with alcoholic widow Casey spying on her neighbors. What turns out as "innocent viewing" aka spying on her neighbors turns into a real life murder/mystery and Casey is right at the helm. Thinking something happened to her neighbor friend Katherine who just two days prior Casey saves from drowing in Lake Greene. I really enjoyed Mr. Sager's writing and his words completely transformed me into this book. If you are wanting a fun out there read then this book is for you! I could not put it down. Thank you so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book for an honest review. I don't normally give five star reviews but this was one of my favorites so far of 2022!

A combination of Rear Window and The Woman in the Window, The House Across the Lake feels familiar, but there are enough twists (especially in the second half) to give this a unique spin. The pacing differs drastically between the first half and the second half, but I enjoyed that change because it helped intensify the thrill of the ending.
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And speaking of the ending, no spoilers, but wow - I was completely taken by surprise. The story took multiple shocking directions as the end got closer, and I didn't see any of them coming.
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My main criticism about this book is that I wasn't totally sold on the characters, who instead felt more like caricatures to me. Casey in particular felt like a doppelganger of Anna Fox, the protagonist from The Woman in the Window. But for what this book lacked in creative characters, it made up for in its twisty plot.
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Overall, this is a fun ride. You'll enjoy this one if you're a fan of Riley Sager's other work or if you enjoy a thriller that involves a lot of spying.

Riley Sager can be counted on for a page turner! A recommended purchase for collectins where thrillers and his previous titles are popular.