As a huge Riley Sager fan, I’m always looking forward to the next book he releases and this book did not disappoint! The Only One Left is a perfect mix of horror/thriller and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time! Riley Sager does a great job at keeping you on the edge of your seat and this book definitely keeps you guessing. Every time I thought I knew where it was heading, I was mistaken. I had so much fun with this book!

Wow! What a great thriller/mystery!
In 1929 the wealthy Hope family was brutally murdered in their mansion - only Lenora remained alive. She swore she didn’t kill her sister, mother and father, but the mystery had never been solved. After a series of strokes, Lenora is unable to walk or talk and can only communicate by tapping or typing with her one working hand. Kit desperately needs a job, so she agrees to b e Lenora’s caregiver despite being nervous about the Hope family history. Soon after Kit settles in at the Hope mansion, Lenora lets her know that she wants to tell Kit “everything.” Kit is determined to help Lenora tell her story, but things are not what they seem.

This was a fast paced, atmospheric gothic mystery and I loved it! It’s rare that I get to the end of a mystery without having some idea of what happened, but I was completely shocked by the ending. Dark and twisty and so good!

I’m speechless after finishing this book. Absolutely, positively speechless. I’ve never read a book from RS that I didn’t like, and most of them I’ve LOVED, particularly Lock Every Door and Survive The Night. This new one? I wish Goodreads offered the option for more than five stars. Everything about this book is a rollercoaster, and I am beyond pleased that I’ve been given the opportunity to enjoy this advanced reading copy. I can’t wait to buy a physical copy this summer!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for my ARC of this book.

I had a few quibbles with the end, and I felt like there was one bit that didn't make sense after everything was explained. That being said, this was a really enjoyable read. This is a solid 4 star read for me, and I will definitely be recommending it to my mystery/thriller readers!

Just like Lenora, I have a shameful secret myself that I feel I should reveal before I go any further…….

This is the first book I have read by Riley Sager 😱

I know he has a huge following and all his books sound really good, but for some reason they have been lost amongst my mountain of tbr pile of books. However, after reading this one I will definitely fix that massive mistake asap!

This book not only exceeds the hype surrounding it, it super exceeds any expectations completely, for previous readers of his work, but also for new readers such as myself! This is a book that should be on the very, very top of everyone’s tbr pile. Do NOT let this book pass you by otherwise you will miss out on an instant number one bestseller that has more hooks in it to drag you in than in Hellraiser 😹 (the book isn’t a horror, I just couldn’t think of anything else with thousands of hooks!)

After a six month suspension from work and an investigation into the death of her mother, Kit is ready to go back to work as a care giver, the only issue with that is the only job offered to her is to take on the care of the notorious Lenora Hope and staying in the equally notorious mansion, Hope End, the very house that Lenora killed her family.

After Kit was supject to an investigation into her mother’s death she is in no position to turn down the job. Kit has always been adament of her innocence, just as Lenora has always professed her innocence, so at least they both have something in common.

Kit’s new patient Lenora has suffered strokes that have left her completely immobile except the limited use of her left arm, unable to talk or move she is confined to her bedroom. Even so, Kit still doesn’t feel safe with her new patient, made worse by given the room that connects to Lenora’s bedroom with only a door to separate them.

But how dangerous can Lenora still be?

From her first night there Kit hears strange noises coming from the bedroom next door and as time passes other unexplained sights, shadows and noises keep escalating.

Just when you think you know where this book is headed it twists the plot 360 degrees and you are back to trying to work out what is actually happening at Hope End and all its residents.

As plot twist after plot twist reveals itself some are so unexpected they come as real surprises and some have you having to remind yourself to breath!

Whether you are already a fan or if you are new to his work as I am, this is an unbelievable, extremely clever novel that contains actual, genuine shock after shock and I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone and everyone, it honestly is that good!

The Hope family massacre rocked a coastal Maine town in 1929, and many believed teenager Lenora Hope to be the murderer. Decades later, Lenora has not left her home or spoken about the event. Now confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak, Lenora communicates to her home health care aid that she's ready to tell the truth about that night, all while the cliff-side house begins to crumble around them. This story is compulsively readable, a true page-turner with multiple twists as the story comes to a conclusion.

Thank you NetGalley for an early copy of this book. Overall an interesting mystery with a bit of haunted house vibes thrown in for good measure. Fast paced and enough cliff hanger chapters to keep the story going. The main character, Kit, was a bit flat for me, but the other characters were interesting and better developed.

This one was just doing too much. The twists were predictable and one of them just didn’t make sense. At the end it gets too convoluted.

This book felt like classic Riley Sager of “Final Girls” and “The Last Time I Lied.” Loved it. While there are of course moments that feel a little too on the nose and things got a little too convenient, I didn’t care because I still enjoyed the story. I can’t wait to suggest this one to patrons.

Hope's End is a palatial mansion built on a cliffside in Maine by the wealthy Winston Hope. In 1929 three grizzly murders occur there, there's even a little rhyme about it.

At seventeen Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother's happy life
"It wasn't me," Lenora said
But she's the only one not dead

This may top Final Girls as my favorite Sager book. Twists and turns galore! I refuse to spoil anything but I will say to read this if you life:
- book within a book
- 80's setting
- creepy decaying mansion vibes
- unreliable narrators
- twists you will not see coming

Thank you so much to @duttonbooks and @netgalley for my eARC. This one is out June 20th so preorder it now!

I will say that Riley Sager's books are always entertaining, but I can't say their original. I feel like Sager is always remixing other horror stories to create a new one. So, in this one you have Lizzie Borden layered with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (I'm sure there are other references, these are the ones that immediately stood out to me). I mean, it's fine in the sense that it's a horror pastiche. It's a good read, you'll enjoy it.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

Bravo Riley! I will admit there was one point near the middle of this where I thought ok I might not be loving this. I was wrong. So so wrong. WOW! I pride myself in usually figuring out all of the twists before they happen but I did NOT see a lot of that coming at all. Again WOW! This is one I will be thinking about for some time and dare I say my new favorite Riley Sager book?! I think so!

Riley Sager has, once again, woven a dazzling web with twists and turns aplenty. Kit McDeere has been hired to be a caregiver for a notorious member of the Hope family. There is much suspicion surrounding this family and what may have happened one fateful night. There are so many things that happen in this book that I do not want to spoil. Let me just say that if you like Riley Sager, this book will definitely be a hit.

Thank you so much to Penguin Group and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love Riley Sager, there. I said it. I'll never *not* read something he wrote but this book fell a little flat for me. I was intrigued by the premise of Lenora, with her dark cloud of suspicion hanging over her as well as Kit's own issues involving her mom. There was the potential for an interesting group of characters, however, I found the book a bit repetitive and Kit was really an idiot. A few times, I definitely needed to suspend disbelief in order to get through and I found myself rolling my eyes but I persevered to get to the twist which was really good...overall, I'd still tell my friends to read this for a fun little thriller but I don't think it lives up to his earlier novels.

I'm torn about this book. I've read everything Riley Sager has written and I typically like it a lot. However, I found this one to be very slow in the beginning, and I couldn't really connect with the protagonist, who seemed to jump feet first into this mystery for no real reason. I mean within a week, she was all over the place, distrusting everyone, making assumptions, etc. She seemed paranoid and every single thing was described. If you were in a very shaky, very old mansion on a seaside cliff and you thought you heard a footstep, would you automatically assume someone was in the next room? I wouldn't. But she hears this maybe twice and is all over the place. She is a caretaker and has been for a dozen years, but she seems like she would be terrible in the role. We also hear basically nothing about this part of her life. The thing with her mother wasn't a secret but was treated like a secret? But I didn't guess part of the ending. One major part of the ending was hinted at throughout the book and I don't want to give spoilers, but there should have less foreshadowing because it kind of ruined the surprise. But a lot of the rest of it was a surprise, which is why I always stick with Riley Sager books. I don't think I've ever guessed an ending.

This was a solid four star book until the last like 15% where it completely secured its fifth star. SO MANY TWISTS I CANT EVEN HANDLE IT. 😵‍💫 Riley Sager continues to be a fave thriller author for me!

📖 THE ONLY ONE LEFT by Riley Sager

🕵🏻 Lenora Hope killed her family in a Lizzie Borden-esque style, nursery rhyme included. Now she’s an old lady unable to speak or move and her new caregiver, Kit, is moving into the house of her hometown monster to care for the old lady. Something isn’t right at the mansion and soon Kit is in the middle of a mystery 54 years in the making.

👩🏻‍💻 This felt like a solid return for Riley Sager. I loved the time periods - 1929 and 1983. I loved the throwback nostalgia mixed with gothic vibes that Sager brings to life in the way that only he can. I was creeped out, unnerved, confused, shocked, and thrilled in this slow burn thriller.

I had some struggles with enjoying the story as much as the writing sets readers up to due to some personal triggers related to elder care that was a huge part of the book. There were some parts that were difficult for me to read that I think for most other readers wouldn’t register as a blip. Unfortunately this took me out of the story and I didn’t love it as much as I would have liked to.

With that said, Sager is a superior storyteller and had me following along to believe every one of the red herrings and sub-plots. I have and will continue to recommend Riley Sager as a top notch thriller author that everyone should read.

Since most of this book was set in the 80s, I feel good about saying I wish my brain was a cassette in a Walkman, so I could rewind and re-read this book over and over! Full of twists and turns, it kept me guessing until the very end. Gothic mystery meets revenge thriller that is a must read!

After being disappointed by Sager’s previous two novels, coming off such a strong streak of the first four, I was a little wary of what caliber story I’d be getting in this one. I was pleased to discover that this mystery zips along and provides some great classic Sager twists.
The vibe of the story has a bit of The Haunting of Bly Manor and a dash of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Mild spoiler ahead:
There’s an unexpected happy ending that makes this more than just a dark mystery.

In his latest thriller, Riley Sager takes on a gothic tale of a creepy old manor and generations-old secrets that continue to cast a long shadow. Lenora Hope is a septuagenarian confined to a wheelchair in her family's once grand cliffside manor. She was the sole survivor of an event that left her parents and sister dead by an unknown assailant's hand, although most people in town believe that hand was hers. 60-some years later, she's become something of a local urban legend, with a morbid rhyme about her supposed crimes and everything. When disgraced home-health aide Kit McDeere gets roped into becoming Lenora's new carer only to find a lot of eerieness afoot in the crumbling Hope manor, she begins to unravel the secrets that Lenora has kept about her family's murder for all these years.

This was an irresistible premise to someone like me who grew up devouring gothic novels of suspense. But although I did like this one a little better than his last two novels, it ultimately fell a little short of the mark. My primary complaint with Sager's novels in general is that they're written in a way to mislead the reader from the beginning. While this is understandable, as it's supposed to lead to a big reveal that we've been intentionally led away from the whole time, when that reveal does happen, it suddenly makes the characters' motives and behavior difficult to explain. It all feels just a little too contrived for my liking.