The Only One Left: A Novel
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Named a summer book to watch by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Oprah, Paste, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, and Nerd Daily
"Propulsive ... a dizzying Gothic whodunit."
—New York Times Book Review
Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
Named a summer book to watch by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Oprah, Paste, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, and Nerd Daily
"Propulsive ... a dizzying Gothic whodunit."
—New York Times Book Review
Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *The Only One Left* by Riley Sager is a gripping Gothic thriller set in a decaying seaside mansion, praised for its eerie atmosphere, stro...
The Only One Left by Riley Sager is a gothic suspense thriller set in a decaying cliffside mansion in Maine. Kit, a home health aide, is assigned to care for Lenora Hope, the mute woman long suspected of murdering her entire family in 1929. When Lenora begins typing out her side of the story, Kit becomes entangled in a chilling mystery that suggests the truth may be far darker than the old rumors. As secrets unravel inside the crumbling house, Kit must face the possibility that she may not make it out alive.
Riley Sager is an author I've seen constantly on the FB Pysch Thriller Reader groups and I guess bc of the hype I wasn't ever in a rush to read this book...but then a family member said she was reading it and I figured okay then it must be good. And then I still didn't read it 🥴. It wasn't until Bookmory randomly picking it for me, that I thought okay now is the time.
Tbh kinda feel bad that it took me so long to hop on the Riley Sager train bc the book didn't disappoint! The thrill was thrilly and the plot was twisty in a way I would have never guessed. It isn't often that a book makes my jaw drop but my jaw was droppppped.
I loved the eerie gothic mansion vibe and the light paranormal aspect this book had.
This is a great book for anyone who loves gothic thrillers, eerie mansion settings, creeping/climbing suspense.
Have you read this one yet? What’s the last book that made your jaw drop?
Trigger warnings: murder, family annihilation, grief, death of parents, death of sibling, violence, elder abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, confinement, poisoning, drowning, betrayal, medical trauma
Eh. This book felt like it tried to have twists just to have twists. Overall this book felt like Riley Sager’s attempt to please the masses and in response, it fell flat for me.
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