The Only One Left by Riley Sager | Book Review

This was such a fun audio!

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

Released June 2023

Source: Library Borrow

Goodreads | Amazon

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.

My 2 Cents for Free!

I listened to this book on audio and never zoned out or felt the urge to put it down so for that it's getting some stars. It's a wild one though. You will have to leave your brain behind. Pretend you're in a Rebecca/VC Andrews kind of world where any kind of wild shit can happen and everyone seems to be lying their pants off. By the time I finished I had given every character the side-eye.

And I absolutely loved that about this book. It's fun. There are many secrets. And, of course, a suspicious murder or four. There's a stern housekeeper, a sexy handyman/hanger-around, a heroine with a tortured past, strange sounds in the night, enough family secrets to keep everyone happy (ok everyone is me but that's the only one who counts here, lol) and a mansion that is tilting because some brainiac built it upon the edge of a crumbling cliff.

I made tons of guesses and didn't have a clue who the culprit was until everything was revealed. Love it when that happens. I loved it in all its nonsensical creepy glory and loved that I didn’t have a damn thing figured out right 😆 Love that for me. Perfect ending too.

5 stars for the fun. Don't read any spoiler plot filled reviews! This is why I said nothing about the plot. I did, contrary to what it might look like, actually listen to every word.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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