Let me start this off by saying that I have been looking forward to this book since I saw the cover last year. I was in love with the throwback 80's vibe it was giving me. I'm always one of the first to request anything that Sager has out, but.... I wasn´t a fan.

I had an issue with the timing of the book. Besides the references to the Walkman, did anyone else feel 80s? I sure didn't. The 80's thing felt like an after thought. With that beautiful cover that drew me in the first time I saw it, I was expecting "I love the 80's!" vibes. Instead, I couldn't tell you anything about the time period of the book, except that they used a Walkman, books on tape, and a land-line.

Last note & then I'll stop, because I don't want to be on an ARC banned list. The fifty year timeline was just too long. It was hard to care about 'whodunit' or justice, considering how old the characters were & just how long ago it all went down. If it were maybe 10-30 years ago, I could see people still talking about this, but 50?! Maybe it's because I live in a city where people get murdered all the time, so I'm obviously desensitized to murder, but I didn't see how it was such a big deal so many years later.

All in all, I do appreciate Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me my first ARC! I was so excited to get picked, that I kind of feel bad for not liking it very much.

LOVE! My first Riley sagar book and won’t be my last. I was hooked from the get go and couldn’t put it down! Will recommend to everyone!

Thankyou to Netgalley for providing this arc. I really enjoyed it!
This was my second Riley Sager book and I much preferred this one, it was a super twisty, gothic book full of spooky delights.
Throughout the book, I really didn't know what was going to happen and who the killer was, which is great! I suspected everyone and knew something wasn't right in that house. I enjoyed the typewriter parts, and lended well to the overall story and I liked that we actually got a happy ending!

Omg!! one of the best thrillers I've read this year. I loved this book and didn't want to put it down. The twists in this book are amazing. It's hard to give a good review without giving too much away. So all I will say is read this book you will not be disappointed. If I could give more stars I would.

One of my top three Riley Sager books! Loved the atmosphere and how it had so many twists.

The ending was a little 'out there' but I expect that from Riley Sager and ultimately I liked that it kept me on my toes.

Would recommend it if you liked Home Before Dark and Lock Every Door.

The Only One Left by Riley Sager is a very interesting murder mystery story with many twists and turns and is only resolved at the very end of the book. It is quite menacing in the early parts of the book and the storyline is very enigmatic.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I have enjoyed many of Riley Sager’s books previously. This was very clever and was excellent storytelling.
Highly recommended.

A really great and intriguing read. I loved the characters and the story. Will look out for more from this author.

I was so excited for this book. I have liked all the books I’ve read by Sager before but this one was a miss for me. There were TOO many twists, I was literally rolling my eyes with all the unnecessary things he added.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this author and did not enjoy his last book at all. I was a bit apprehensive because of this but I had nothing to worry about as this book was absolutely brilliant!
In 1929 when Lenora Hope was just 17 she was accused of a Lizzie Borden-style crime ~ the murder of her entire family in a single night. Fast forward 50 years and Lenora is now paralysed and bed bound. Her new care giver Kit encourages Lenora to use a typewriter to finally tell her story. This book had a little bit of everything ~ crumbling gothic mansion, murders, unreliable narrators, plenty of secrets and a belter of a twist at the end! I could not put this book down and devoured it in two days! I would highly recommend this book.


Thank you to NetGalley, Riley Sager & Hodder & Stoughton for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This thriller is incomparable in my eyes! The gothic atmosphere, twists and turns, everything about it had me glued! I haven't read anything by this author before other than this, and I will certainly be on the look out for more! Absolutely brilliant prose, my heart was pounding the whole time.

The only one left by Riley Sager is jaw-dropping intense. Riley Sager's books hold a special place in my (kindle) library.
The only one left is set in Hope's End, a mansion built in the 1920s, at the edge of a cliff. With time, the name of the mansion and the mansion itself are synonymous. Mrs. Baker takes care of Ms. Lenora Hope, who is now in her 70s and is confined to the bed with limited limb movement. Kit McDeere, a caregiver by profession, is appointed at Hope's end for Miss Hope. But she soon finds out that there is something creepy and disturbing about the house, especially because of its dark history.
The story is narrated from Kit and Lenora's perspective, and they both give their version of truth. As a reader, you will constantly wonder about the truth itself. The ending and the story are superb and surprising. I could not put this book down and a lot of willpower.

My rating for the book is 5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for sharing the copy of the book.

I’ve loved every book by Riley Sager, so when a new one comes along, I don’t even need to read the blurb or know what it’s about to decide whether I’m going to read it. The Only One Left was another brilliant gripping page turner with some great twists I never would have guessed. Highly recommended!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Everyone believes that Lenora Hope is a mass murderer.
When the Hope family was massacred decades ago, she was the only one left after that tragic night.

Wow, wow, wowzers!! To say I devoured this book is an understatement! Having only read few of his books and loved them, I am resolutely on a quest to read his backlist now. His writing is crisp, his plotting twisty and incredibly clever. Set between1929 and 1980, the timelines seamlessly intertwine with family secrets slowly coming up to air. This gothic thriller will put your mind into overdrive and have you turning back the pages to confirm you have read correctly.
Bloody brilliant 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🙏@hodderstaughen

Thrillers set in mansions with mysterious occupants is one of my favourite tropes at the moment. They are easy to envision, and the intrigue about the oft-hermitcal character is catching.

The Only One Left is like that: easy to read, easy to buy in to. I was in a reading slump, but found myself enjoying it well enough. I love the near-gothic atmosphere.

I guessed the twist about 50% right - which is good, because guessing the end at the beginning is always a bummer. But then the twist keeps on twisting, and it just becomes a ludicrous little pretzel that didn’t know to stop when the going was good. And that is how my star rating dropped to three - which, by the way, is not a BAD rating, just not a great one!

This is THE thriller of all thrillers! It is so atmospheric, it is so creepy and chilling, it is so engrossing, and it is filled to the brim with twists and turns (but you never get lost because the plot twists are actually explained).

Every time you think you see where things are going, the carpet (blood-stained carpet?) is ripped from under your feet.

It will honestly be hard to pick up another thriller after this one because i will continuously compare them to this thrilling masterpiece.

The Only One Left is the latest from horror/thriller writer Riley Sager. I read his first book, Final Girls, years ago and loved it, so I’ve had a fondness for his books since, although they can often be both hit and miss. I generally describe them as being a bit campy with fun twists, in a B-movie kinda way, so I’ll always read them, but preface any review with a warning that they won’t be for everyone.

This one has a truly great premise AND setting; Kit McDeere has been on a break from her job as a carer after her last patient died from an overdose of painkillers that Kit had neglected to lock away. Her father isn’t speaking to her and she has no other job prospects, so reluctantly accepts a position as a caregiver at Hope’s End House. Hope’s End is a crumbling old mansion sitting high on a cliff in Maine, and its owner Leonora Hope lives there with three other staff members; a housekeeper, a cook, and a groundskeeper. The last nurse mysteriously disappeared in the night (🚩⛳️) and Kit instantly gets weird vibes from the place, mostly because Leonora’s entire family were brutally murdered there years earlier and Leonora herself has always been the main suspect.

Kit is determined to find out what really happened but as more and more details are revealed, she qstarts to fear her own life may be in danger with the more she knows.

This one started off really well and I was super intrigued to see where it would go. As I said, I loved the setting (creepy old mansion in the 1980’s 🙌) and loved that the main character was a carer. There’s a dual timeline throughout the book that brings us back to the time of the murders and then returns to the present day of the story and I thought that worked really well.

That said, this was a real slow burner; I was halfway through the book and was still waiting for something to happen. There was also a good amount of repetition that got irritating after a while. Just when I was wondering when we would get to the crux of the story, about 7 twists arrived at once, which was somewhat overwhelming 😅

Is it my favourite Riley Sager? No. Did I still enjoy it? A lot of it, yes. Will I read another book by this author? Yes, absolutely!

The Only One Left by Riley Sager
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5/5

“𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩, 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙩? 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙛 𝙄’𝙢 𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙡 𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙄 𝙖𝙢. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙚𝙨.”

At seventeen 𝙇𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙖 𝙃𝙤𝙥𝙚
𝙃𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 with a rope

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

WOAH What a book!
This one is my first Riley Sager book and I LOVED it. This one completely HOOKED me right from the beginning, and it TOTALLY lived up to the hype.

What I most loved about this book was the written story of Lenora Hope. Her writing is filled with suspense and mystery, which kept me on the edge of the seat for the whole time. It was incredible how the author manipulated us to believe one thing whilst it was something completely different. All I can say is bravo!

Dark, gripping and utterly creepy, this is a must read and a 5 star.

This will definitely be one of my top 10 books for 2023!

Having already read all of Riley Sager's works, I was really excited to get stuck into The Only One Left. This book creeps up on you, with its odd occurrences and suspicious characters, so that by the time it all ramps up, you're already too invested to quit. The Only One Left was a fantastic book and easily one of my top 3 Sager releases to date.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 disappointing stars.

Maybe my expectations were too high and I can see I am in the minority but I didn’t really enjoy this book that much.

I found it a bit slow and none of the characters were likeable. The twists when they came were too late in the book and I’d pretty much lost interest by then.

This was great!

The crumbling cliff top mansion was the perfect creepy atmosphere for this solid 4 star mystery. I lost count how many times I was convinced I knew what had happened (spoiler: I didn’t) after every twist and secret that was revealed I had to completely rethink everything. The odd cast of characters really added the creep factor, I mean you really felt like you could trust no one!

The very end after the big twist is what knocked a star off and stopped it being a 5 star read for me, but all in all a solid 4 star read and I’ll definitely be picking up more from Riley Sager in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton & Riley Sager for giving me an ARC.