This book has all the elements I look for in a good psychological thriller, it's twisty and engrossing. I was hooked at the start and I was always going to read through to the end but I did have a few issues with it. I never really took to Quincy as a character and some of her behaviour beggars belief. There was a plot twist that I had earlier considered and disregarded so that didn't fit for me. From the other reviews I have seen this is clearly going to be a best seller but it fell a bit short of the wow factor for me.

This is a dark and unsettling psychological thriller that made me uncomfortable but compelled to get the bottom of the various mysteries in the novel. A hungry media have dubbed Quinn Carpenter, Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd, the infamous Final Girls, a term derived from horror movies for the last woman standing in a bloodbath where a serial killer has murdered everyone else. The women have never met but the suicide of Lisa is the catalyst for Quinn's carefully rebuilt world to begin to disintegrate. Quinn has a beautiful apartment in Manhattan, brought from the proceeds of legal settlements and media interviews. She has a fiance, Jeff, who makes her feel secure, and is planning to marry him. She is supported unwaveringly by Coop, the cop who shot the killer and saved her from the massacre at Pine Cottage where all her friends died. She writes a popular baking blog, which has helped her maintain her sanity through dark times and she relies on Xanax, to mentally cope with the world. She is scared by Lisa's death and the myriad of implications it might have for her.

Quinn receives a visit from Sam Boyd whom she invites to stay in her apartment. No-one else knows what it is like to be a Final Girl, and when the media prints a photograph of the two of them, she becomes closer to Sam seeking reassurance and support. However, Quinn's personality begins to markedly change as she begins to engage in risky and dangerous behaviours and actions that jeopardises the life she has so painstakingly built. She has no memory of the horror that occurred at Pine Cottage but details start to come back to her. She has never been able to call the killer by his name, this triggers an emotional panic attack and Sam is pushing her to remember. Can she trust Sam? In a story full of twists, we come to finally understand precisely what happened at Pine Cottage.

This is a atmospheric thriller I could not stop reading. It has a compelling narrative that grips, you get drawn into into the shaky and unreliable world of Quinn Carpenter. It is so well plotted to ramp up the suspense and the feeling of fear that pervades the book keeps you on tenterhooks. I was mesmerised by the character of Quinn, so stunningly developed and that of Sam, as I wondered who exactly she was and what did she want from Quinn? Sam insinuates herself into Quinn's life and apartment with no intention of leaving whatsoever. A brilliant and gripping read that I highly recommend. Thanks to Random House Ebury for an ARC.

A really good story of three girls who are the only survivors of a ruthless mass murderer. The story is told by "Quincy" who is one of the three girls. It is ten years on from the horrific attack and is indeed a great psychological thriller.
As I do not want to giveaway any of the plot but what I will say is "buy it, read it". It was hard to put down, gripping but also hard at times to digest. It is an excellent work of fiction and I think is right up there in the league of Stephen King.

I was drawn to this book when I first saw it being mentioned on social media – the cover is stunning and very striking, and when I read the synopsis I simply had to get my hands on it despite the fact that I’m a complete wimp and knew this book would unnerve me!

Final Girls is a novel about Quincy, a girl who was the lone survivor in a massacre at a secluded cottage in the woods. The novel starts ten years on from the massacre and Quincy appears to be putting the horrific trauma behind her – she has a successful baking blog and is in a happy relationship.

The Final Girls is a named coined by the media for the women who have each survived a massacre where everyone else was killed, basically after the girl who is always left standing at the end of teen horror movies. Lisa was the first final girl, and she wrote a book about her experiences and since then has attempted to contact and support other people who have been through the same thing. The group consisted of Lisa and Samantha, and then when Quincy survives a massacre she becomes part of the group. She doesn’t want to join the actual group that Lisa has set up, but whether she likes it or not, she has been deemed a final girl. Quincy just wants to put what happened behind her – her memories of that traumatic night are buried and she doesn’t want to remember so she doesn’t want to talk about it or think about, she wants to take her meds and just move on. When Lisa comes to harm, Quincy is left reeling and in fear that something may happen to her too. This leads to her letting Sam into her life and from then on I was on edge. I didn’t trust Sam, I wasn’t even sure if Quincy was telling the truth about what happened. My brain was constantly mulling things over in the background trying to put it all together and work out what was going to happen.

The tension constantly ramps up throughout the book. I loved the way it was predominantly set in the present day but interspersed amongst that are short chapters leading up to the massacre where all Quincy’s friends were murdered. Quincy, under Sam’s influence starts behaving out of character and the stress of what happened to Lisa and the possibility of her memory of the massacre coming back lead to her acting out of character. It seems like she begins to lose her grip on what’s important in her life, and things start to spiral for her. She doesn’t have a support system in place and things start to turn ugly for her.

Once I got to the last quarter of the book I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was compelled to keep reading because I had to know what had happened in that house but I almost wanted to cover my eyes, if that makes sense. Sager gives a real sense of what it must have been like to be in that situation and terrified for your life and it’s hard to read, yet is impossible to look away from.

I had so many suspicions about various characters, and I had various scenarios running through my mind as I was reading, but I never quite figured out who was responsible. I only realised a couple of pages before it was revealed and I love that I couldn’t quite manage to work it all out before then. It’s not often that a book blindsides me but this one absolutely did.

This book is so dark and twisty, it’s addictive and compelling and utterly unputdownable! I literally started reading it early evening and I didn’t put it down until I’d finished reading at gone midnight! It genuinely gave me the creeps, and I was really glad that I wasn’t home alone after I finished reading at night time!

Final Girls is due to be published on 11th July and can be pre-ordered now.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly, I would like to say, that I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I thought, that it will be yet another book about poor girl, who suffered bad things in her life and now tries to be perfect.
However, I was pleasantly surprised, to find a main character, who was damaged, yet tried to work through whatever life threw in her way. Actually, all the characters, that were mentioned in this book weren't just heroes or villains, each and everyone of them, had two sides of them.
The story had some twists, that I wasn't expecting at all and the ending just blow my mind. I still can't wrap my mind around it...So, so good.

I will definitely recommend this book to anyone, who loves thrillers and mysteries.

This really is the book of 2017! Wow i haven't enjoyed a book as much for years. I won't go into the plot too much but the twist is amazing!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the characters were easy to engage with and the story was quite a unique idea. The sense of suspense stayed right until the last few chapters which made it quite a page turner. Although I suspected something was off with a couple of the characters throughout, I could never put my finger on exactly what was wrong. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes thriller or suspense novels.

Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter was the soul survivor of a horror-movie style massacre that happened on a holiday with her friends. To her dismay, Quincy is dubbed a Final Girl by the press, and becomes an unwilling member of a very exclusive group with two other Final Girls, Lisa and Sam. Despite attempts by Lisa and the media, the three girls never meet. Desperate not to be defined by what happened to her, Quincy struggles to move on with her life. She has a successful website and a nice, lawyer boyfriend. All is going quite well, until the news that Lisa has been found dead, with her wrists slit. Until Sam turns up on Quincy’s doorstep and draws her back into her pain and anger. In a rollercoaster of events, Quincy finds herself under suspicion from the law, doubting Sam’s motives, and terrified by her own actions.

I spent about two thirds of this book thoroughly enjoying it but finding it pretty predictable. I thought I knew who was doing what (although not why), but WOW was I wrong. There are so many twists and layers, but they make perfect sense. Every mystery in unravelled in an unexpected but perfectly plausible way – it’s brilliant.

I actually didn’t like the characters very much – especially Quincy. She was quite wimpy and really annoying how she refused to tell anyone what was going on or ask for help, even though she had people she knew would be willing to help her. But considering her background I was able to forgive her for her silly decisions. I also didn’t like the amount of sexual content, but that’s just me (don’t worry, it isn’t overly graphic or unnecessary – I just don’t particularly enjoy reading about sex), but the things I didn’t like didn’t detract from the suspense or mystery at all.

Final Girls is a brilliant story: Clever and very well-written. The best thriller of 2017 (so far).

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Keeps you guessing until the very end ...... Tense twist and turns

A really original read that kept me gripped highly recommended !!

The idea to pay homage to classic horror slasher movies whilst also bringing in a thriller aspect to the whole piece is one I liked (and no doubt t won’t be long before an adaptation of this comes to a cinema screen near you – it could make a very good film), and I’m hoping the surname choose of Carpenter was a hat tip to the great John Carpenter. But I wanted more than I got. Yes, it does well with dangling red herrings in front of the reader, and I was slower to pick up some clues than I normally am in such books, but in the end I just thought it was, solid. Enjoyable enough, fine for a holiday read, but not a book I’d go out of my way to recommend as a ‘must read’.

Quincy Carpenter, Samantha Boyd and Lisa Milner - what do these ladies have in common?

They survived three different kinds of massacre. They were the last women standing. They were the Final Girls.

Ten years ago, Quincy and her friends met a horrific tragedy in the remote Pine Cottage, but only one girl survived. The press people hounded her for months, her story was vehemently featured in all TV news channels, newspapers, tabloids, podcasts and on the interwebs. She endured it all, until she could finally moved on.

Until Lisa Milner, the original Final Girl was found dead. The second survivor, Samantha Boyd who initially had gone missing suddenly appeared in Quincy's doorstep, and soon they found themselves in Pine Cottage again, reliving the manslaughter that happened a decade ago, fearful, anxious, scared to death. Literally.

This has been a bone-chilling, mouth-gaping, mind-boggling suspense thriller that had me wide awake at night even after reading it. The deaths, the ripper, the screams, the blood, the weapons, the murderer - everything was a haze and for the rest of the story, I thought I got the murderer right. Until I was deep into the latter chapters when I realized, my guess was wrong. I was mistaken not just once, but thrice.

I won't further go into detail about the plot or story because I don’t want to spoil it for you. But know this, Riley Sager's writing is clean and fresh and chilling and something to look forward to. If you're a fan of thrillers/suspense/whodunnit mysteries, Final Girls is a good pick!

I had seen this reviewed on someone else's blog and the name and concept made me want to read it immediately. I was kind of horrified to find out that it's not released til July so I went and asked for it on NetGalley and they very kindly complied. Thanks NetGalley, you completely put me out of my misery!
The name "Final Girls" derives from horror movies where there's always one girl left. She's faced the slasher/serial killer and has somehow escaped where all of her friends have been brutally murdered. Quincy has been given the nickname of a Final Girl by the media, after surviving a horrific attack in Pine Cottage, a cabin in the woods that left all of her college friends viciously murdered. There are other Final Girls too, each the victims in their own private but conversely, extremely public horror movies- Lisa, who narrowly avoided being one of nine sorority girls murdered by a serial killer and Sam, who was tortured by the "Sack Man" at a motel she used to work in, where all the guests were left for dead. It's ten years later and Quincy now writes a baking blog and lives as quiet a life as she can with her boyfriend. That is until fellow Final Girl Lisa is found dead and Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep. Did Lisa really kill herself and is Sam a friend or a foe? It looks like someone is after the Final Girls and is trying to drag Quincy back to that forest where she will eventually find out what really happened in Pine Cottage. I am definitely the right market for this- I love horrors, especially 80's slashers so this was right up my street. I was completely addicted to this book. I took a brief break in reading it (I read it in one day) to go to the cinema but spent the time on the way there and on the way back going "I wonder what's going to happen next in my book…and what the hell happened in Pine Cottage?!!!" etc. Sorry, Cilian and Ailbhe for my poor company that evening. I also held my kindle and continued to read whilst simultaneously making tea. Boiling hot water and a lack of attention do not mix, kids. Some of the plot points are a little bit stretched if I'm honest and it was a bit trashy in places, but that's kind of what I liked about it, it made it feel more like an authentic horror movie but in book form. Awesome!

An interesting story, some unlikely turns in the plot, but overall worth reading. I didn't see the final twist coming.
I would read more books by this author.

Quincy Carpenter is the only survivor of a massacre that claimed the lives of her friends. The events of the fateful night at Pine Cottage are sketchy as the trauma has blanked them from her mind. Ten years have passed and Quincy has, to a certain extent moved on and now has a lawyer boyfriend and a career baking cakes for her blog. Her link to the past is the policeman that found her that night and remains in contact whenever she needs to talk. Two other girls survived similar massacres and are known as the final girls. However, when one is found dead, the other remaining girl seeks out the company of Quincy. The story is fast paced with many twists and a gripping finale. My only reservation is that I feel that some of the things Quincy did was totally out of character and didn't quite fit. An excellent read nonetheless.

Thanks for providing me with an ARC of Final Girls.

"Final Girl" is actually a term from the film industry and refers to those young women, who are the last living female in movies like Scream or Halloween, when all the others around them were murdered. However, Riley Sages novel Final Girls is not such a slasher story, since the book starts years after the women's experiences. They have already adjusted to a somewhat normal life.

Quincy is certainly a different Final Girl, which may be because she has almost no memories of the events of that night ten years ago. Whatever happened at Pine Cottage is only a black spot for Quincy in her mind. She has never said the name of the killer again, her only contact with this part of her life is the cop, Coop, who found the young Quincy after the massacre. Quincy, of course, has to fight with the consequences of Pine Cottage in some ways. Her days start with a Xanax to calm down her nerves and her she keeps her home a secret since the Final Girls have a bizarre fandom community, but also stalkers who write threatening letters and would like to succeed where the original murderers failed. That sounds like an exciting theme for a novel and would have had a lot of potential for a thrilling reading time. Unfortunately the book did not live up to my expectations.

Final Girls is told in two strands from Quincys perspective. For one there are the events of Pine Cottage, the memories that Quincy has lost and are now revealed in small peaces bit by bit. Then there is the Quincy of the present whose everyday life we ​​observe and which is experiencing the current events. Unfortunately, both strings tend to run side by side rather than intertwine, because Quincys memories remain hidden for herself and serve only the reader as an insight to the backstory.
As far as the current events are concerned, the oldest Final Girl, a woman named Lisa, is suddenly found dead. Everything points to a suicide, which no one can really understand. Remember when I told you about those creepy fans and stalkers? I have expected one of these weirdos to be out to kill the Final Girls, but for about 50% of the book nothing happens. Sam, the third final girl, suddenly appears in front of Quincys doorstep and invades her quiet way of life. Within a short time Sam turns Quincys ordered life upside down and for me it was simply not understandable what happens between the two women. Quincy trusts Sam right away, just because she is a final girl too. She does not ask anything, lets Sam manipulate her to take drugs, hit strangers in the park at night and steal things from the store. Quincy behaves like a stereotypically rebellious teenager without a clear explanation for this sudden pattern of behavior.

You have to give the book some credit for the second half though, since there are some surprises I did not see coming. Even if you have some suspicions right from the beginning, the author manages to hide an extra twist and consciously play with the expectations of the reader. Still, I sadly felt no tension, because it is not a killer, but the relationship between Sam and Quincy which drives this story. Both characters have different ways to deal with their past and while this is somehow entertaining it is far away from being a thriller. At some point I was simply bored so much that I stopped reading for several weeks and then only continued in small steps, here and there a few pages.
The protagonists seemed flat and unbelievable. Quincy has a blind faith in Sam, appears naive and seems to want to prove to Sam how cool she is, while Sam is impulsive and manipulative or destructive. Quincy, however, defends her every time and does not question anything. Neither one of the characters made me feel sympathy for them. Somehow, the intention of the novel also seems to change. For example, it is told that the Final Girls can only trust each other because of their similar past, then again it is emphasized that a similar destiny does not make allies. What now?

Final Girls was a light and easy read for me, but just the first part feels stretched and uneventful. The characters lack sympathy and their constant back-and-forth in behavior makes it difficult to keep up. Only Quincys memories from Pine Cottage offer a touch of criminalistic curiosity. The second half of the book is a bit more interesting. At some point everyone seems suspicious, but things feel too constructed. I can’t describe the book as bad, but I would recommend it only to those who have perhaps a slight experience in reading crime.

Thoroughly enjoyed this thriller. I liked the way suspicion passes amongst different characters and just when you think you know what's happening, there's another curveball. The flashbacks really added to the unfolding tension and the conclusion was very satisfying. My first Riley Sager, and won't be the last!

I found Final Girls a really good read, well-written and very intriguing, the twist was such a surprise I nearly went back to re-read any clues I'd missed! I can see this being a massive hit, and I can't wait for Sager's next book.

Quincy has survived her own horror story: during a weekend with her friends in a cottage in the wood, a psychopath escaped a detention center and killer all her friends.

This is why for the paper Quincy is one of the final girls, so the only survivors of a group from a serial killer. The other two girls are Lisa and Samantha and both of them survived a horrific event.

Quincy has built again her life: now she is a food blogger, she has a fiance, the only thing is that she does not remember anything from the night of the murders. This apparent quiet will abruptly change with the news of Lisa's suicide and with the meeting with Sam, disappeared from the public scene a few years before.

Final girls is a likable thriller, with some unforeseen change of event and with more foreseeable ones. The narration is engaging till the meeting between Quincy and Sam, then a story mostly unrelated with the main narrative thread begins about their night adventures; this was the most boring part in my opinion (because it moves the focus from the thriller part to something else). I think boring also the bakery moments, it ok that the main character has a new life, but there is too much food and muffins and decorations nowadays on internet and television.

Overall the book is good at the beginning and at the ending, too bad for the central part that could have been exploited better.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

This is one of those books that is a rip roaring read from start to finish. Interesting characters, fantastic plot twists and an interesting narrative carry this book.

Starting out ten years after the Pine Cottage Massacre, sole survivor Quincy Carpenter is trying to lead a normal life with no memory of that fateful night which has given her the label of Final Girl. A term used for survivors of a slasher film. Living her life, she has a district attorney boyfriend Jeff and writing a baking blog.

Things take a turn when Lisa Milner, another Final Girl, has committed suicide or has she? There is a past to unlock and secrets to expose and Qunicy must fight against the past to make it out alive.

The author has done a fantastic job creating full characters that you spend your time investing. Capturing the pathos of the label that has been thrusted upon Qunicy, Lisa and Samantha and how each one has coped in their own way. With proper and very successful usage of flashback, the author is able to move the story forward and keep the reader interested in the fate of the characters without losing plot threads.

The introduction of each plot and the twists and turns enable the reader to try to sort out the mystery but at the same time, they do not bog down the story with plot expositions. This is a first class read that pushes the reader forward. A book that stands on its own merit and builds upon it.

This is written by a first time author who really nails it. This is one author I have no placed on my list to look out for. They have a real talent to capture a situation and drive you forward. The plot twists are magnificently handled and I predict this will be a great summer read when it is released this summer. This is a fantastic read and highly recommended.

The blurb:

Each girl survived an unthinkable horror. Now someone wants them dead...

They were called The Final Girls.

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.

That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

My thoughts:

This book is a very good read. Not everyone is who they seem and the plot took off in a completely different direction to which I expected. 4*