The Only One Left

Riley Sager has been a hit and miss author for me in the past, but I'm happy to say that he's back with a good 'ol creepy, Gothic and atmospheric read with The Only One Left. 

The story is set in 1983 in an old, crumbling estate (aptly called Hope's End) that is perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The eerie factor increases when readers learn that one of the inhabitants, Lenora Hope, was suspected of violently murdering her parents and sister in 1929. Local kids even made up a rhyme (a la Lizzie Borden) about the murders ...

"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"

Kit is a home health care worker, with her own dark past, who begrudgingly takes a job at Hope's End to care for Lenora who is now aged, bedridden, reclusive and mute. The story has a closed room vibe and we're stuck in the old home for most of the book, but the eerie vibe is strong. Kit is nervous about the sudden disappearance of the former nurse, there are things that go bump in the night and an array of odd staff that care for the decaying and creepy estate. The secrets and lies start to pile up as Lenora, with the help of a typewriter, begins to share her story with Kit. Dun-dun-duuuunnnn!

The tension in the first half builds very slowly with unreliable characters but things pick up in the second half and Sager dumps a tonne of twists at the end!! Readers will need to suspend disbelief with how everything ultimately fits together, but I think Gothic thriller lovers will enjoy this new book that has, for me anyway, made up for his last book, Survive The Night. 

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Riley Sager

Genre: Suspense

Type and Source: Hardcover from public library

Publisher: Dutton

First Published: June 20, 2023

Book Description from GoodReads: 

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.