BOOK REVIEW: The Only One Left by Riley Sager

 

5 Stars

Taking care of the town’s very own Lizzie Bordan is the last job Kit McDeere wants, but since her last home care giver position ended in her being the accused, she doesn’t have a whole lot of job prospects. So to the site of a triple murder she reluctantly goes to fill the shoes of the previous caregiver who disappeared into the night. Kit can certainly understand why her predecessor might have abandoned her post in a house where fifty-four-year-old blood stains still reside on the carpet. But the personal belongings that still occupy her room is puzzling and a bit unsettling, though not nearly as much as the strange noises and unexplained motion coming from a mute invalid’s room in the middle of the night.

Hand taps and a typewriter are Kit and Miss Hope’s only means of communication so when the elderly and disabled ostracized socialite offers to confide in Kit the decades old mystery that still haunts her and the town, Kit quickly gets drawn in and so did I.

To me, this is one of those mystery gems. It captures the elements of gothic and offers an intriguing collection of curious characters who might also be suspects in the creepy going-ons at Hope’s End in an engaging suspense story that’s well paced with many twists and reveals that keep you guessing and reevaluating what exactly is going on both in 1929 when the origional murders took places as well as in the novel’s 1983 present when Kit arrives.

The setting is done well, both the subtle cultural references to 1983 sprinkled in the descriptions, never forced or shoved down the reader’s throat, and the dilapidated cliff-side mansion tilting into the Maine coastline and crumbling from the weight of its secrets, a symbolic manifestation of its occupants of outcasts whose broken lives of repressed traumas have them tilted on their own axis. Meanwhile, Miss Hope’s 1929 typings provide a story within the story as she relates the house’s sordid history, a gothic gilded age soap opera.

Both decades emit vibes of Poe and Hitchcock and if Netflix hasn’t scooped up the rights to this one for Halloween, then they’re sorely missing out because it would come to life even more on screen.

This was an easy five stars. I didn’t even have to think about what to rate it as I enjoyed it right down to the final page. It’s one of those books where you savor the whole journey even as you are drawn into the mystery that has you turning pages to gather more clues and try to solve the who-done-it. 

GOODREADS

*Title purchased from Barnes & Noble. All reviews written by Book-Bosomed Book Blog are honest opinions.

~Also by the Author~

Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

 3.5 Stars

Widow and actress Casey Fletcher has taken refuge, though she’s also kind of been banished, to the family lake house after her career tanks.  While I get why her family and friends feel she needs to be out of the public’s eye for a while, I kept scratching my head why they’d leave a woman with a drinking problem basically secluded with access to alcohol. Because her drinking is really out of hand. And one can only read about the protagonist taking another drink so many times before it starts to feel like the book has a drinking game built in for the reader.

If you’re not getting drunk alongside Casey, you’ll probably notice the slow build. And the fact that Casey’s inebriated state is the main thing helping some of the suspension of disbelief with this story.

The premise isn’t original, so it doesn’t have that going for it.  Bored and drunk most of the time, Casey finds entertainment spying on the new neighbors after acquiring a savior complex for the wife.  

The initial mystery had promise, but I’ve got a beef about bait and switch marketing. A book with paranormal elements should be indicated in the description or genre listing. And while I didn’t hate the supernatural elements of the plot, I would have much preferred a fully real-world suspense. While the story is entertaining and has a positive ending which I enjoyed, it would be a much better mystery without the paranormal. Not only did it open the door to another realm so to speak, it also opened the door to some plot holes, if not silliness.

Luckily, I inadvertently bought two books by this author only a few days apart. This was my first read and it was okay, but the next one (see below) was the real prize. 

GOODREADS

*Title purchased from Marshalls. All reviews written by Book-Bosomed Book Blog are honest opinions.

~Also by the Author~

Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose

3 ‘Meh’ Stars

On the heels of reading You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, I decided to check out other titles by the author. I couldn’t resist the cool VHS tape cover of Home Is Where the Bodies Are and the premise sounded promising.  But, as the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Instead of a suspense-thriller like the cover suggests, this story is bogged down by dysfunctional family drama as three thirty-something siblings gather following the passing of their mother only to discover that their family mementos include home videos of a dead body, a scene which their parents appear complicit in.  The opening chapters of the mother dying are depressing, and the rest is a lot of sibling resentment and squabbles.  The adult children do not solve the mystery; they just stumble through it. There are flawed characters and then there’s just face in your palm characters and these fall in the latter category—especially the parents. By the end, they were reprehensible.

Speaking of the recently departed mother, her chapters were particularly cringey to get through. The attempts to paint a picture of 1999 was not only blatantly forced but led to awkward narration that didn’t resemble how a person would talk or think in the moment. Not to mention some of the cultural references were off. It was painfully clear this was not written by a Gen Xer who knew the decade firsthand, but by someone younger trying to pretend like they did.

For the record, people weren’t walking around in 1999 describing what other people were wearing while also pointing out technology (by brand name to boot) that coincidentally was going to be obsolete in twenty years. And moms sure weren’t standing around taking selfies with their bestie neighbor because they would have known those doubles they were promising to get would be a waste of film processing since cameras of that decade were not designed to be used that way and thus, aside from a lucky shot, it didn’t turn out. Oh and teenagers weren’t knocking on doors asking for someone to come out and play. (Not ‘hang out’ or ‘go do something’, or even ‘play [insert sport]’ but plain old childlike “play” as if they were six.)

To say the book could be researched better is a bit of an understatement especially when you also factor in the inaccuracies with everything from safety deposit boxes to the inheritance process.

All in all, while the plot had potential, it fails in execution.  The mood lacks suspense and thrill. The characters don't exactly come across as people you can really root for. And the ending message of forgiveness felt like it belonged more in a hokey but misogynist Sunday church sermon than a supposed thriller novel with a broken and bloody VHS tape cover.

It would be like seeking forgiveness for Jason Voorhees. 😱 

GOODREADS 

*Title borrowed from library. All reviews written by Book-Bosomed Book Blog are honest opinions.

~Also by the Author~

Book Review