The Only One Left by Riley Sager
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.
Strangely, this is my first Riley Sager novel! It's a suspense-type book. I think we could even say there's a twist or two in the book as well. Perhaps too much true crime on the brain, but the story set up reminds me of Lizzy Borden. Let me explain. One of the main characters is named Lenore Hope, and one night her whole family was murdered. A local nursery rhyme was created about how Lenore was probably responsible for killing them all. This is similar to Lizzy Borden, whose father and stepmother were murdered one day, and she was thought to be a possible suspect. A nursery rhyme was also created about that.
I understand why this book is classified in the horror genre for most people, but I would place it within a Gothic subgenre (of horror or suspense), probably in the suspense category. I don't have a reason for this; I just feel it leans more toward suspense than horror, but I suppose one person's suspense is another's horror. Also, I'm not a librarian, so I don't have to worry about this.
Kit McDeere is assigned a job at the Hope mansion in 1983. Kit has recently been on suspension because someone in her care died in a way that wasn't acceptable to the police and the agency. Kit was cleared, although we find out more about this death as the story progresses. Kit is down on her luck, and no other place will hire her, so she takes the job at the Hope mansion. The Hope mansion is where all the Hope family, excepting Lenore Hope, were murdered in different ways one night in 1929, before the Great Depression.
For me, this was a solid three-star. I liked it, but I will not re-read or keep it. I did pick it up thinking Sager was a lady author by the name (not his fault if his name is Riley) because I went through a bad phase of "men-writing-women" books (the “boobily down the stairs” trope) and I wanted to avoid that for a while. While Sager didn't lean that way in this book, I felt that some of the decisions Kit makes are...not what a scared woman would do. Kit can leave and go home anytime, yet she'll stay and put herself in danger. It's odd. Anyways, I'll give Sager another go as I think I own Final Girls.
I enjoyed the setting (no Wi-Fi, no internet, no cell phones, etc.), which created a more menacing atmosphere for the women at the house. I liked that Lenore could only slowly communicate with the typewriter. The mansion, falling into disrepair and neglect, mirrors the decay of Kit herself as she comes to grips with her former patient and her relationship with her father.
The buildup was fun and sinister, and then the twists and explanations started, and that's where the book dropped, rating-wise, for me. It was too....splattered? I felt that many deus ex machina and randomness were occurring just to move the story forward. The best way to explain it would be "Kit is 'A' except for the times were she's B, C, D, and Q, and on Tuesday she's Y." I'm not sure if that makes sense. It takes away the air of suspense. I think when I shut the book, I just went "well....ok." It didn't stay with me, and I wasn't impressed with the ending.
There were also two different characters, one named Ricky and the other named Ricardo. Not the best.