The Only One Left Book Review

The Only One Left

by Riley Sager

Publisher: Dutton an imprint of Penguin Random House
Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Horror 
Read This If You Love: Stephen King

“Lenora Hope is the one patient nobody—not even the police—will mind if I kill.”

Kit really messed up and now the only job available is caring for the town’s own Lizzie Borden…Lenora Hope. Lenora has a dark reputation, but what is the true story behind what happened to her family on a dark and stormy night in Hope’s End?

That’s all you are going to get out of me in terms of a synopsis. I don’t want to spoil anything! However, …Wow. Wow. Wow. I absolutely loved this book and it easily takes top spot for Sager novels. Gripped from the first page, I walked away with the same feeling I had when I read Misery by Stephen King for the first time. The Only One Left is set in the 1980s and it not only nails the setting of the decade, it pays homage to that era’s fiction and horror novels. It is written in the same way and that was very nostalgic for me. (I was a kid in the 80s, but I was also very guilty of reading any book that was around our house even if Stephen King novels might not have been age appropriate for a 10-year-old!) I watched the mini-series that was based on Lace back then and was obsessed with the story. To see the reference to it in this book was wild and (if you are familiar with the book) added to the story in The Only One Left. My love of reading was definitely fostered by my mom and I just kept thinking how much she would have enjoyed this Sager book.