The New York Times bestseller perfect for fans of A. J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window

A young artist returns to a summer camp, in position as an art teacher, where fifteen years prior she was traumatized when her cabin mates went missing mysteriously, never to be seen again. In a nutshell, that's the story - mostly a standard mystery, though perhaps a touch in the thriller genre. The story follows Emma as she conquers her fears of returning to camp and her determination to discover what happened to her friends that fateful summer long ago. However, stirring up long-buried memories brings unwelcome attention to both Emma and her current cabin mates.

I was slightly annoyed with the improbability of certain plot points which lowered a fairly solid story otherwise to a three-star read. Emma's job/lifestyle/income isn't explained and is contradictory. At 28, with her first gallery exhibit, how has she lived up to that point in a studio in pricey Manhattan? I didn't buy her successfully living as an artist. Which is the vehicle upon which she's invited back to the camp, as an art teacher, but I found it unlikely that the owners of the camp would actually invite Emma back given the circumstances. I found it unlikely that the owners of the camp would actually bunk counselors in cabins with the campers and the reasons behind it were silly. And I found it unlikely that the owners of the camp would let Emma stay in the very cabin she was traumatized in 15 years prior. And unlikely that they wouldn't take the effort to install proper security all over the camp after the worry and fuss of the event 15 years before... And then Emma never really teaches art there but just hangs around. There was an annoying repeat glitch where it would take characters way too long to remember something vitally important or to take action on something that should have been immediate. To reveal this list would be to give spoilers, so I digress.

On the positive side, the mystery itself is actually pretty good and there are no spoilers in this review to take away from the pleasure of twists and turns. And this novel certainly has several clever twists which, to me, makes a good mystery worth it. I found all of the characters to be either likable or interesting. Vivian (a friend from long ago) was pretty stand out as a fun and mysterious lead with a slight Mean Girls persona. Emma, the heroine of the story, was a reliable narrator for the most part, which I liked. Her reactions to circumstances, however improbable, were reasonable. I enjoyed the flashback style of the novel and getting to know the girls was interesting. I really enjoyed the history and background of the camp itself - that portion of the story was particularly intriguing and delightful. The story contained several layers, which gave it complexity. There are several stories happening, and more than one mystery. The pay off at the end was well worth the investment of reading the book. I love a good ending, and this one has it!

Overall this is a good read, and recommended, but it's not faultless. This is one of those books that would be more enjoyable without overthinking it. If I had just been able to accept the improbabilities as realities (however weird) it would have been something I could lose myself in.

There is always something fun about reading a thriller. It is a bit brainless, propulsive—you just want to keep reading, but don't really have to stay ahead of the twists and turns if you don't want to. The book will show you the way; everything will be revealed in time. Perhaps that's why they are so popular for the masses. Mysteries certainly aren't the smart, incendiary things they were when Agatha Christie and Wilkie Collins were writing them.

And yet, there is still something fun about them. Sager's new book is sure to strike cords with fans of his previous book, Final Girls. And yes, we did notice that Sager (real name Todd Ritter) is openly publicizing himself as a man now, thanks. For the first book, there weren't pictures available of "Sager," his bio on the book was genderless (still is, actually), and basically everyone who didn't scrutinize copyright pages thought he was a woman. It felt a bit underhanded, especially in an industry where women already don't get as much attention as men.

Perhaps besides the point. Perhaps not. I am of the opinion that books should be judged on their own merit, not on the gender of their author, so why, you may ask am I making a point of it now? Thrillers are a woman-dominated genre, but that doesn't mean a man can't write them. Do publishers really think a book like Final Girls wouldn't have been as successful if it had Todd Ritter on the cover instead of Riley Sager? I don't know. I guess I only wonder, why cover it up? But you can make up your own mind.

The Last Time I Lied, similar to Final Girls, follows Emma, a young woman with scars from her past that are coming back to haunt her in a big way.

At a ritzy summer camp Emma attended when she was younger, the three older, more popular girls in her cabin all disappeared without a trace. Now, she's been invited back to the camp to teach art, and she's finally going to have to confront what happened that summer and find some answers, maybe just for herself, maybe to find justice for the missing girls.

I can't deny that the plot moves. It wants to be read.

Sager seems to have a thing for damaged women main characters, but I don't really cotton to them. Emma is a bit slow on the uptake and almost soul-crushingly entrenched in her self-doubting, guilt-ridden ways. I get it. She feels bad for what happened and her part in it. Do we have to keep going over and over it? It makes her feel one-dimensional rather than someone who will take action. She is just letting things happen to her rather than going out and making things happen. It gets a bit frustrating.

There are times that the book feels overwritten to me as well, especially at the ends of chapters. They always seem to end with an overdramatic, soap-opera-y moment that tended to have me rolling my eyes rather than cruising into the next chapter. It's okay to just let the moment end. It doesn't always have to mean something.

Yes, I have done some complaining. But this is still a fun, entertaining book. Like a summer blockbuster. It ain't no Oscar winner that will get you thinking about the state of the world and our place in the universe, but it sure is fun.

Also: THE ENDING. Holy snipes, I thought I had it all figured out. (That was why Final Girls lost so many points for me.) But no—there was more and I did NOT see it coming.

Very inventive and very entertaining, Sager keeps it coming until the end. There are a few slow parts and I can't say it's perfect, but this will definitely liven up your road trip, camping outing, or beach vacay without a doubt.

My thanks to Dutton for my finished copy of this book to read and review.

Readers beware: you will not quit reading this new book by Riley Sager when it’s time to go to sleep. I LOVE these kinds of novels but am so angry at myself the next day when I’m sloppy tired. But this one’s worth it.
Emma Stone is an aspiring artist in New York. Her paintings all have the same theme: woods, dark tendrils of limbs and leaves curling around and hiding faint figures of three girls, all wearing white. The viewer will not see the girls but Emma knows they’re there, and she knows she’s to blame that they’re stuck there for eternity.
Emma was camping at an exclusive girl’s camp when her three cabin mates disappeared one night and were never heard from again. As fate tends to do, she is given a second chance to be a counselor at the newly reopened camp 15 years later. Sounds like a positive healing process for her to embark on, so with her friend’s encouragement, she packs her camping gear and heads to Camp Nightingale once more.
The camp is privately owned and has been in the family for years. The lake was created by building a dam and flooding a small community that refused to leave, casting a cloud of suspicion that’s exaggerated by being retold around the campfire, gaining more ghosts and curses with each retelling. Emma is determined to separate fact from fantasy as she digs for clues about the disappearance of her friends. Told in the first person, Emma reflects on past and present seamlessly, so little has changed while the camp sat shuttered and unoccupied for years.
This is the perfect setting for a mystery: possibly haunted camp in the woods, questionable camp employees, the rich family with dark secrets, Emma alone in her mission to snoop and solve at all costs. Like a witch over a cauldron, Riley adds a pinch of two truths, one lie, and various secrets to create the perfect nonstop read.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton for making it available.)

It starts simply enough with our narrator stating, “This is how it begins.” For those who enjoyed Riley Sager's debut novel, FINAL GIRLS (winner of the 2018 Thriller Award for Best Hardcover Novel), you will understand that the author has a way with words. You also will quickly find out that the protagonist/narrator of THE LAST TIME I LIED is not to be trusted as she is a self-confessed liar.

That premise runs through the book as the principal theme. In fact, Emma Davis, our unreliable narrator, often plays Two Truths and a Lie with her fellow cabinmates. Anyone who is familiar with this game will recognize that the goal is to get the other players to believe your lie and question the truths. Emma becomes really good at it, which keeps readers firmly on their toes throughout the proceedings as they attempt to dig through the lies to uncover the truth.

Emma is a semi-famous painter from New York City whose paintings are primarily inspired by her obsession of the past 15 years. It was that many years ago that her three cabinmates from the Dogwood cabin at Camp Nightingale disappeared one night, never to be seen again. Or did they? They actually can be seen in all of Emma's paintings. By using these lost girls --- Vivian, Natalie and Allison --- as her artistic muses, painting becomes a form of therapy for Emma.

However much painting Emma does will not change the fact that the mystery of the missing girls still needs to be solved. Also, the accusations she made publicly about Theo, the adopted son of the billionaire owner of Camp Nightingale, Franny Harris-White, represent unresolved relationships in her life. So how ironic it is that Franny contacts Emma 15 years after Camp Nightingale closed in shame and scandal to offer her an opportunity to come back to the newly reopened camp as their art instructor. Emma accepts, not because of the chance to be gainfully employed with regular income for the summer, but out of curiosity surrounding what and who she will find upon her return.

Legend claimed that Franny's wealthy ancestors sought to take over the property that later became Camp Nightingale but found themselves dealing with either a leper colony or a home for the deaf that refused to vacate their residence. The legend continues to tell the horrific tale that the nearby dam was breached, flooding the entire area and putting the colony/home at the bottom of what is now called Lake Midnight. The girls in Emma's cabin shared this spooky campfire tale, alleging that the lost souls at the bottom of Lake Midnight would come to exact their revenge upon the living.

In present day, Emma finds herself back in Dogwood cabin with three teen girls who are now her students. Miranda, Sasha and Krystal represent a way for Emma to find the answers that have haunted her, for she believes that the one thing worse than death is not knowing. However, Franny and her now-grown sons, Theo and Chet, may have ulterior motives for asking Emma back. To begin with, they expose her past, which involved years of therapy and suffering from a form of schizophrenia. They also make it clear that the scrutiny Theo and Chet had to go through from Emma's accusations is still not fully forgiven. When Emma finds a camera planted outside her cabin, filming all comings and goings, she realizes she is not trusted and will have to be very careful when conducting her own investigation into her long-lost cabinmates.

Emma begins piecing together clues that Vivian left around Camp Nightingale and the surrounding area. She hopes that Vivian, of whom she still sees regular visions, will help lead her to the truth. Of course, the inevitable happens when the three new Dogwood residents disappear one night. The only clue left behind is Emma's missing bracelet found at the bottom of one of the rowboats off of Lake Midnight. It's time to relive the same horror all over again, only this time Emma is now the prime suspect in the disappearance of Miranda, Sasha and Krystal. The only way to solve the present mystery is to solve the riddles of the past and sort out the truth from all the lies.

Riley Sager has done it again! THE LAST TIME I LIED hooks you in from the opening words and never releases you until the stunning conclusion. It’s an ideal summer read that allows you to participate in the action and try to determine what is true and what is a lie in the face of one of the most clever and unpredictable narrators in recent memory.

Reviewed by Ray Palen

I've recently recognized that a popular trend in the titling of thrillers has emerged amongst my reading list. It seems like every thriller with hopes of becoming the next best-seller has the word "lie" in their titles. Like many of the "girl" books that followed a similar trend after the success of Gone Girl, these "lie" books have had a pretty mixed result for me. Last year saw the breakout of author Riley Sager with his thriller Final Girls. Glowing reviews from many of my trusted blogging buddies and the fact that it had a "girl" title placed the novel on my TBR list. Alas, I never got around to reading it. When I got the chance to read Sager's latest novel The Last Time I Lied (see the word "lie" in the title?!), I eagerly jumped at the opportunity.

As I started reading, I wasn't making comparisons to some of the other "lie" books that I've read. Rather, I kept thinking back to The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. Like that novel, The Last Time I Lied focuses on a main character who is haunted by the events of her past at a community institution for young girls. Unlike St. James, Sager steers clear of the supernatural, writing a story that is even more horrifying in the dark details of its ruthless reality.

Emma has become renowned for her painting. Her series of dark forests on canvas have captured the imagination and renown of some of the art world's biggest names. Her admirers have no idea about the dark secrets that lie beneath the foliage of each painting. They have no idea about the secret that dates all the way back to her time as an attendee at Camp Nightengale. They have no idea that this secret is about to be brought out from behind the leaves and vines that Emma has desperately used to hide them.

To go into any more details about the plot itself would ruin the fun and suspense for anyone planning to read it. Suffice it to say that this is an edge-of-your-seat read that kept me thoroughly engaged and guessing until the very end. Sager shifts between the present and past to reveal details about the characters and mystery surrounding the camp, expertly leading the reader through a maze of absorbing history and misdirection. As a protagonist, Emma strikes the right balance of inner turmoil and outer resolve. She works just as hard to solve the mystery as she does to come to terms with her emotional state. Sager beautifully manifests this internal struggle in the physical imagery of Emma's art. Amongst its other "lie" titled peers, The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager stands out as a top-notch thriller that easily surpasses the generic confines of its promotionally driven name.

Emma Davis had attended a summer camp 15 years ago. The camp was operated by a wealthy family and catered to an upscale clientele. Emma thought of herself as being lucky to be allowed admission to Camp Nightingale. It was in a beautiful country setting with Lake Nightingale, a man made lake at it's shores. Due to an unexpectedly late arrival on the first day she was assigned to bunk with 3 other girls that were older than her real group. But her stay was made better by being friended by Vivian who seemed to assign herself the role of Emma's older sister and taking her under her wing. All seemed too good to be true when one night Vivian and the other two girls left the cabin. Vivian told Emma that she could not see what they were going out to look at and had to stay in the cabin. The next day an unthinkable tragedy unfolded. The three girls that left the cabin could not be found anywhere. After days of fruitless searching the search was discontinued and the camp closed.

Emma developed into a talented painter during the next 15 years but seemed to be stuck with painting scenes including hidden views of the three girls that disappeared at the camp. Out of the blue the owner of the now defunct Camp Nightingale decided to reopen it again and attempt to resurrect it's fame. Emma was surprised to get an invitation to return to the camp with the job of teaching the girls attending painting techniques. She agreed and went back to work with the secondary mission of trying to find out what had happened to her former 3 bunk mates.

Mr Sager utilizes first person narrative to tell the story and the method does it's job quite well as Emma returns to the camp. She stays with 3 of the campers in the same bunk as she had lived in 15 years ago. What happened, why and what is going on now is seen through the eyes of Emma Davis whose findings are available to the reader as soon as she perceives them. The plotting is excellent, Emma is a believable character with a personality befitting a young lady devastated by what happened at the camp. The ending develops from the facts as presented in the book but not readily perceived as the reader is drawn into the excellent plot.

I really loved how original and suspenseful Riley Sager's first novel, Final Girls, was. It was in my top 10 of 2016 for good reason. Well the impossible is possible, he's done it again! Riley Sager wrote a brilliant follow up novel that holds one's own phenominally. If you liked Final Girls, you will like this one too, and that's no lie!

When girls are disappearing without a trace, you can color me intrigued! Last Time I Lied was eerie, sinister and very very atmospheric thanks to the setting of Camp Nightingale. The summer camp mentioned in the novel is buried in the woods (think no cell phone reception!) with wooden cabins planted here and there and each cabin houses 3-4 summer guests. Lake Midnight, situated on the domain, was so ominous and dark, it felt like a character all on its own and I loved its own interesting and legendary past.

Sager expertly weaves two time periods with unmistakable similarities together. Before she knows it Emma is bunking with 3 young girls, Miranda, Krystal and Sasha and history seems to be repeating. Just like Vivian in the past, Miranda is also a leader type and the other two seem to parallel the girls from the past as well. There are 6 girls to keep track of apart from Emma but I didn't have any problem following sporty spice and the others. It was pretty obvious as well who was really important and who wasn't.

The author managed to keep the mystery going for a very long time without letting my attention wane for even a second. Last Time I Lied is a spooky story with suspects and red herrings aplenty. I was led astray numerous times and just when I thought I could reach my own conclusion, he had me tick off another name from my suspect list without a pardon. This happened multiple times and with every new suspect exonerated, I actually worried who would be the last one standing. I thought I knew better all the time and I actually knew nothing at all :-). I shouldn't have been so surprised that I was completely unprepared for the way it ended. I was hit so hard when I found out what happened to the girls. The denouement came with a pretty big bang and I hung onto every word!

Riley Sager definitely knows what he's doing and how it's done right. He knows how to write a novel that'll keep you on the edge of your seat!

I liked how the story was written but I loved the setting and the atmosphere. Last Time I Lied wasn't too scary but I still consider it as bordering the horror genre. It's so easy to imagine yourself at that summer camp yourself.

It seems like for me, most modern Thriller/Mystery book fall into two broad categories. Either the description totally sucks me in and then I'm disappointed in the book, or the synopsis doesn't really grab me but then I end up loving the book. The Last Time I Lied falls into the latter category. I was choosing a book from Book of the Month and hesitated to choose this one because, as a 48-year-old married man, I just doubted that I could really relate to the whole vibe of this one. Oh, boy, was I wrong and I'm so glad I hit that order button.

Like all the best mysteries, this one moves quickly but also takes its time setting up all the crucial elements. An unsolved mystery from the past, a survivor of that mystery, the survivor is drawn back into the world of said mystery only to have the mystery resurface in their life, necessitating the protagonist's struggle to figure things out and survive. First off, the characters are drawn sharply and resonated really well with me. There were times that I started to think "Why is this person..." then I caught myself and just trusted the author to lead me down the path and I was never disappointed. Everything ties up nicely and the twists are very satisfying, right up until the last pages. Even if you sort of think you know what's going on, at the very end you probably don't. It's like having a perfect meal and thinking it couldn't get any better, then getting served a dessert that doesn't make you too full, complements the meal and makes you happy it was the last thing you ate.

Others have outlined the plot so I won't go there, but as mentioned, everything is just well constructed and flows perfectly. I could easily see this being a miniseries or film. I don't think it would be better than the book though. Like a lot of books, this one allows you to really live inside the head of the main character and that's definitely important to the storytelling. The main character - Emma - is dealing with some emotional trauma and that heavily influences the way the story progresses. The author doesn't use that for cheap tricks or to cut corners with the storytelling. Instead, it actually is a driving force to the narrative that frames the whole mystery and storytelling style.

I was just really impressed with this one and will seek out Sager's other work in the future. Five stars, well earned.

For Emma, her experiences at Camp Nightingale did not turn out to be part of her youth that she would remember fondly as she got older. Memories of roasting marshmallows, singing around a campfire, and making lifelong friends were not to be. Instead, Emma's brief time there ended on the morning she awoke to find that her three roommates never returned from their nighttime excursion. Since that morning fifteen years ago, Emma has been haunted by not only their inexplicable disappearance and her resultant sorrow, but the role she may have played in it. Emma's return to her life following the tragedy at Camp Nightingale was not without complications. But she eventually forged a career from, in part, the tragedy. Upon every blank canvas she places three small figures wearing white dresses before hiding them under layers of paint depicting tangled vines and dark woods. Only she knows that Vivian, Natalie, and Allison are entombed there.

When Frannie announces that she is reopening Camp Nightingale and asks Emma to return as an instructor, Emma is hesitant to accept, telling Frannie, "I'm not sure I can go back there again. Not after what happened." But Frannie pushes her, suggesting that's "precisely why you should go back." Emma comes to see the invitation as an opportunity to reconcile the past by learning exactly what happened to her friends. She believes Frannie when she insists that she harbors no ill will toward Emma as a result of what happened -- and the consequences, including quickly and quietly settled lawsuits filed by the girls' grieving families. But Emma is no more prepared for the events she encounters at Camp Nightingale the second time than she was as a teenager.

Emma was younger than the other girls in her cabin because she arrived late and cabin assignments had already been made. Unlike the other campers, for whom Camp Nightingale was "the summer camp if you lived in Manhattan and had a bit of money," Emma did not come from a wealthy, privileged background. She and her friends called it "Camp Rich Bitch," but for just one summer her parents could afford to send her there. Natalie was the daughter of New York's top orthopedic surgeon and Vivian's mother was a celebrated Broadway actress. But it was Vivian who took Emma under her wing and was the leader in the group. The daughter of a senator, her older sister had drowned when, mistakenly believing the Central Park reservoir was frozen solid, she attempted to traverse it and fell through the broken ice. Emma looked up to and emulated the sophisticated Vivian, even as she found some of Vivian's behavior startling. Vivian explained: "Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it's the only way to win."

Incidents begin occurring that are, to Emma, suspicious, but are also susceptible of rationale explanation. Still, the discovery of the surveillance camera rattles her, especially when she learns that her hostess knows more about Emma's past than she let on. Emma is tenacious and committed to learning her friends' fate. But her quest for answers leads her on an increasingly dangerous foray into the past -- the secrets Vivian was keeping, the true extent of the fall-out from the girls' disappearance, and its impact upon not just Frannie and Emmy, but also upon Frannie's adopted sons, Theo and Chet.

Author Riley Sager pulls readers into a beautiful setting that is full of secrets, resentments, and danger. Camp Nightingale, an otherwise idyllic backdrop, is as much a character in The Last Time I Lied as any of the story's human inhabitants. Emma is a sympathetic character who has spent fifteen years trying to come to terms with an enormous tragedy and her perception of her role in it. Traumatized by the disappearance of her friends, Emma has suffered emotionally but, like a true artist, channeled her pain into her paintings. Emma is also, because of those factors, an inherently unreliable narrator. Now, however, she is ready to learn and face the truth. Did she have something to do with the girls' disappearance? What act did she commit that was so horrible she has maintained her secrecy in the ensuing years? Every other character in the book is also a suspect.

The Last Time I Lied is fast-paced and intriguing. Like the pieces of paper the girls drop as they hike into the woods, designed to provide a trail back the way they came, Sager drops clues to the mystery at deftly-timed intervals, making it impossible to stop reading. The dramatic tension mounts as does the danger in which Emma, and her young charges, find themselves, leading to a pulse-pounding final confrontation. And a jaw-dropping conclusion. The Last Time I Lied is designed to be an ideal summer read. At camp, perhaps?

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.

If you like campy horror movies and slasher films and haven't checked out Riley Sager's work yet ... what are you doing with your life?

Final Girls was one of my most fun reads of 2017, and I was so excited to hear that Sager's follow-up novel, The Last Time I Lied, would be in a similar vein, this time tackling all the summer camp horror movie tropes you never knew you needed in thriller novel form.

I loved our protagonist, Emma, and found myself so invested in her journey. She's such an intriguing main character, so thoroughly haunted by what happened in the past for reasons that aren't revealed until deep into the novel. Even though her coping mechanisms paint her as the tortured artist stuck in the past, she's a force to be reckoned with from page one. You can't help but root for her determination to face her demons and unveil the truth, even when subtlety is far from her specialty. I was also pleasantly surprised by the romantic plot line, which usually falls flat for me when it comes to thrillers. This time around, though, it wasn't in-your-face but still managed to keep me on the edge of my seat.

The strongest part of the novel is the eerie and isolated atmosphere of the woods surrounding Camp Nightingale. It's the perfect backdrop for a mystery that will give you goosebumps. Sager refuses to shy from slasher movie stereotypes and even depends on them to evoke the cinematic visuals that bring his story to life. Somehow all the trope-y details like campfire ghost stories and the creepy groundskeeper never feel too cliché; they only build the suspense and add to the already spine-tingling mood. I especially loved the reoccurring motif of the Two Truths and a Lie game, which takes on unexpected significance and brings together so many different aspects of the storyline. It's so easy to immerse yourself in the atmosphere and see it all unfolding right in front of you.

Sager is a master of the dual timeline. He nails it in Final Girls and goes above and beyond with The Last Time I Lied, too. Dual timelines are a favorite narrative device for me, but rarely does an author achieve such a cinematic presentation. Intrigue and suspense build simultaneously in the present and the past narratives, dropping hints that cross the border between the two. The threads crescendo in parallel, leading to a finale that's impossible to put down and far from the truth I expected.

My only minor complaint is that I found the campers in Emma's cabins (both past and present) to be rather cookie cutter, except for Vivian, but it didn't at all detract from the aspects I loved about the rest of the book. If atmospheric, creepy, and cinematic novels are up your alley, you don't want to miss out on The Last Time I Lied. I'm already eagerly awaiting Sager's next novel ... he's yet to disappoint!

Warm thanks to Riley Sager and Dutton for providing me with a digital copy in exchange for an honest review and to the Fantastic Flying Book Club for organizing the blog tour.

*I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

Last Time I Lied is every urban legend, every campfire ghost story, every slasher horror flick that ever made you lie awake listening to the bumps in the night and beg someone to accompany you to the toilet.

The plot is utterly compelling and the author led me round by the nose. I fell for every red herring and double feint he dangled. Riley Sager’s knowledge of human psychology is excellent!

The story is told mainly from the first-person viewpoint of Emma, an unreliable narrator. We are flipped back and forth between the present action and flashbacks of the events fifteen years prior. Sometimes this can get confusing, but in this book the author clearly captures a different atmosphere in each: the heady, hormonal drama of the shimmering summer past and the dark paranoia of the now.

Emma is a reserved and defensive character, and yet somehow still likeable and I was on her side even as I side-eyed her. I understood and sympathised with her struggles and wanted her not just successful but vindicated.

All of the characters, including Emma, are suspicious and unpredictable and I didn’t trust a single one of them; adding to the disturbing schizophrenic fear that pervades everything from setting to characters and plot.

Perfect for fans of psychological suspense thrillers, I suggest you allocate yourself a decent chunk of time for this one, because you’ll want to read it in one sitting!

Fifteen years. That’s how long it’s been. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday.
The camp closed early that summer, shutting down after only two weeks and throwing lots of families’ schedules into chaos. It couldn’t be helped. Not after what happened. My parents vacillated between sympathy and annoyance after they picked me up a day later than everyone else. Last to arrive, last to leave. I remember sitting in our Volvo, staring out the back window as the camp receded. Even at thirteen, I knew it would never reopen.

– Riley Sager, Last Time I Lied

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

Emma has been haunted for fifteen years by the events that happened at Camp Nightingale when she was thirteen. Her three cabinmates - Vivian, Natalie, and Allison - disappear one night and are never seen again. Emma suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized when she kept hallucinating seeing Vivian all over the place. She is still in therapy. She is an artist who is becoming known for her large paintings of deep, dark forests. Only she knows that she begins each painting with portraits of the three girls and then covers them all up with the forests.

When Franny Harris-White, the wealthy owner of the camp, asks Emma to come be the artist in residence at the camp's reopening, she is fearful but eager to try to finally learn what happened to the three girls.

Emma finds herself back in the same cabin with three new young girls. She gradually uncovered the secrets that Vivian was keeping and tells the reader the secrets that she has been keeping. Many of the people who were at the Camp the first time - Franny, her companion Lottie, her sons Theo and Chet - are there again and Emma is suspicious about all of their actions. She gets even more suspicious when she finds a camera aimed at her cabin, sees suspicious shadows outside the cabin, and finds the word Liar in red paint on the cabin door. These things combine with her own mental state since she is sure that she is catching glimpses of Vivian.

When the three girls who share Emma's cabin in the present go missing, it is like the whole nightmare scenario is happening again. But this time the police are really trying to pin the crime on Emma.

The story is told in the present and also fifteen years in the past. Each part adds one more piece to a complex and frightening puzzle. This book was a real page turner. It was hard to put down since each page added one more clue to a puzzle that had haunted Emma for years.

An innocent, youthful game of Two Truths and a Lie morphs into something far more impactful in Riley Sager's The Last Time I Lied. 

While at Camp Nightingale for the summer on a last minute decision of her mother, first-time camper Emma joins three older repeat campers, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison, in their cabin. Taken under Vivian's wing, Emma learns to navigate the camp, become more adept at lying, and harbor secrets - her own and those of Vivian's. One night the three older girls mysteriously go missing after sneaking out of the cabin, forcing the camp to shut down. Throughout fifteen years Emma has coped with their disappearance through painting, creating a successful career for herself. When the camp's owner approaches her to be an instructor at the camp as it reopens, Emma reluctantly accepts - if only to try to solve the girls' disappearance. Haunted by her memories of the past as she unearths clues, Emma realizes that the camp has secrets of its own.

An intriguing mystery that obscures the truth until the end rather well, the narrative moves swiftly once the camp is the primary setting as it explores events, both past and present. The skilled writing builds and maintains an element of suspense while it offers some twists and turns that evoke a sense of the mystical when things seem to defy rational explanation. Camps are a familiar and relatable aspect of youth and the novel plays on that strength as it pieces together recalled memories of youth in adulthood, where hindsight and experience have the potential to alter recollection. Exploiting the limited perspective of Emma, the psychology of the story is compelling and demonstrates how the truth you think you know could be vastly different than reality.

I really loved how original and suspenseful Riley Sager's first novel, Final Girls, was. It was in my top 10 of 2016 for good reason. Well the impossible is possible, he's done it again! Riley Sager wrote a brilliant follow up novel that holds one's own phenominally. If you liked Final Girls, you will like this one too, and that's no lie!

When girls are disappearing without a trace, you can color me intrigued! Last Time I Lied was eerie, sinister and very very atmospheric thanks to the setting of Camp Nightingale. The summer camp mentioned in the novel is buried in the woods (think no cell phone reception!) with wooden cabins planted here and there and each cabin houses 3-4 summer guests. Lake Midnight, situated on the domain, was so ominous and dark, it felt like a character all on its own and I loved its own interesting and legendary past.

Sager expertly weaves two time periods with unmistakable similarities together. Before she knows it Emma is bunking with 3 young girls, Miranda, Krystal and Sasha and history seems to be repeating. Just like Vivian in the past, Miranda is also a leader type and the other two seem to parallel the girls from the past as well. There are 6 girls to keep track of apart from Emma but I didn't have any problem following sporty spice and the others. It was pretty obvious as well who was really important and who wasn't.

The author managed to keep the mystery going for a very long time without letting my attention wane for even a second. Last Time I Lied is a spooky story with suspects and red herrings aplenty. I was led astray numerous times and just when I thought I could reach my own conclusion, he had me tick off another name from my suspect list without a pardon. This happened multiple times and with every new suspect exonerated, I actually worried who would be the last one standing. I thought I knew better all the time and I actually knew nothing at all :-). I shouldn't have been so surprised that I was completely unprepared for the way it ended. I was hit so hard when I found out what happened to the girls. The denouement came with a pretty big bang and I hung onto every word!

Riley Sager definitely knows what he's doing and how it's done right. He knows how to write a novel that'll keep you on the edge of your seat!

I liked how the story was written but I loved the setting and the atmosphere. Last Time I Lied wasn't too scary but I still consider it as bordering the horror genre. It's so easy to imagine yourself at that summer camp yourself.

It seems like for me, most modern Thriller/Mystery book fall into two broad categories. Either the description totally sucks me in and then I'm disappointed in the book, or the synopsis doesn't really grab me but then I end up loving the book. The Last Time I Lied falls into the latter category. I was choosing a book from Book of the Month and hesitated to choose this one because, as a 48-year-old married man, I just doubted that I could really relate to the whole vibe of this one. Oh, boy, was I wrong and I'm so glad I hit that order button.

Like all the best mysteries, this one moves quickly but also takes its time setting up all the crucial elements. An unsolved mystery from the past, a survivor of that mystery, the survivor is drawn back into the world of said mystery only to have the mystery resurface in their life, necessitating the protagonist's struggle to figure things out and survive. First off, the characters are drawn sharply and resonated really well with me. There were times that I started to think "Why is this person..." then I caught myself and just trusted the author to lead me down the path and I was never disappointed. Everything ties up nicely and the twists are very satisfying, right up until the last pages. Even if you sort of think you know what's going on, at the very end you probably don't. It's like having a perfect meal and thinking it couldn't get any better, then getting served a dessert that doesn't make you too full, complements the meal and makes you happy it was the last thing you ate.

Others have outlined the plot so I won't go there, but as mentioned, everything is just well constructed and flows perfectly. I could easily see this being a miniseries or film. I don't think it would be better than the book though. Like a lot of books, this one allows you to really live inside the head of the main character and that's definitely important to the storytelling. The main character - Emma - is dealing with some emotional trauma and that heavily influences the way the story progresses. The author doesn't use that for cheap tricks or to cut corners with the storytelling. Instead, it actually is a driving force to the narrative that frames the whole mystery and storytelling style.

I was just really impressed with this one and will seek out Sager's other work in the future. Five stars, well earned.

For Emma, her experiences at Camp Nightingale did not turn out to be part of her youth that she would remember fondly as she got older. Memories of roasting marshmallows, singing around a campfire, and making lifelong friends were not to be. Instead, Emma's brief time there ended on the morning she awoke to find that her three roommates never returned from their nighttime excursion. Since that morning fifteen years ago, Emma has been haunted by not only their inexplicable disappearance and her resultant sorrow, but the role she may have played in it. Emma's return to her life following the tragedy at Camp Nightingale was not without complications. But she eventually forged a career from, in part, the tragedy. Upon every blank canvas she places three small figures wearing white dresses before hiding them under layers of paint depicting tangled vines and dark woods. Only she knows that Vivian, Natalie, and Allison are entombed there.

When Frannie announces that she is reopening Camp Nightingale and asks Emma to return as an instructor, Emma is hesitant to accept, telling Frannie, "I'm not sure I can go back there again. Not after what happened." But Frannie pushes her, suggesting that's "precisely why you should go back." Emma comes to see the invitation as an opportunity to reconcile the past by learning exactly what happened to her friends. She believes Frannie when she insists that she harbors no ill will toward Emma as a result of what happened -- and the consequences, including quickly and quietly settled lawsuits filed by the girls' grieving families. But Emma is no more prepared for the events she encounters at Camp Nightingale the second time than she was as a teenager.

Emma was younger than the other girls in her cabin because she arrived late and cabin assignments had already been made. Unlike the other campers, for whom Camp Nightingale was "the summer camp if you lived in Manhattan and had a bit of money," Emma did not come from a wealthy, privileged background. She and her friends called it "Camp Rich Bitch," but for just one summer her parents could afford to send her there. Natalie was the daughter of New York's top orthopedic surgeon and Vivian's mother was a celebrated Broadway actress. But it was Vivian who took Emma under her wing and was the leader in the group. The daughter of a senator, her older sister had drowned when, mistakenly believing the Central Park reservoir was frozen solid, she attempted to traverse it and fell through the broken ice. Emma looked up to and emulated the sophisticated Vivian, even as she found some of Vivian's behavior startling. Vivian explained: "Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it's the only way to win."

Incidents begin occurring that are, to Emma, suspicious, but are also susceptible of rationale explanation. Still, the discovery of the surveillance camera rattles her, especially when she learns that her hostess knows more about Emma's past than she let on. Emma is tenacious and committed to learning her friends' fate. But her quest for answers leads her on an increasingly dangerous foray into the past -- the secrets Vivian was keeping, the true extent of the fall-out from the girls' disappearance, and its impact upon not just Frannie and Emmy, but also upon Frannie's adopted sons, Theo and Chet.

Author Riley Sager pulls readers into a beautiful setting that is full of secrets, resentments, and danger. Camp Nightingale, an otherwise idyllic backdrop, is as much a character in The Last Time I Lied as any of the story's human inhabitants. Emma is a sympathetic character who has spent fifteen years trying to come to terms with an enormous tragedy and her perception of her role in it. Traumatized by the disappearance of her friends, Emma has suffered emotionally but, like a true artist, channeled her pain into her paintings. Emma is also, because of those factors, an inherently unreliable narrator. Now, however, she is ready to learn and face the truth. Did she have something to do with the girls' disappearance? What act did she commit that was so horrible she has maintained her secrecy in the ensuing years? Every other character in the book is also a suspect.

The Last Time I Lied is fast-paced and intriguing. Like the pieces of paper the girls drop as they hike into the woods, designed to provide a trail back the way they came, Sager drops clues to the mystery at deftly-timed intervals, making it impossible to stop reading. The dramatic tension mounts as does the danger in which Emma, and her young charges, find themselves, leading to a pulse-pounding final confrontation. And a jaw-dropping conclusion. The Last Time I Lied is designed to be an ideal summer read. At camp, perhaps?

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.

If you like campy horror movies and slasher films and haven't checked out Riley Sager's work yet ... what are you doing with your life?

Final Girls was one of my most fun reads of 2017, and I was so excited to hear that Sager's follow-up novel, The Last Time I Lied, would be in a similar vein, this time tackling all the summer camp horror movie tropes you never knew you needed in thriller novel form.

I loved our protagonist, Emma, and found myself so invested in her journey. She's such an intriguing main character, so thoroughly haunted by what happened in the past for reasons that aren't revealed until deep into the novel. Even though her coping mechanisms paint her as the tortured artist stuck in the past, she's a force to be reckoned with from page one. You can't help but root for her determination to face her demons and unveil the truth, even when subtlety is far from her specialty. I was also pleasantly surprised by the romantic plot line, which usually falls flat for me when it comes to thrillers. This time around, though, it wasn't in-your-face but still managed to keep me on the edge of my seat.

The strongest part of the novel is the eerie and isolated atmosphere of the woods surrounding Camp Nightingale. It's the perfect backdrop for a mystery that will give you goosebumps. Sager refuses to shy from slasher movie stereotypes and even depends on them to evoke the cinematic visuals that bring his story to life. Somehow all the trope-y details like campfire ghost stories and the creepy groundskeeper never feel too cliché; they only build the suspense and add to the already spine-tingling mood. I especially loved the reoccurring motif of the Two Truths and a Lie game, which takes on unexpected significance and brings together so many different aspects of the storyline. It's so easy to immerse yourself in the atmosphere and see it all unfolding right in front of you.

Sager is a master of the dual timeline. He nails it in Final Girls and goes above and beyond with The Last Time I Lied, too. Dual timelines are a favorite narrative device for me, but rarely does an author achieve such a cinematic presentation. Intrigue and suspense build simultaneously in the present and the past narratives, dropping hints that cross the border between the two. The threads crescendo in parallel, leading to a finale that's impossible to put down and far from the truth I expected.

My only minor complaint is that I found the campers in Emma's cabins (both past and present) to be rather cookie cutter, except for Vivian, but it didn't at all detract from the aspects I loved about the rest of the book. If atmospheric, creepy, and cinematic novels are up your alley, you don't want to miss out on The Last Time I Lied. I'm already eagerly awaiting Sager's next novel ... he's yet to disappoint!

Warm thanks to Riley Sager and Dutton for providing me with a digital copy in exchange for an honest review and to the Fantastic Flying Book Club for organizing the blog tour.

*I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

Last Time I Lied is every urban legend, every campfire ghost story, every slasher horror flick that ever made you lie awake listening to the bumps in the night and beg someone to accompany you to the toilet.

The plot is utterly compelling and the author led me round by the nose. I fell for every red herring and double feint he dangled. Riley Sager’s knowledge of human psychology is excellent!

The story is told mainly from the first-person viewpoint of Emma, an unreliable narrator. We are flipped back and forth between the present action and flashbacks of the events fifteen years prior. Sometimes this can get confusing, but in this book the author clearly captures a different atmosphere in each: the heady, hormonal drama of the shimmering summer past and the dark paranoia of the now.

Emma is a reserved and defensive character, and yet somehow still likeable and I was on her side even as I side-eyed her. I understood and sympathised with her struggles and wanted her not just successful but vindicated.

All of the characters, including Emma, are suspicious and unpredictable and I didn’t trust a single one of them; adding to the disturbing schizophrenic fear that pervades everything from setting to characters and plot.

Perfect for fans of psychological suspense thrillers, I suggest you allocate yourself a decent chunk of time for this one, because you’ll want to read it in one sitting!

Fifteen years. That’s how long it’s been. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday.
The camp closed early that summer, shutting down after only two weeks and throwing lots of families’ schedules into chaos. It couldn’t be helped. Not after what happened. My parents vacillated between sympathy and annoyance after they picked me up a day later than everyone else. Last to arrive, last to leave. I remember sitting in our Volvo, staring out the back window as the camp receded. Even at thirteen, I knew it would never reopen.

– Riley Sager, Last Time I Lied

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

Emma has been haunted for fifteen years by the events that happened at Camp Nightingale when she was thirteen. Her three cabinmates - Vivian, Natalie, and Allison - disappear one night and are never seen again. Emma suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized when she kept hallucinating seeing Vivian all over the place. She is still in therapy. She is an artist who is becoming known for her large paintings of deep, dark forests. Only she knows that she begins each painting with portraits of the three girls and then covers them all up with the forests.

When Franny Harris-White, the wealthy owner of the camp, asks Emma to come be the artist in residence at the camp's reopening, she is fearful but eager to try to finally learn what happened to the three girls.

Emma finds herself back in the same cabin with three new young girls. She gradually uncovered the secrets that Vivian was keeping and tells the reader the secrets that she has been keeping. Many of the people who were at the Camp the first time - Franny, her companion Lottie, her sons Theo and Chet - are there again and Emma is suspicious about all of their actions. She gets even more suspicious when she finds a camera aimed at her cabin, sees suspicious shadows outside the cabin, and finds the word Liar in red paint on the cabin door. These things combine with her own mental state since she is sure that she is catching glimpses of Vivian.

When the three girls who share Emma's cabin in the present go missing, it is like the whole nightmare scenario is happening again. But this time the police are really trying to pin the crime on Emma.

The story is told in the present and also fifteen years in the past. Each part adds one more piece to a complex and frightening puzzle. This book was a real page turner. It was hard to put down since each page added one more clue to a puzzle that had haunted Emma for years.

WOW! I loved The Final Girls and this book topped that one.

I don’t even think anything I write about this book will do it justice. Also I don’t want to say too much and spoil anything. But If you liked the Final Girls you need to read The Last Time I lied. If you have not read The Final Girls, what is wrong with you? LOL No seriously I highly recommend both of these books.

15 years ago Emma’s bunkmates from Camp Nightingale, Vivian, Allison and Natalie, snuck out of the cabin and were never seen again.

Emma is now a successful painter, is still haunted by the past, so when given a chance to return to Camp Nightingale as a counselor she takes it. She is determined to find out what happened to her friends 15 years ago. But something is not right at the camp. There is a camera pointed on her cabin, and as Emma sorts through the clues that Vivian left all those years ago she realizes she is not sure who she can trust.

I, along with Emma did not trust anyone in this book. I jumped around so much as to what I thought was going on and what happened and each and every time I was wrong. This book just sucked me in. Had my pulse racing and I couldn’t wait to get to the truth.

The book is so well written, the characters and setting jumped off the page and I felt like I was right there with them. I also thought the descriptions of Emma’s painting were great. All of her paintings had the 3 girls in them, yet they were hidden. Only Emma knew they were there.

The book is told from Emma’s POV both present time and also 15 years ago when she was at Camp.

An innocent, youthful game of Two Truths and a Lie morphs into something far more impactful in Riley Sager's The Last Time I Lied. 

While at Camp Nightingale for the summer on a last minute decision of her mother, first-time camper Emma joins three older repeat campers, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison, in their cabin. Taken under Vivian's wing, Emma learns to navigate the camp, become more adept at lying, and harbor secrets - her own and those of Vivian's. One night the three older girls mysteriously go missing after sneaking out of the cabin, forcing the camp to shut down. Throughout fifteen years Emma has coped with their disappearance through painting, creating a successful career for herself. When the camp's owner approaches her to be an instructor at the camp as it reopens, Emma reluctantly accepts - if only to try to solve the girls' disappearance. Haunted by her memories of the past as she unearths clues, Emma realizes that the camp has secrets of its own.

An intriguing mystery that obscures the truth until the end rather well, the narrative moves swiftly once the camp is the primary setting as it explores events, both past and present. The skilled writing builds and maintains an element of suspense while it offers some twists and turns that evoke a sense of the mystical when things seem to defy rational explanation. Camps are a familiar and relatable aspect of youth and the novel plays on that strength as it pieces together recalled memories of youth in adulthood, where hindsight and experience have the potential to alter recollection. Exploiting the limited perspective of Emma, the psychology of the story is compelling and demonstrates how the truth you think you know could be vastly different than reality.

I really enjoy Riley Sager's storytelling - which is good, because there were definitely times that this book felt pretty close to his last and if I didn't enjoy the way he handles the "anguished teenager into angst-ridden adult" thing I would have probably put this one down within a chapter or two.

There are a lot of similarities between this and Final Girls. "Traumatized girls trying to thrive (survive?) as adults" seems like a fairly narrow descriptor for a new genre, but Sager seems to be singlehandedly trying to develop it - and succeeding. Honestly, I was surprised at how I fell right into suspended disbelief - AGAIN - as he built a world predicated on two truths and a lie with the same careless precision he used to build one based on graphic novels. There's a subtle skill on exhibit here, masking itself with pop culture references and thriller-tropes, and I find it un-put-down-able...

Once again I didn't see where a lot of things were going until I suddenly found myself in the midst of them. And even when I did (or at least suspected I did), I was still thoroughly sucked-in and engaged throughout. Sager has a knack for writing believable broken girls who don't realize they have a hidden core of titanium until they need it the most. Their realization of that strength is always presented in a casually thrown-about way that I suspect requires a lot of manipulation and skill to pull off, precisely because it feels so casual yet is always so resonantly real.

I say sign me up for anything he writes - if he wants his own genre, give him one. He's earning it...

My review copy was provided by the Penguin First to Read program.

Riley Sager somehow surpasses the amazing hype surrounding his first novel, Final Girls, with an absolutely compulsively-good psychological thriller full or secrets, lies, and shocking truths that you won’t be able to put down!

I have to say, I have read some outstanding books already in 2018, but this is by far the best psychological thriller for me this year! I was captivated by this book! I have a list of quotes and notes several pages long that I pulled while reading. Since I reached the shocking ending (seriously! What an ending!!!), I have been going back to those quotes and notes and finding even more clues and meaning in them. We read this as a Traveling Sister read, and the discussion has been so engaging and wonderful. We each are finding clues that give us a new theory about aspects of the book. I wish I could share, but you should go in and experience this one as it is written! You will find your own path through the mysterious web of truth and lies, and I think this one will keep you guessing!

About the Book

Emma Davis was 13 years old when she first attended Camp Nightingale—a summer sleepaway camp for the upper-class girls of the northeastern states. Emma is late—her mother didn’t mention that she would be away all summer until the first day of camp—and so she is placed into a tiny cabin with popular senior campers Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. Emma immediately bonds with the beautiful, enigmatic Vivian. Vivian feels like the older sister Emma always wanted. The girls quickly engage Emma in their favorite game, two truths and a lie. The point of the game is to trick others into believing your lie. And then one night, Emma watches the girls sneak out of the cabin. By the next morning, they’ve disappeared for good, and Emma is left wondering if she could have stopped them.

Two truths…

At 28, Emma is a successful painter with a gallery full of her Forest series—paintings inspired by the forest at Camp Nightingale and her lingering questions around that summer. Not a day goes by that Emma doesn’t think about the three missing girls, particularly Vivian. And then Franny, the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, approaches Emma with an offer—return to Camp Nightingale’s grand re-opening. Emma thinks this may be her opportunity to finally process what happened to her friends and move on for good. But all is not as it seems once she arrives at Camp Nightingale.

And a lie…

But Emma has secrets she has never revealed to anyone. About that summer. About the girls. Emma may know more about what happened than she admits. Though Emma tries to live a life of truths, she can’t seem to escape her lies that summer. And it seems that someone out there knows what Emma lied about, and is trying to make Emma pay. Can Emma find the truth before her lies catch up to her?

Reflection

I cannot put into words how wonderful this book is! It has layers upon layers of secrets, lies, and mystery that I continue to peel back, even after finishing. Small moments that seemed innocuous at first reading take on so much meaning as I discovered more about the events at Camp Nightingale. The characters are all slightly unsettling in a good way. You’re never totally sure that anyone is telling the full truth. But as Vivian says, lying is how you win the game.

One of my absolute favorite things about this book was the mysterious setting of Camp Nightingale. Sager uses the setting as a character in and of itself. He says at one point, “Like most old structures, there's a heaviness to the Lodge, a somberness. I think of all the years it's witnessed. All those seasons and storms and secrets...” The description of a place as having a memory; of knowing all of the secrets, and it creating a personality to the building that may not exist if things had been different. Emma reflects at one point that she was getting reacquainted with the lake, only to then state that actually, it felt like the lake was getting reacquainted with her. And then at other times several characters mention the forest as inviting them in, and the pull it has for those at the camp. The setting of the book completely came alive through Sager’s wonderful writing. It became a force within the story that held the clues to the mystery, if only Emma could be brave enough to ask.

And finally, THAT ENDING! I can’t say much more because I refuse to spoil even a second of this wonderful ending, but boy-oh-boy was I paging back and forward, processing what I just read. I can’t wait for readers to discover this book for themselves! The entire book is a masterpiece, and one I already am planning to read again. And like all of the best books, I already know that each time I read it, I’ll get a bit more out of it.

Thank you so much to Dutton, Penguin Books, and Riley Sager for a copy of this book to review.

3.5 stars. A variation on the "character returns to hometown to face ghosts and mysteries of the past" stories that pop up a lot. This was set in a familiar girls' summer camp instead of a hometown, which really is a fun twist. It changes the dynamic quite a bit, even though the formula is the same: old crime, probable cover-up, lots of creepy suspects, one plucky heroine, lurking danger, etc.

There is something kind of fun and, pardon the pun, campy about the summer camp setting. I liked it so much I kept reading through some big drawbacks --mostly, secrets getting teased every single chapter (which gets old and invariably leads up to a big let down) and several characters behaving irrationally. Even Em's guilty obsession with the case --the crux of the book -- was a head scratcher. She devotes her entire life in homage to some older, mean girls she met for part of one summer? And she's not really so much "plucky" as "super dumb," so that is a problem for the reader too unless you like shouting things like "why on earth are you doing that?" But the suspects aren't acting more rationally than she is; they may even be worse.

Overall, if you know to look past all that --which includes ignoring the title completely; it's bad for this -- it's a fast read and a pretty fun one. I see other reviewers far prefer Final Girls, which I haven't yet read. Off topic, I did see an unrelated movie of the same name, which I recommend! It was kind of clever and sweet for horror And it was set in a camp too, so yay!

Riley Sager has done it again!! Thrilling from beginning to end. This one kept me guessing until the final pages!

When Emma Davis first went to Camp Nightingale she was late; her parents doing. Subsequently, she got stuck in a cabin with girls much older than herself. Luckily, the pretty and popluar bunkmate, Vivian, quickly took Emma under her wing and she began to have a camp experience unlike anything the other girls her age were experiencing. Unfortunately, one night, on the 4th of July, her three cabinmates disappear, never to be seen again. That night continues to haunt Emma, even fifteen years later when we meet her. Now a successful painter living in NYC she continues to meld the haunting images of her camp experience into her work. Invited back to Camp Nightingale by the wealthy owner, Franny Harris-White, to be an art instructor, Emma begrudgingly accepts, thinking she can finally figure out what happened to her friends.

Once Emma returns to Camp she is reunited with many individuals who were also there her first time round; including the handsome Theo Harris-White, Emma's crush from THAT summer. This story is darkly atmospheric and filled with mystery and dread. For me, Sager's writing is so cinematic - as I am reading, the entire drama is unfolding in mind with the perfect clarity of a movie - I felt the same way with Final Girls. His descriptions and feelings are so easy to follow and imagine and are definitely one of my favorite things about his writing.

As the story unfolds there are multiple occasions where you think you know what happened all those years ago but those thoughts are quickly dashed away by new information becoming available. The cast of characters was fantastic and past and present unfolded with such ease and excitement that it made this novel very fast-paced! I have absolutely nothing negative to say about this book - I loved it - would read it again and would recommend to any thriller or horror reader. I cannot wait to see what Sager come up with next!

There’s something really creepy about summer camps – maybe it;s the films I’ve seen and the novels I’ve read up to now, but this one really got me. Blimey! I’ve been to a few myself which is what really brought it home. Only one in the USA but probably just as well I didn’t go to the Ariondacks…

I enjoyed the first Riley Sager but this was something else. Is Emma telling the truth of what happened? What would you feel like if you found out your room mates missing? The empty dull slam of the wooden cabin doors and the claustrophobic forest rustle – there were some deliciously chilling details throughout which make me shudder.

Someone returning to the scene of the crime so to speak years later brings back all kinds of emotions in both the characters and reader and this was very well done. There’s a lot of character depth – as deep as that dark Lake in the middle of Camp Nightingale. What will you find at the murky depths? Brrrr

There’s a lot to love about this thriller. This book is like a forest with those twisty vines that trip you up at every turn, noises to make you jump and pages which rustle as loud as those trees. Then there’s that lake. That camp. Those lies.

There’s now a new meaning to the phrase Cabin fever!

This was an amazing read! I had seen people posting rave reviews about this book in several places, so when I saw this book come up with the option to read it, I knew I had to have it! This book was a wonderful thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and needing to know what happened and why. Around every corner there was either a closed door or another turn, never letting you get the whole story until the end.

Here's how it begins: Emma is 13 years old with a barely functioning alcoholic mother and an inattentive father. One summer she is sent off to summer camp and due to no one telling her, she arrives late. She is the last one added into a cabin with older girls. When the leader of their pack, Vivian, begins hiding secrets and sneaking around, Emma wants to join in but is kept out of the loop until one night when all three girls go missing.

Here's how it continues: Emma is now 28 and a good artist with her first gallery showing. For fifteen years she has been making "the girls" (as she calls them) disappear over and over. She draws ghostly figures in white dresses and then slathers on layers of textured paint - trees and forests to hide them in. At her showing, she sees Franny Harris-White who's come with a proposition for Emma.

Come back to summer camp for one more summer and spend the summer as an art teacher to young girls, staying in the same cabin where it all went wrong 15 years before. After all, disaster couldn't possibly happen twice, could it?

Artist Emma Davis has spent the last 15 years haunted by the disappearance of 3 of her cabin mates while they were at summer camp. Exhaustive searches revealed no hint of what happened to the teenagers. Now at age 28, she's been invited back to Camp Nightingale as an instructor. She decides to accept the offer in hopes that she can undo some of the damage she did back then -- because there were several things she lied about at the time. This time she's determined to find out what happened to Vivian, Natalie and Allison. Once back at the camp ensconced in the same cabin where she'd stayed when she was 13, Emma finds that she is still under a cloud of suspicion -- that's why there is a motion sensor camera trained right on the door to Dogwood. Emma knows that she really didn't have anything to do with whatever happened to those girls...

Told in past/present narrative style through Emma's voice at 13 and at 28, the events are slowly revealed which made me very impatient to get to the denouement and conclusion. Emma is a character that I never identified with and she is constantly scrutinizing all the secondary characters for hints of guilt or involvement. She suffers from hallucinations and paranoia while also acknowledging that she has never told the truth about certain things surrounding the relationship she had with the 3 girls who vanished. The family that owns the camp also comes under suspicion. And then there's the fact that the man made lake on the property actually might be concealing a secret. Lots of teen angst and drama and a mystery that drug on a bit too long. I had a bit of a problem with the ending and definitely issues with Emma.

This is the second book I've read by this author, and this had some similarities to the first in writing style and tone. I'm not a fan of the past-present structure, but I do prefer reading an adult perspective rather than that of teenager voice. The book didn't have that "can't put it down" vibe for me, but I admit that it can be difficult for a story to keep me fully engaged at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for this e-book ARC to read and review.

I have a thing for mysteries peppered with campy horror movie feels. Which means I absolutely loved Final Girls by Riley Sager, so when I heard his second book was coming out, I couldn't wait to read it. Emma, the main character in The Last Time I Lied, is a bit of an It Girl in the art world. But behind each piece she paints is a dark secret she's been trying to simultaneously decode and cover up for the past fifteen years. The secret happens to involve a teenage Emma being the last person to see her three bunkmates at summer camp alive before poof, they disappeared. Their bodies have never been found and now, the camp is about to reopen.

Emma's been invited to teach art at the said summer camp of horror and because she's looking for closure, she agrees. The Last Time I Lied is deliciously creepy and the s-l-o-w build kept me guessing. I truly didn't see the end coming. It was complex, much like what I'd imagine a very modern Agatha Christy novel might be. Not bad for a sophomore effort. I'll gladly pick up the next novel by Mr. Sager.

I started reading this book yesterday morning and finished it around midnight. This was in between taking care of 4 kids and entertaining them. If that doesn't scream "couldn't put it down", I don't know what will. This thing was 384 pages of plot trickery, pulling me in time and time again, demanding me to make assumption after assumption about what happened all the while being wrong each and every time. I didn't see the twists coming, which made for a very exciting read. There were numerous points in the story where I was pretty sure everything was figured out, that was it and the end was coming (I tend to turn off my kindle percentage and page numbers so things are a little more unpredictable and fun to guess at as I'm reading).

     The book takes place in the present, but also flashbacks to 15 years prior which helped to make the characters three-dimensional. The alternating timelines were extremely easy to follow and each flashback gave a little more insight than the one before it. It was a fantastic read, and I definitely recommend this book to lovers of suspense and mystery.

I really liked Riley Sager's first novel and this follow up was just as good for me (maybe even a smidge better ...). I admire Sager's ability to create a sinister mood that gives the reader a strong sense of unease while also making the reader never want to put the book down! Although my own camp experiences were very different than the one described in the book (I was much older when I went to camp), I found the entire camping aspect of the story to be so well done! The setting that Sager created was fantastic and really give the book a sense of realness. This book is an excellent example of a psychological thriller - it kept me on my toes, made me think, kept me guessing and made me think. All the things I love in a good thriller! Overall, I found this to be a really satisfying thriller. It may be one of the best thrillers that I've read so far this year. Highly recommended!

Riley Sager’s latest suspense The Last Time I Lied takes readers on a roller coaster rider of twists and secrets. Artist Emma Davis has a chance to return to Camp Nightingale, where she was a camper 15 years earlier, as an art instructor. Emma has never been able to get over the disappearance of her 3 fellow bunkmates, who were never found. Their disappearance haunts Emma and she returns to the camp hoping to confront her past and discover what actually happened to the girls.

I loved the whole summer camp aspect of this, which Sager pulled off brilliantly. Unlike many books where too many characters can lead to confusion on the part of the reader, all the characters at the camp are well-developed and invoke much suspicion, leading the reader guessing as to the outcome. In fact, we don’t learn of all the secrets until the very last page. This was very satisfying to because I often have the mystery figured out early on in these types of books.

This is a wonderful suspenseful book, that will keep you at the edge of your seat from beginning to the end. Emma Davis went to Camp Nightingale fifteen years ago, she was in a cabin with three older girls that went missing, and were never found. Emma never really got over it, but she is an artist, that keeps painting the three girls faces behind the wooded area, where she believes they disappeared. During the police investigation, she accuses the oldest son of the owner of the camp, of causing the disappearance of the girls. The camp owner now wants to re-open the camp, and asks Emma to be the art teacher there, though hesitant at first, she feels that she needs to be there, to possibly solve the mystery of the missing girls. This book takes many twists and turns, which is wonderful, and thrilling. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

And done! Whoa! ???
The Last Time I Lied had so many twists and turns I never did figure it out. Every time I thought I was on the right track something else would happen to throw me off track. So well written!!!! What a story! I really enjoyed this novel. It first it seemed awfully long book but there was so much woven in to the story it all needed to be there. I’m impressed! .
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Emma returns to her childhood camp 15 years after tragedy struck there. Vivian, Natalie and Allison walked out of their cabin, at Camp Nightingale, one night and vanished. When the owner of the camp tracks down Emma and invites her back to the camp that is reopening all these years later, she is determined to find out what really happened to the girls and gain some closure for herself. Not everyone wants Emma asking questions and digging in to the past.

Sager was cleverer than you expect but with a few plot holes that will leave you with (the bad kind of) questions.

I loved Sager's Final Girls and I loved this book. The story was easy to read and the writing didn't wow me, but it didnt bother me either.
Sager loved to push this 'whodunit' book in multiple directions. My neck hurt from all the whip lash of who to expect next. This was great because it kept me guessing and on the edge of the seat. It was also bad because when she pointed the finger at some people and it turns out it wasnt them, we are left with some questions of what is the reason we shouldn't suspect them then? The only reason some of the accused turned out to be innocent is because someone else confessed. These plot holes annoyed me, but do not take away how good the book is overall.

This is a slow burn sort of thriller that carefully unravels pieces of the puzzle bit by bit. Emma is an unreliable narrator that everyone tends to have suppositions about and not good ones.

I will admit that the majority of the novel was a 4 star read for me. I found it to be a little too predictable until I reached the very end.

I totally did not see that plot twist coming! Now I’m hoping a sequel will be written! That was my main reason for upgrading it to 5 stars.

This book may be slow-paced and have some predictability, but it still contains some pretty good surprises within. This is my first book by Riley Sager but it certainly won’t be the last!

Special thanks to the publisher and the author for approving my request to read this book through NetGalley!

Emma is a twenty-eight year-old artist who paints three teenage girls hiding behind layers of paint on every one of her paintings. That's because 15 years ago, while Emma was a camper at Camp Nightingale, she woke up one morning to find her three bunkmates - Vivian, Natalie, and Alison - missing. They never came back, their bodies were never found, the camp closed down, and Emma still sees the girls in her dreams. Now, owner Francesca Harris-White reopens Camp Nightingale to try to regain credibility and give it a new start - including hiring Emma as the art teacher. Is Emma ready to return to Camp Nightingale? To stay in the same cabin she stayed in fifteen years ago with three young campers? To face the demons that haunt her? To find out that...OH MY GOSH, ARE YOU SERIOUS?
Riley Sager has written a suspenseful story of summer camp and the nasty teenagers who attend - girls who play "Two Truths and a Lie" not as a game, but as a way to get leverage on each other. The Last Time I Lied is a rollercoaster thrill ride of a book - now let's make s'mores!

Artist Emma Davis has spent the last 15 years haunted by the disappearance of 3 of her cabin mates while they were at summer camp. Exhaustive searches revealed no hint of what happened to the teenagers. Now at age 28, she's been invited back to Camp Nightingale as an instructor. She decides to accept the offer in hopes that she can undo some of the damage she did back then -- because there were several things she lied about at the time. This time she's determined to find out what happened to Vivian, Natalie and Allison. Once back at the camp ensconced in the same cabin where she'd stayed when she was 13, Emma finds that she is still under a cloud of suspicion -- that's why there is a motion sensor camera trained right on the door to Dogwood. Emma knows that she really didn't have anything to do with whatever happened to those girls...

Told in past/present narrative style through Emma's voice at 13 and at 28, the events are slowly revealed which made me very impatient to get to the denouement and conclusion. Emma is a character that I never identified with and she is constantly scrutinizing all the secondary characters for hints of guilt or involvement. She suffers from hallucinations and paranoia while also acknowledging that she has never told the truth about certain things surrounding the relationship she had with the 3 girls who vanished. The family that owns the camp also comes under suspicion. And then there's the fact that the man made lake on the property actually might be concealing a secret. Lots of teen angst and drama and a mystery that drug on a bit too long. I had a bit of a problem with the ending and definitely issues with Emma.

This is the second book I've read by this author, and this had some similarities to the first in writing style and tone. I'm not a fan of the past-present structure, but I do prefer reading an adult perspective rather than that of teenager voice. The book didn't have that "can't put it down" vibe for me, but I admit that it can be difficult for a story to keep me fully engaged at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for this e-book ARC to read and review.

I have a thing for mysteries peppered with campy horror movie feels. Which means I absolutely loved Final Girls by Riley Sager, so when I heard his second book was coming out, I couldn't wait to read it. Emma, the main character in The Last Time I Lied, is a bit of an It Girl in the art world. But behind each piece she paints is a dark secret she's been trying to simultaneously decode and cover up for the past fifteen years. The secret happens to involve a teenage Emma being the last person to see her three bunkmates at summer camp alive before poof, they disappeared. Their bodies have never been found and now, the camp is about to reopen.

Emma's been invited to teach art at the said summer camp of horror and because she's looking for closure, she agrees. The Last Time I Lied is deliciously creepy and the s-l-o-w build kept me guessing. I truly didn't see the end coming. It was complex, much like what I'd imagine a very modern Agatha Christy novel might be. Not bad for a sophomore effort. I'll gladly pick up the next novel by Mr. Sager.

I started reading this book yesterday morning and finished it around midnight. This was in between taking care of 4 kids and entertaining them. If that doesn't scream "couldn't put it down", I don't know what will. This thing was 384 pages of plot trickery, pulling me in time and time again, demanding me to make assumption after assumption about what happened all the while being wrong each and every time. I didn't see the twists coming, which made for a very exciting read. There were numerous points in the story where I was pretty sure everything was figured out, that was it and the end was coming (I tend to turn off my kindle percentage and page numbers so things are a little more unpredictable and fun to guess at as I'm reading).

     The book takes place in the present, but also flashbacks to 15 years prior which helped to make the characters three-dimensional. The alternating timelines were extremely easy to follow and each flashback gave a little more insight than the one before it. It was a fantastic read, and I definitely recommend this book to lovers of suspense and mystery.

I purchased this book in my @bookofthemonth box. All opinions are my own. ???? The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager. I started this book as a #buddyread with my bestie @mycornerforbooksand. About 4 chapters in we were ready to put it down. Building the story the book takes off kind of slowly but I promise after Chapter 15 you will not want to set it back down. The suspicion builds and the suspect list keeps growing with every twist in the story until you are questioning yourself about who you believe is or isn't innocent. Everyone in this story appears guilty at one point or another. The final twist in the story leaves you reeling and the landscapes are beautifully described. Emma goes back to Camp Nightingale a summer camp she visited fifteen years prior where her cabin mates go missing and she sets her sights on finding them only everything she thinks she knows unravels quickly, leaving her feeling like she is coming undone too.

I really liked Riley Sager's first novel and this follow up was just as good for me (maybe even a smidge better ...). I admire Sager's ability to create a sinister mood that gives the reader a strong sense of unease while also making the reader never want to put the book down! Although my own camp experiences were very different than the one described in the book (I was much older when I went to camp), I found the entire camping aspect of the story to be so well done! The setting that Sager created was fantastic and really give the book a sense of realness. This book is an excellent example of a psychological thriller - it kept me on my toes, made me think, kept me guessing and made me think. All the things I love in a good thriller! Overall, I found this to be a really satisfying thriller. It may be one of the best thrillers that I've read so far this year. Highly recommended!

Riley Sager’s latest suspense The Last Time I Lied takes readers on a roller coaster rider of twists and secrets. Artist Emma Davis has a chance to return to Camp Nightingale, where she was a camper 15 years earlier, as an art instructor. Emma has never been able to get over the disappearance of her 3 fellow bunkmates, who were never found. Their disappearance haunts Emma and she returns to the camp hoping to confront her past and discover what actually happened to the girls.

I loved the whole summer camp aspect of this, which Sager pulled off brilliantly. Unlike many books where too many characters can lead to confusion on the part of the reader, all the characters at the camp are well-developed and invoke much suspicion, leading the reader guessing as to the outcome. In fact, we don’t learn of all the secrets until the very last page. This was very satisfying to because I often have the mystery figured out early on in these types of books.

This is a wonderful suspenseful book, that will keep you at the edge of your seat from beginning to the end. Emma Davis went to Camp Nightingale fifteen years ago, she was in a cabin with three older girls that went missing, and were never found. Emma never really got over it, but she is an artist, that keeps painting the three girls faces behind the wooded area, where she believes they disappeared. During the police investigation, she accuses the oldest son of the owner of the camp, of causing the disappearance of the girls. The camp owner now wants to re-open the camp, and asks Emma to be the art teacher there, though hesitant at first, she feels that she needs to be there, to possibly solve the mystery of the missing girls. This book takes many twists and turns, which is wonderful, and thrilling. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

And done! Whoa! ???
The Last Time I Lied had so many twists and turns I never did figure it out. Every time I thought I was on the right track something else would happen to throw me off track. So well written!!!! What a story! I really enjoyed this novel. It first it seemed awfully long book but there was so much woven in to the story it all needed to be there. I’m impressed! .
.
Emma returns to her childhood camp 15 years after tragedy struck there. Vivian, Natalie and Allison walked out of their cabin, at Camp Nightingale, one night and vanished. When the owner of the camp tracks down Emma and invites her back to the camp that is reopening all these years later, she is determined to find out what really happened to the girls and gain some closure for herself. Not everyone wants Emma asking questions and digging in to the past.

Sager was cleverer than you expect but with a few plot holes that will leave you with (the bad kind of) questions.

I loved Sager's Final Girls and I loved this book. The story was easy to read and the writing didn't wow me, but it didnt bother me either.
Sager loved to push this 'whodunit' book in multiple directions. My neck hurt from all the whip lash of who to expect next. This was great because it kept me guessing and on the edge of the seat. It was also bad because when she pointed the finger at some people and it turns out it wasnt them, we are left with some questions of what is the reason we shouldn't suspect them then? The only reason some of the accused turned out to be innocent is because someone else confessed. These plot holes annoyed me, but do not take away how good the book is overall.

This is a slow burn sort of thriller that carefully unravels pieces of the puzzle bit by bit. Emma is an unreliable narrator that everyone tends to have suppositions about and not good ones.

I will admit that the majority of the novel was a 4 star read for me. I found it to be a little too predictable until I reached the very end.

I totally did not see that plot twist coming! Now I’m hoping a sequel will be written! That was my main reason for upgrading it to 5 stars.

This book may be slow-paced and have some predictability, but it still contains some pretty good surprises within. This is my first book by Riley Sager but it certainly won’t be the last!

Special thanks to the publisher and the author for approving my request to read this book through NetGalley!

Thank you to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a contender in the most recent releases of psychological thriller books! A story starting out with a murder yet, once you meet the characters you cannot imagine how it possibly got to that point.
A young couple in love, on their honeymoon, find a surprise out in the ocean. From there decisions must be made, find out how a wrong or right decision can leave you running for your life.

Excellent mystery thriller of a story! I enjoyed the build up of this book and couldn't get to the end fast enough. Not a complete 5 star as the end seemed to conclude a bit abruptly, yet I'm glad it wasn't dragged out. A good re-read for sure.

A fun fast read for the beach!