I preface this blog, knowing that Riley Sager fans probably already read his latest and have their opinions, so if you are one of them consider this more of a look to the future and a return to what, in my opinion, made him a best-selling author. (And it’s coming in 2026).
Riley Sager’s latest, With a Vengeance, is a title in my humble opinion, every writer deserves the right to write once they’ve reached the top of Mount Career Author – a little ‘you’ve earned this’ from their publishing house after they’ve made it clear their ROI is high, and Riley has with such calling card titles as Home Before Dark, The House Across the Lake, Lock Every Door, Final Girls, and The Only One Left.
During a pre-release chat at Union Square’s Barnes and Noble, Mr. Sager made it clear this was his stab at a ‘whodunit’ Agatha Christie-esque entanglement on a train. With a Vengeance was not a thriller mystery with supernatural elements readers grew to love in the previous titles mentioned.
With a Vengeance fell flat, hindered by one dimensional characters, coincidences that seemed too good to be true, a protagonist who set up a way to elaborate a scheme where everything had to go right (and her pockets had to be deep). Even with suspension of belief, the originality of intent wavered mightily throughout, and honestly, but in the end the red flags were just too much to overlook.
When he will return to those intriguing bump-in-the-night mysteries he’s built a following off of. The answer is known. The Unknown is slated for August 2026.
A century ago, five vanished from a Vermont island, leaving behind only five dresses and a supernatural mystery.
A century later, a struggling actress lands a role in a movie about the disappearance, her research trip to the island turns terrifying as strange occurrences and a sudden health emergency leave her and the cast stranded. A new wave of disappearances begins, and the race is on to decipher a century-old diary to prevent the island’s dark history from claiming them all.
I’m ready for it, and I think (at least for me) this will put the sour taste of With a Vengeance out of my mouth.
I strongly encourage these novels by Riley Sager though: Home Before Dark, The House Across the Lake, Lock Every Door, Final Girls, and The Only One Left.
They all show his consistent truth as a writer – telling stories built around traumatized and unreliable narrators who must face a dark event or place that resurfaces from their past, forcing them to question the realism of their memories and perceptions of the world. We aren’t just trying to figure out who the real antagonist is but also grasping with the illusion of whether the person telling the story is even telling the truth.
Each one of these is an addicting ride.
Which novel will you be checking out? Comment below.
Riley Sager’s name and cover images are linked to his author page on the BCCLS catalog to make it easy for you to reserve his titles.
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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 