Tag Archives: Riley Sager

Riley Sager’s Next Stop after With a Vengeance

3 Feb Book cover for “With a Vengeance” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark night scene with a train crossing a tall stone bridge under a cloudy sky lit with red tones; the author’s name appears in large turquoise text.

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. 

Book cover for “Final Girls” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark forest background with a lone woman in a blue dress standing beneath red title text.
Book cover for “Lock Every Door” by Riley Sager, showing a purple-lit apartment hallway with multiple doors and bold pink title text.
Book cover for “The House Across the Lake” by Riley Sager, depicting a brightly lit house reflected in dark lake water at night, with handwritten-style yellow title text.
Book cover for “The Only One Left” by Riley Sager, showing a large, ominous house perched on a rocky cliff against a red sky, with bold blue title text.
Book cover for “Home Before Dark” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark green haunted house silhouette surrounded by glowing lights against a shadowy background.

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

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Everything You Want in a Thriller: Lock Every Door

1 Apr

Lock Every Door

Riley Sager’s newest thriller, Lock Every Door introduces us to Jules Larsen, who has just received the mother load of second chances after being hired as an apartment sitter for the prestigious Bartholomew. There she befriends Ingrid, a fellow apartment sitter, who warns her that the building is not what it seems and disappears only a few days later.

This is everything you can want in a thriller, excellent writing, an engaging protagonist, and a mystery that keeps you guessing at every step of the way. Sager’s storytelling skills shine in this novel and the reader will find themselves plunged into the danger that Jules experiences throughout the book.

The flaws of this book exist, but are few and far between. We find out the identity of the antagonists far too early and the change in personality does come off as a bit cartoony after we learn the truth of what’s going on. The twist in the story is also something some readers will love but others maybe disappointed with. All in all, this is a great one to scratch that thriller itch and one I would highly recommend.  It is available as an ebook from eLibraryNJ and ebook and digital audiobook from eBCCLS.

Written by:
Lauren Lapinski
Circulation Assistant

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