WHAT. If you enjoy a thriller with a twisted ending (or two!), you’ll love THE ONLY ONE LEFT. Did I guess part of the big reveal very early on? Yes. Did it spoil my enjoyment of the book? Absolutely not!
This fast-paced story is told through multiple perspectives. Kit is a caregiver who only recently had her license reinstated. She lives with her father and their relationship is frosty following the death of her mother. She is assigned to care for Lenora Hope, a wealthy recluse notorious for being the only suspect in the deaths of her family decades earlier.
Lenora is now bed-ridden and unable to speak. She does, however, implore Kit to help her tell her side of the story regarding her family. We then read Lenora’s perspective of the months leading up to the tragic deaths of her mother, father and sister in the late 1920’s.
The present day is set in the 1980’s and Hope’s End, the family mansion set high above the Atlantic Ocean in Maine, gave off lots of creepy vibes. There are many mysteries in this story and Mr. Sager certainly knows how to throw the reader way off!
I really enjoyed the two unreliable narrators as well as the large cast of secondary characters. The Only One Left is a fast-paced and engrossing mystery that will most definitely surprise you until the very last word.
Although the ending was a little over the top, I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed this very engaging thriller.
(𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘷𝘪𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.)
About the Book:
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
