4.5 Stars

At 28 years old, Emma Davis is an artist plagued by mysterious circumstances that occurred 15 years ago while staying at Camp Nightingale. Trying to move forward, Emma finds solace in her paintings, but when she receives an invitation to return to the camp site, she decides to confront her fears and get answers.

“You are either very brave or very foolish, Emma. I can’t decide which one it is.”

Returning to the site, Emma settles into her cabin with a new group of campers. Though many of the old staff have returned, the atmosphere remains tense as many remember the tragedy from years ago. Determined to get the truth, Emma relies on memories and new information which leads to complications.

“What I don’t understand is why, after all this time, what happened at that camp still haunts you so much.”

Told from Emma’s perspective, the shifts between past and present set a mysterious tone where so many questions arise and the tension steadily increases. Not knowing who to trust, everyone is a suspect until it’s all revealed in a crescendo.

Emma is an interesting character as her doubts and regrets are relatable. This makes her vulnerable yet she is strong enough to confront her longstanding fears. With a cast of secondary characters, they all contribute to Emma’s obsession and cast doubt as to whether she needs help. These uncertainties further fuel the plot landscape.

Riley Sager is a new author to me and I liked his analytical approach to writing along with his ability to capture the essence of the camp location and characters.

The Last Time I Lied is a novel with thrilling elements and an ominous atmosphere. This book would appeal to those who like to follow clues to formulate their own theories and enjoy a thoroughly entertaining mystery.

This was a great psychological thriller, full of suspense and surprises at every corner. Sager does a great job of slowly building up the tension as you read, and you become more and more invested in the book. This is a fast paced book with great detail and rich settings. I absolutely loved the description of the summer camp and especially the flashback scenes to the prior camp.

There were a few things I wasn't too keen on, however. The relationship between the MC and the young girls in the cabin during the present time frame was somewhat odd to me. Emma seemed to speak and behave more like a teenager than an adult most of the time, and I found it odd that she would have been left "in charge" of a group of young girls when her behavior was so seemingly irresponsible and borderline inappropriate.

In general, this book was a fun thriller, and I enjoyed the suspense and the alternating time frame. However, I do think the characters could have been more well developed. Most of them fell a little flat for me. Overall, the plot was great but the character development was lacking.

I had no idea where the story was going and then everything I thought I’d guessed went out the door! Very thrilling read.

If you are looking for a great physical thriller I highly recommend!!

Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Review:
WHAT JUST HAPPENED??? I could NOT put this one down. I was sucked in from the beginning to the end. “Let’s play two truth’s and a lie”! We go on a quest with Emma, who 15 years later is still haunted by the disappearance of three girls she attended camp with. Emma knows something is not quite right and is apprehensive to accept the offer to return to Camp Nightingale but quickly realizes she needs closure. She needs to make peace with the past. While Emma is there she gets the answers to her questions but not without consequence.

For lovers of true suspenseful reads, pick this book up! You will not be let down. There is something that keeps your attention until the very last page!

Riley Sager's latest is a tight, imaginative thriller that's both perfect for fans of Final Girls and those who are new to Sager's world. The plot is page-turning and kept me up in the one night it took to devour this whole book cover to cover.

WOW! I really enjoyed Riley Sager's first book Final Girls but this one was AMAZING!

I went into this book with super high expectations because what is better than a thriller set at a summer camp and oh man, I was not disappointed.

Emma was a camper at Camp Nightingale when she was younger, but the year that she was a camper something went terribly wrong that summer and the camp was closed for good. Three campers, Emma's cabin mates went missing in the middle of the night never to be found again. Year later, Emma is still haunted by the memory of her three missing cabin mates when she is approached by the owner of the camp approaches Emma about coming back and opening up the camp one more time.

Emma is skeptical but accepts the invitation and decides to venture back to Camp Nightingale for one last summer. Will history repeat itself or will it be a relaxing summer for all those involved? This book is a fast paced, page turning thriller. The ending was so unpredictable and unputdownable. If you were a fan of Riley Sager's first book you definitely need to pick this one up and put it at the top of your to be read pile. I can not say enough good things about this book. This is a great summer thriller beach read that I think any thriller/suspense fan will love! To say I loved this book would be a complete understatement.

I really wanted to love this one because I inhaled Final Girls last summer. But Last Time I Lied completely missed the mark for me. I was so bored for the first 60% of the book. I just did not find the plot plausible and the twist at the end was just "meh" for me. I was really disappointed.

15 years ago Emma attended Camp Nightingale and her three bunk mates disappeared. Now 15 years later, Emma is asked to return to the camp and be apart of its reopening season. She reluctantly agrees as she is determined to find out what happened to those girls all those years ago. The result is a suspenseful tale where it seems that everyone has something to hide. I loved that I did not easily figure out the ending prior to finishing the book as can often be a case for mysteries. This book definitely kept me guessing and I will definitely read more from Riley Sager in the future.

I've just finished this and I'm nearly speechless. I went into this one, not only with it being my first time reading anything by Riley Sager, but also completely blind and not even so much as knowing what genre it fell in.

The novel has twist after twist and just continuously pulls the rug up from under you as soon as you think you've got it all figured out.

I absolutely loved the back and forth between the main characters past and present. Filling in all the gaps within the story until finally coming to an a quite explosive conclusion. I didn't want to put this one down and have found myself not only reading at a much quicker pace than usual, but reading into the wee hours of the morning. I urge everyone to pick this up, order it online, do whatever you need to do to get your hands on this one.. and when you finally do, you're not going to be able to stop reading until you've uncovered the truth.

At 13, Emma Davis went to summer camp (Camp Nightingale) for the first time. Arriving late, she had to share a cabin with three older girls, Natalie, Allison, and the queen bee…Vivian. They all get along and despite the age difference, Vivian sort of takes Emma under her wing and decides to be her “big sister” for the summer. She even learns how to play Vivian’s favorite game, Two Truths and a Lie. Things aren’t always fun and games at camp however and as the days pass by, deception, lies, and tension begin to run high. Then one night after a heated confrontation, Vivian, Allison and Natalie sneak out of their cabin and are never seen again.

Fast-forward 15 years later and Emma is a successful painter. She has put the past behind her, or at least she’s tried to. That past seems to catch up with her when Franny, the owner of Camp Nightingale invites Emma back to camp. This time as a painting instructor. Against what I think is sound judgement, Emma takes Franny up on her offer and attempts to face her “demons”.

Once Emma arrives, she discovers that things aren’t as they seem at Camp Nightingale. The more she tries to uncover what happened 15 years ago, the more creepy things become. And pretty soon, it looks like someone is holding a grudge and is out to get Emma. Or is she the one lying? It becomes imperative that she find out the truth before it’s too late and something bad happens...again.

I enjoyed reading Final Girls last year and when I saw that The Last Time I Lied was coming out, I was super excited to read it. It did not disappoint. It was entertaining, I was never once bored, and there was always something going on. Riley Sager knows how to create interesting characters and throw them into unique and sometimes creepy situations to draw the reader in and get them hooked. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves a good suspenseful thriller. The Last Time I Lied is the perfect summertime read.


RATING: 4 out of 5.

Eerie, twisty, and dread inducing, The Last Time I Lied had me hooked from page one!

Fifteen years ago at Camp Nightingale three girls disappeared, leaving behind the youngest, Emma. After years of dealing with the trauma that has stuck with her since that fateful night so long ago, Emma is returning to Camp, returning to where it all began. Hoping for closure and yearning to unravel the mystery of the girls' disappearance, Emma's shocking journey begins.

Consistently page turning and brilliantly written, with an immersing plot and clever characters, The Last Time I Lied is a book I will continue to recommend to readers of ALL genres.

Talk about a twist on top of a twist on top of a twist. Wow! I was literally guessing until, like, 3 pages from the end. Even then, on the last page, I was still surprised. Did I mention I was up until after 2am (this morning) finishing it? Well, I was. SO WORTH IT!

Two truths and a lie. Innocent enough game, is it not?

Fifteen years ago, 3 girls disappeared from summer camp - never to be seen or heard from again. Emma Davis, the 4th girl in the cabin, tells the authorities the girls left the cabin during the night, but never returned. The camp has been closed since the incident, and Emma is a rising star in the art scene. During her first art show, she is reintroduced to Franny, the wealthy owner of the camp - and it's expansive grounds. Franny is reopening the camp and wants Emma to be the art instructor. Initially reluctant, Emma decides to go back - to find out the truth of what happened all those years ago. Bunking in the same cabin as before, now with 3 different young girls, Emma struggles to discern truth from lies and deception.

The real question isn't if Emma will discover the truth, it's if she can handle the truth.

Sager's characters are complex and relatable. Some you love, some you wanna slap. Sager allows the reader to know nearly as much as Emma, making it more thrilling and suspenseful. Even knowing there was a twist at the end, I still didn't get it. You will be blown away.

Riley Sager's first novel, The Final Girls, was one of my favorite books last year. This one was more of a slow burn. The pacing is more deliberate and it requires real patience from its readers. While I definitely preferred Final Girls, I think this one will stay with me longer.

There's a quote from Stephen King about The Shining and how his novel compared with Stanley Kubrick's movie. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) that it can all be summarized with what happened to The Overlook. In the book, it burns; in the movie, it freezes. This book is nothing but ice.

Although, like any good horror movie? Brace yourself for the final scare.

Highly recommended.

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.

So by now, you have likely had the chance to read the synopsis of the book, and even better, may have already read the book. Immediately my response for the book, upon finishing it, I was blown away, and couldn’t even write my review as soon as I had finished. I was speechless, and I then uttered a few curse words because Sager has written yet another bloody brilliant book.

In FINAL GIRLS, Sager blew us out of the water with a thriller that focused mainly on two girls, and the very concept that they were the final girls left from slasher killings (even without the book revolving around the killings themselves) was enough to get into the readers psyche and make us terrified. In THE LAST TIME I LIED, he manages yet again to take the reader to a very vulnerable place, alongside the main character Emma, this time back to when she was a teenager, self-conscious and needing to be accepted, but how could it be worse than back then? Going back to the same camp as an adult where your friends went missing and you were accused of being responsible for it, that’s how. But Emma is going to figure out what really happened at Camp Nightingale all those years ago (Jason Voorhes had nothing to do with it).
The book is absolute brilliance, in terms of pacing, use of different timelines (and we see this as a writing device a lot, but not always done well), depth of characters, and ultimately, the story has the best plot twist I could (never) have imagined. One of my best (sorry, Sir Sager) compliments is that I could swear Riley is a female author because he writes female voices so well. I don't know how he does it. But I know he will do it again when he writes another book!

Creepy good, Creepy spooky, Creepy wow!

Norma and I were lost in a coulee reading The Last time I Lied with eight of our Traveling Sisters. We all ended up in the same coulee wiping the sweat off our foreheads after that fast-paced story left us sprinting right to that shocking good ending. After a nice cool drink to cool us down we shared our thoughts on that ending and there was a lot to talk about.

The Last Time I Lied had all the elements to make this a spooky, creepy good read. We all loved the camp setting, eerie lake, game of truth and lies and the mystery of three girls that go missing in the night.

loved the atmosphere of the camp setting and Riley Sager does a great job setting the feel with the descriptive writing making the camp setting come alive in our heads. At times it felt like a movie playing out in our minds.

Riley Sager does a good job layering those secrets and lies and creating those twists and turns at just the right time. He took us down a path a twisty path, leaving those clues along the way that some of us pick up on. In the end, the story skillfully comes together leaving us sharing our excitement over this one with each other. Every time someone finished the excitement started all over it again. Almost like a party in a coulee. highly recommend.

5 Thrilling Stars!

Let's Play Two Truths and a Lie.

I never went to summer camp and after reading this book I'll probably never be able to look at summer camp the same. I absolutely LOVED this story.

Fifteen years ago something devastating happens. Three girls vanished from a summer camp (for rich kids I might add) and no one was able to find out what happened to them. Emma was only 13 at the time but she befriended this older girls (they were 16) and she couldn't believe her friends were gone. People blame Emma. Emma blames Theo. Emma is haunted for Fifteen years until she's called back by the owner of the camp to come work there for a summer. They're reopening again to see if they can get the stigma out of their name.

Tensions are high, people are gossiping and everyone wants to know what happened. Emma starts hallucinating thinking she sees the lost girls until one night the girls she is an instructor for at the camp disappear. Could this really be happening AGAIN? What did Emma do to these girls? Or did she do anything?

WOW this book takes you on a crazy ride. This twisted and turned all over the place and the author did an amazing job at taking you in another direction when you thought you had it all figured out. I love a book that continues to keep me guessing and this was one of those books. This book isn't short but it read so fast and that is something that attracts me to a thriller.

The book brought up two questions for me: Is revenge worth it? Is lying worth it? I think a lot of people seek revenge when they feel betrayed in some way or another but I think the consequences can outweigh the benefits of this most of the time. Lying can also be tricky, especially when you get stuck in a lie. It can ultimately hurt AND save the ones you love most but sometimes that happens at the same time...

If you're a thriller lover - pick this one up. You won't be disappointed!

There is something truly wonderful about reading a seasonal book in the correct season. It just feels right. It's even better when that seasonal book could only happen in the season you are currently experiencing, say, a book about trick or treating or New Year's day, or summer camp.

Well, if that appeals to you too, grab a copy of The Last Time I Lied and read it now. Like literally right now, in the month of July.

I read it at the end of June and my part of the US was experiencing a bit of a heat wave. All day I would commiserate with people from my town about the humidity and the sun, but then, I would go home and curl up with my book. The heat made me feel even more a part of the story. I sat on the patio reading with a large glass of iced tea, turning the pages faster and faster and enjoying every minute.

Suspense is my jam. I've read tons of novels where I'm guessing and wondering about the outcome. With this one I kept thinking, there is no way the author will be able to tie up all these loose ends. I imagined the plot like a friendship bracelet and anticipated being let down when all the strands of yarn weren't knotted and pulled tight. I was certain Riley Sager wouldn't be able to bring a good sense of an ending to this book. But I was wrong.

Not only did Sager manage to bring proper closure to all the threads, he also did it in ways that were surprising and thorough. Each part of the story was well conceived and I didn't feel like I needed more information or that he let any of the characters slip through the cracks.

The Last Tim I Lied is about Emma, a girl who goes to an elite summer camp as a young girl. At the end of camp, her three bunkmates disappear and are never seen or heard from again (I promise this is not a spoiler). Emma gets invited back to the camp as an adult. She is offered a job to teach art and after a short debate, she agrees, hoping to give herself a little closure. Then things get wild.

The initial agreement of Emma to return to the camp was a little unbelievable, but once you get past how she gets to camp, then the real suspense and drama begin.

A good suspense novel can be hard to come by and this one was the perfect blend of stress and mystery without being too gory or graphic. I never felt really grossed out and didn't have to hide the book under my bed. It was smart: instead of using cheap gore to get a response Sager made me take a hard look at how girls relate to other girls (some of the insights made me double check that Sager is a man because they were just so spot on) and the ways we lie to each other and ourselves. These themes are truly scary.

Emma was a likable, flawed protagonist. Another suspense trope that is super common is the unreliable narrator and while Emma is far from perfect she's not drunk or high throughout the book and again, I appreciated that Sager did not take the easy way out. The other characters in the novel were well conceived and realistic. Some were more likable than others. *wink, wink*

I really don't want to give anything away so I'll end my review here. But, I really do hope you'll read it. And, if you did read it, what did you think? Summer scares are the best.

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.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for providing me with a complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I never went to sleep away camp as a kid, so I’m not sure if it’s as creepy as it’s portrayed in stories. It seems like a common setting where things go wrong, in books.

Throughout the whole story, I kept changing my theory on what happened to the girls. I could work out a motive for almost every character, yet I was wrong in the end. I was surprised at what happened to the missing girls. I loved the very end of the book. You have to read right until the last page!

The subplot of the insane asylum was fascinating. I wish it played a more important part in the main story of the disappearance of the girls. It seemed like another story that ran alongside the main one. I wish they had been more united.

This story reminded me of We Were Liars, which takes place at a summer cabin. It had the same spooky, mysterious elements to it.