Lock Every Door by Riley Sager had me captivated from the very first page! I zoomed through this book because the plot was so riveting. You have a beautiful historic apartment building in NYC complete with gargoyles, lots of inhabitants with secretive lives, and a constant need for apartment sitters who seem to disappear as frequently as they arrive. What's not to love?!! Definitely worth picking up and devouring over the course of an afternoon. Read and enjoy!

Alright I’ll start this off by saying that this was by far my favorite Riley Sager! I’ve enjoyed his others, but this one was definitely a step above for me!! Plus I’m loving that pink cover 😍
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I think part of that is because his first two revolved a lot around creepy camp stories, which are fun on their own, but the ones that creep me out even more are spooky houses (or in this case, apartment buildings)!!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Lock Every Door was a fun read, and definitely one that I had a hard time putting down when it was time for bed! If you’re a Sager fan (or even if you’re not!), pick this one up!!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Jules gets the chance of a lifetime when she’s offered a large sum of money just to live and apartment sit at one of Manhattan’s most prestigious apartment buildings - the Bartholomew. Everything seems glamorous, and she even befriends another fellow apartment sitter, Ingrid. However, there are extremely strict (and weird!) rules that go along with the job, and Ingrid shares some dark stories surrounding the history of the Bartholomew, along with doubts about the building not being all it’s cracked up to be. Suddenly, Ingrid disappears in the middle of one night, and Jules is determined to find her friend - which requires her to break some rules and do some digging on the hidden happenings of this building!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Thanks to @netgalley for the e-book edition!

Although the major plot twist was fairly predictable, that didn't prevent me from remaining on the edge of my seat throughout this thriller as I raced through it (and finished the book in one day).

I really enjoyed this book by Riley Sager. The creepy apartment building was a great and unusual setting. Jules was a heroine you could easily root for.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing the digital copy.

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

5 stars

Jules Larsen is down on her luck. She lost her job and found her boyfriend cheating on her in their apartment all in the same day. With no place to live or steady income, the streets of New York provide an unlikely and almost unreal way to make fast cash. Even more odd is the connection Jules has to the place through a childhood favorite novel. The Bartholomew is a Gothic apartment with gargoyles and an odd job opening. Jules is offered to make cash in thousands for stay at the Bartholomew for three months. The rules: she must stay in the apartment every night, she can’t ever post the inside on social media, no guests are ever allowed, and STAY OUT of the resident’s business. It’s too good to pass up. Things are creepy and visceral, but they get even scarier when another apartment sitter goes missing. What secrets lie in the Bartholomew and why is Jules scared for her life? I love Riley Sager. He is hands down one of my favorite authors in the thriller genre. I read The Last Time I Lied last year and loved it. The thing I love about Sager’s style is that is dripping with atmosphere. Whatever setting he decides to tackle he turns the setting into a character that haunts the pages and makes one feel unsettled. I loved how Gothic this one is. It’s creepy and it has all the chops of a creepy and unsettling movie from the ‘80s. It doesn’t feel good and as the plot progresses it becomes very apparent that the Bartholomew is complex enough that a number of sinister outcomes are possible. Sager decided to write this novel from an interesting perspective. We open with Jules in a hospital waking up and claiming to have escaped the Bartholomew. We flashback to six days prior when the events began and we zoom in and out of this throughout the novel until we reach the pivotal point of Jules landing in the hospital. Sager is a great writer. He is adept at masterfully painting a scene, creating a dynamic plot, and providing suspense in every chapter. The questions he sets up are just enough to lead the reader to believe they know the outcome and by the end of the book, we realize that our own guesses are just as off as Jules. I was blown away by the reveal. It was not on my radar at all. This book is set up in a great way. I suspect a lot of people will hate it though, but I loved it.


Whimsical Writing Scale: 5

The main female character is Jules. Jules is funny and layered. She does odd things like naming the gargoyle outside her window George and deciding to go on a wild goose chase and uncover the mystery of the Bartholomew, but I found her family’s past to be incredibly complex and it really was refreshing to follow a woman in the thriller from the poverty side who is not your typical domestic thriller. She didn’t have a drinking problem and she is just a woman with a lot of bad luck and a sad past. It’s a nice turn from the typical thrillers that have been released as of late. I wasn’t always on board with her decisions because she is dumb sometimes, but that’s to be expected when following a thriller heroine who decides to dig. I was always rooting for her. She is also strong and pretty adept at solving dangerous situations, so those finals pages of escape are intense and a wild ride. I loved following her narrative and I was a fan Sager’s depiction of her.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 5

The Villain- Wow. I had a theory and at one point my theory was being proved by Jules research, but that quickly went out the window. Everyone in this book is sketchy and no one should be trusted. It was masterfully done. When I finished reading this book I was so blown away by the complexity and brilliance of those within the Bartholomew.


Villain Scale: 5

Overall, I am a fan of Lock Every Door. Sager blew me away with this one and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s fun and spooky. The novel is atmospheric and the pacing is unputdownable. You don’t want to miss this novel because it will blow your mind.


Plotastic Scale: 5

Cover Thoughts: I am obsessed with the colors for this cover. It’s creepy and bold. I love it.

Thank you, Netgalley and Dutton Books, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Riley Sager knows how to write a heart-pounding thriller. Better than most, I would dare to say.

This is my third book by him and I'm just constantly amazed by his talent and range. Lock Every Door is now my second favorite of his after his debut, FINAL GIRLS, which I will likely never forget the experience of reading. I kind of feel the same about all of his books. Among the spooky nature of them, I find them downright *fun.* I could barely put this book down.

One of my favorite things that Sager does as a writer is write short chapters. I mean, just bless it. The pacing is incredible. I don't believe that many of his chapters went past 10 minutes to read, which for me promotes a reading experience where you just want to keep going and going and going until you know everything. That and his ability to pull you in with his opening chapters. In Lock Every Door, he starts with the Now and then goes back in time 7 days to show you everything that happened leading up to the present. We get alternating chapters of the present and past and it all blends together to paint a mysterious, tension-filled, horrifyingly beautiful picture.

I do have gripes with this book, from the flat characters to the twist, but really I can't complain too hard because this book is memorable and entertaining. Another spooky hit for Riley Sager.

Thanks to Penguin Duttin Publishing and Netgalley for this ebook! The review below is my own thoughts.

This book opens briefly with Jules at a hospital after a terrible injury. We then enter a timeline going backwards from when Jules has been recently laid off and discovered her boyfriend cheating on her the same day. After the seemingly too good to be true housesitting job offer, she takes the job staying at an apartment at the Bartholomew, an exclusive building across from Central Park in NYC.

Things start to be creepy after given an odd list of rules - no visitors, must never stay a night away..... Then another house sitter disappears in the middle of the night, even though she was to meet Jules for lunch.

I found the story to be truly creepy, but I could not put it down! Breezing through the pages quickly. I, too, felt like I could be Jules in the story.

I look forward to the next book by Riley Sager!

I actually give this book 3.5 stars not 3. I loved the book Lock Every Door. It is very fast paced and I absolutely love the characters in the book. The only reason I'm going with 3.5 stars is because I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I think it's partly because the book was hyped and I set my bar a little high. But I did like the book and it will be one I'll read again!

Riley Sager's new thriller. Lock Every Door. is dedicated to Ira Levin, and as I read this twisty, dark novel of questionable neighbors in a too-good-to-be-true NYC apartment building, I suddenly remembered who that is. Ira Levin wrote Rosemary's Baby. 

Just like in Rosemary's Baby, the suspense in Lock Every Door comes from who you can trust, not from any gore or violence. Jules lands a dream job as a housesitter in a gorgeous Manhattan co-op, although there are some kinda weird rules, she agrees to them for the sake of free rent and income. Skyhigh rents and the very real instant opportunities in New York make this a reasonable opening. It's also the setting of Jules' favorite novel, and I'd definitely take a strange temp job to live rent-free at, say, the Dakota.  (Actually, I would take all kinds of weird temp jobs, so I might not be a good example.)

But things start to turn strange and upsetting almost as soon as she moves in. The cavernous apartment full of expensive furniture starts to feel strange at night, a realistic reaction for Jules, who's been sleeping on a friend's couch. But some of the sounds don't make any sense... There are other transient young people house-sitting for other absent owners, and there are strict rules about never speaking to the resident owners and never inviting any guests to the building.

Without revealing any of the layered, suspenseful plot, I'll say that I bought every part of the setting, no questions asked. Of course the co-op members all inherited their apartments from wealthy grandparents, who were naturally all part of the same social circles, and of course there are endless new arrivals in New York, with no friends or family, delighted to find a house-sitting position.

While there's murder and injuries, any real grossness happens off-camera, so this is another readable gore-free thriller for me. If you like this book, then check out The Girl Before for another too-good-to-be-true apartment, or just read Rosemary's Baby again.

If someone offers you 12 Grand for three months to apartment sit, you “might” want to reconsider after reading this page-turner set in Manhattan, New York.
 
Jules Larson is between jobs and dealing with heartbreak after a failed relationship. She inquires about the apartment sitting job in the paper and is offered the job on the spot. She is in shock because she gets to live in a fantastic apartment and get paid. 
 
However, there's a catch. Jules meets another apartment sitter who ends up disappearing without a trace. Then is when the story takes the reader on a dark, sinister path with twists and turns that don’t end until the last page. 
 
I highly recommend this book for fans of the suspense genre!

-Description-
Jules, an orphan with a few friends, is in need of a place to stay and some cash when she come across an ad for an apartment sitter that pays a heck of a lot of money. When she gets to the building it seems as thought things are too good to be true.

-Thoughts-
1. I felt the characters were not very realistic. Of course I’m suspicious of all of them as soon as I start the book...it’s a thriller after all. But did I really care about Jules or any of the outlying characters? No. Not really.
2. The writing was good. Interesting. An easy read. I would say it’s a page turner. I wanted to get to the end just to find out. But I am not really into books where I can simply read the description and then the last 2 chapters to understand be entire thing....it masks the whole book feel like filler.

-Rating-
⭐️⭐️⭐️
In the end it was just ok. It’s a fine summer read.

-Similar Recommended Reads-
The Silent Patient
The Perfect Couple

A must read, Riley Sager has done it again! Fantastic build up of atmosphere and the increasing desperation of the protagonist. Manages to create a virtual "locked room" mystery in a modern day setting. Immediately gripping and fantastically creepy!

Shades of vintage Robin Cook! Yowza! This kept me on the edge of my seat from page one until the very last page.

The framework, starting with Now and then going back to the first day in the week, going forward day by day, with all action leading up to Now was the perfect way to see through the eyes of our protagonist, Jules, as she tried to make sense of the mysterious occurrences in her dream job.

Excellent plotting, excellent pacing, excellent building of suspense – all leading to a superb climax and a very satisfying conclusion.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I will certainly look for others written by Riley Sager. This was most enjoyable.

F*cked up! That can be a review, right? (hahaha). Jules gets a job apartment sitting at the Bartholomew, an upscale building with a history. A fellow apartment sitter goes missing which spurs Jules on to uncover all the secrets behind the elusive building and it's occupants. The plot keeps you guessing till the very end and like most thrillers the less you know going in the better.

Jules has just lost her job, her boyfriend and her home all in the same day. She is currently living with her best friend, Chloe. When the opportunity presents itself for her to live in one of the most exclusive apartment buildings in New York City, The Bartholomew, she can't pass up on the chance. Not only does she get to live there, she's getting paid to do so as an apartment sitter. This is an opportunity Jules can not pass up despite the protestations of Chloe, she has to get back on her feet. So she takes the job even though the rules are a little strict. Shortly after moving in, Jules meets another apartment sitter, Ingrid, who is unsure about continuing to live at The Bartholomew. When Jules is ready to ask her about it, Ingrid disappears without a trace. What happened to Ingrid and other apartment sitters that have gone missing? What dark secrets lie within The Bartholomew?

Thank you to NetGalley & Dutton books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was so excited to get this book from NetGalley. Last year I read both of Riley Sager's books and I was looking forward to this one. It did not disappoint. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I definitely didn't see the ending coming.

If I was a single young woman and was given the opportunity to live in an exclusive apartment and get paid for it, I would jump on that in a heartbeat. I don't think I would care about rules or anything, just tell me where to sign and let me sit back and collect the cash.

Another reason Jules is so quick to accept this opportunity is because her favorite book is set in the building. I think many readers would love to live in the place where their favorite book is set if they don't already. And Jules needs a little fantasy in her life since she has lost both parents and her sister. At first The Bartholomew seems like a dream place to live. With a courteous doorman, friendly neighbors and a doctor as one of the residents, it's idyllic. But when Ingrid goes missing, Jules starts to question everything. The explanation she receives for the sudden departure doesn't sound right and the police aren't willing to help because she doesn't know enough about Ingrid to form a case.

What is she going to do? Will she discover the secrets of the building before it's too late?

This was an edge-of-your-seat instant classic. The more I read, the less I wanted to be in the book, but the more I felt the need to keep reading. You could have given me 50 chances to guess the ending and I would not have gotten close to getting it right. Probably my favorite read so far this year.

This book freaked me out and make me question if it was a book I really wanted to read at night. While it was definitely a thriller, I felt that it definitely has elements of horror in it as well. While there are twists and turns, I didn’t feel that the ending was completely surprising.

I haven’t read Riley Sager’s first book, Final Girls, yet, (I plan to get to it sooner rather than later now), but I did read his previous book, The Last Time I Lied, which I enjoyed immensely. Thus, I was excited to see that he has a new book coming out tomorrow. I am so glad I read this. Riley is a master at building the suspense and then pulling out the rug from under your feet because you just didn’t see what was coming.

Jules Larsen needs a place to live and a job, so when she sees an ad for a house-sitter, she thinks she has found the perfect job. The position is house-sitting an apartment in the infamous Bartholomew, a well-known New York apartment building for the wealthy. When she meets for the interview, she learns there are many strange rules such as no visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no talking to the other residents because they like their privacy. The pay is fabulous, and Jules is somewhat desperate, so she takes the job. Not long after she arrives, she meets one of the other apartment sitters, Ingrid, and they arrange to meet the next day. Ingrid never shows up, and Jules who is still haunted by a sister who disappeared years ago, starts to look into it. Although the person who hired her said she left suddenly during the night, Jules feels there is more to it.

One of the characters in this book is actually the Bartholomew, itself. It is a creepy building that has had a dark history and rumors surrounding it for years. Ingrid had told Jules that the Bartholomew was not as it appeared. When Sager described the eerie wallpaper that seemed to have eyes and the odd sounds at night, I almost got goose-bumps. The story unfolds in a quick pace in a compelling manner. His masterful storytelling had me going in a totally different direction, so I was surprised to see where it went. In addition to being a thriller, this book has an element of horror to it as well.

This is a great book to read on your vacation, but just don’t read it alone!

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

I did not know what I was getting into when I started this book but it was so good. I kept thinking I had the mystery figured out then something would change & I’d be back at square one. I really liked Jules and was excited for her when she found such a great opportunity at the Bartholomew. I was pretty horrified as things started going downhill for all the apartment sitters. What a crazy, great story! The characters were great, the writing was great and I’m so glad I read it.

To be completely honest, I thought the third book from Riley Sager started off a little slow... And I know I'm right.... It is slow....just like the first slow, steep climb of a roller coaster that seems like half of the ride itself...

And then, you slowly start the decent and the momentum picks up, whipping you around left and right, up and down with not knowing what could happen next.....just like Lock Every Door....

When its finally done, you're just trying to catch your breath, trying to remember what you just experienced because there is nothing else out there just like it.....

And you want to read it again!