Alright, I've finally read a 5 star Riley Sager book!!

His books have been a bit hit or miss for me up to this point. But I loved The House Across the Lake.

The nod to Rear Window (which if you haven't yet seen I would highly recommend) is always a sub-genre I love to read.

The unreliable narrator is usually pretty fun in Thriller books as well as the additional twists and turns that were put in place in this story.

Great timing of reveals had me squealing with delight!!

5 stars!

As a huge fan of Riley Sager, I was so excited to read his newest release! While this book will certainly have readers hooked and entertained, it missed the mark for me in a few main areas. First, I feel like the unreliable female narrator with a drinking problem is overdone in the thriller genre. Second, I felt like as I was reading many aspects of this plot felt like they were veryyyy similar to other thriller books and movies out there. Finally, the twist in the end was creative but was a bit too far fetched for my liking. I loved Riley Sagers earlier novels and will certainly be reading his next releases in the hopes that I will enjoy them! Can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!

Rear View Window with a twist, because that’s never been done before 🙄🤪 The first half was boring and the second half was boring AND stupid. My only regret is not drinking when the main character drank so I, too, would remember nothing.

Before I say anything else, I want to say that this is the first Riley Sager book that I read. I have been seeing all the hype around his books and I was so intrigued, that as soon as I saw “The House Across the Lake” available for request on NetGalley, Ι went ahead and pressed the request button! Well, the least I can say is that it was an enjoyable read.

Casey Fletcher, a daughter of an actress and an actress herself, is staying at her family’s lake house in Vermont as per her mother’s request. She had to leave the city and go hide over there because she has made a spectacle of herself. She has been more drunk than sober for so many days. However, according to Casey, she had a really good reason! She lost her husband not so long ago and she still cannot deal with what happened. The worst of it is that Len, her husband, had drowned into this very lake, so she doesn’t really agree with her mother’s decision to sent her there. Too many memories. Too many sad memories that will not help her get better any time soon! But at least, there are no reporters to witness her downfall. There is only Ely there to keep an eye on her, in case she needed something. Like more booze for example!

Well, actually, there is not only Eli. In the house across the lake, there is also a very well known and rich couple, Tom and Katherine Royce. That house is new and has so much glass instead of walls, that Casey finds it hard not to look at it. Especially at night, when the lights make it somewhat of a stage, Casey, armed with a pair of binoculars and a bottle or two of bourbon or whiskey, watches the glamorous couple, the tech innovator and the former supermodel. Until one day, Casey saves Katherine from drowning in the lake and this is the tipping point of their relationship. The two women come closer and build a friendship and so Casey continues watching Katherine and Tom as she realises that something is off about their marriage. And then, one day, Katherine suddenly disappears and Tom looks guilty in Casey’s eyes. She is determined to find out what has happened to Katherine even if it means breaking into Tom’s house or contacting the police.

When I started reading the book, it felt as if Casey was a man. The discussion she had with the detective is what had me confused there, even though the detective was clearly a woman. I guess it had something to do with the fact that she was consuming too much alcohol or that she had somebody tied up, which would require some strength. Maybe it was the way she was talking, I don’t know. After some time, when she introduced herself, it became clear that Casey was a woman that had gone through a lot.

While reading the book I had a pretty good idea of what might be happening, but then at some point, very far on the book, I understood that it’s not what I thought at all. There were a few twists that took place near the end of the book and changed the perspective a few times. All in all, it was really easy to read and it made you think you have a clue of what might be happening, but there are secrets that are not revealed until the very end.

Thank you to NetGalley & PENGUIN GROUP Dutton, Dutton for an advance copy of this book. The views expressed are my personal and honest opinion.

I thought the book was good but I did have a hard time getting into it at first. It is full of suspense, twists, and a different ending. I find it hard to follow an unreliable character, and the alcoholic aspects seem to be overplayed lately. If you are looking for a book where the ending will surprise you, this is it.

Grieving single woman? Check.

Alcoholic? Check.

Spying on the neighbors? Check.

Convinced she’s seen a murder? Check.

No one believes her? Check.

Huge secret she’s hiding? Check, check, check.

These questions could describe dozens of books published since Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train came out in 2015. The elements are so well known that earlier this year, Netflix ran a very popular parody series, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. Starring Kristen Bell, its critics complained that it hewed so closely to the genre that the satire was too thin.

But it is possible to still wring surprises from these tropes, as proven by Riley Sager’s latest thriller, The House Across the Lake.

For the complete review, click on the link below.

Thank you @netgalley & @duttonbooks for the digital arc. The opinions are my own!
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I have heard so much about the author and read some mixed reviews about this book but oh my! The book was not what I expected.
The trope may come across as a cliche, an alcholic woman whom no one believes, the supporting characters seem suspicious and nothing is what it seems.
The first half of the book was a bit slow but it picked up towards the last quarter and I was dumbfounded. There were so many twists and turns, you wouldn't know where it was leading. The tension kept building up, so much so that I had no choice but to continue reading. The ending was wild and you would have to read it to find out. Hence my caption, freaky friday.
Pick it up if you are a Sager fan or haven't picked up his books yet because I am definitely going to read more!

I have heard so much about Riley Sager as a go-to suspense/thriller author, so I grabbed The House Across the Lake as an e-ARC on NetGalley. I may be an outlier here, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it.

Casey Fletcher is a recently widowed actress who had a very public come apart after her husband’s death. Her mother, legendary actress Lolly Fletcher, sends her to their family lake home on Lake Greene to get herself together and out of the tabloids. Casey very much does not want to get herself together and continues to drink heavily by having a local sneak her alcohol. She begins spying on the house across the lake, owned by supermodel Katherine Royce and her tech guru husband, Tom. Casey fears that everything is not what it seems in the beautiful glass house across the lake.

The first part of the book was slow for me and then started to pick up. I was into it. Then, without giving spoilers, Sager lost me when the story took a strange twist that made it very unbelievable. This being my first Sager book, I will still give another one a chance.

I consider Sager to be one of my favorite authors and this one fell a bit flat for me. Maybe part of it was the change in the main character since I'm so used to reading from a young girl my age's point-of-view. Idk.
In his other books, I like how even though the twist at the end appears that it might be paranormal, but there always turns out to be a rational explanation by the end. He sort of removes the mask of the monster in a sort of Scooby Doo manner and that's what I was expecting for this book. The ending was just too weird for me.

Other than that, I thought the plot was quick to take off even though I didn't take too much to the main character.

After actress Casey Fletcher’s husband, Len, died last year, she’s coped by drinking to numb her sorrows. The press takes notice, and to save her from further bad publicity, her mother, a famous stage actress herself, sends Casey to the family’s lake house in Vermont. Off-season, few families are staying in their second homes, with the notable exception of Tom and Katherine Royce. Tom, a tech innovator, has created the latest social networking app, while the beautiful Katherine is a former model.

From her vantage point across the lake and her late husband’s state-of-the-art binoculars, Casey spends her days on the porch sipping bourbon and watching the glamorous couple. One morning, her spying leads her to see a body floating. Casey speeds her boat to the middle of the lake, saving Katherine from drowning.

As the two women strike up a friendship, Casey realizes that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as flawless as it appears, and when Katherine disappears, Casey immediately suspects Tom and increases her surveillance determined to locate her new friend—or at the least, find her body. The mystery, though, has many layers, deeper and darker than the lake itself.

The first half of the book, though it did create a tense atmosphere, was slower paced than I preferred. At a certain point, though, I couldn’t imagine how things would play out, so I raced to the end.

Some of the reveals were surprising and effective. Others did surprise me but didn’t quite work for me. I most enjoyed Wilma, a detective who had no patience for Casey, maybe because I had little patience for her as well.

This is a really good suspenseful book. Riley Sager has written another hit that keeps you reading to find out if Casey is a delusional drunk or a woman so steeped in grief that she is drowning. Casey is exiled to Lake Greene by her mother because of bad tabloid headlines. Casey is an actress and recent widow and her out of control behavior is ruining her career. Her wine supply is endless and her late husband’s binoculars has Casey obsessed as to what is happening in THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE.
Casey sees a body floating in the lake and this is the beginning of her fast slide into her delusional world.
Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of this book.

After losing her husband in a tragic drowning, actress Casey Fletcher finds herself sequestered at her family's lake house and at the bottom of several bottles trying to find some solitude and solace from her grief. In her drunken boredom, she stumbles upon her husband's binoculars and an intriguing rich couple across the lake. What seems like a marriage of love and privlege starts to look like deceit and danger the more Casey spies on them from her lake house deck. And when one of them goes missing, Casey isn't sure what to believe and whom to trust. And what starts as a missing person mystery turns into something far more dangerous and darker than Casey could've ever thought possible.

Thoughts: Riley Sager's books have been an auto-buy for me since the release of Final Girls. I've always enjoyed the creepy premise to each story, the weird turns that keep the plot moving and the pages turning, and the twists that seem to come out of nowhere. That said, this is not that kind of story. Yes, there is a huge twist and it will definitely take readers by surprise, but it doesn't happen until much later in the story, leaving readers with a contemporary retelling of the classic movie Rear Window (which is a parallel actually mentioned in the book) with hints of the book The Girl on the Train. The twist takes the story in a completely different direction from either story, and was a really good turn of events, but I didn't feel like it was enough to overcome the banality of the rest of the plot. If you're looking for a creepy Sager book, I'd recommend Home Before Dark over this one. But again, the twist was very original and kept me reading until the last page.

**Thank you, Netgalley and publishers, for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

While I am a Riley Sager fan and I did enjoy reading this book, it's not my favorite of his. Started out strong, I was invested in the story and at the end there's a twist that I felt did not match the rest of the book. It kind of brought me out of the story at that point. Sager fans will probably like it OK but I wouldn't not recommend this as the first book of his to read if you haven't read him before.

Okay, so not my favorite Riley Sager book but this was still pretty good. I also love the colors of the cover and even though I got the ARC I will still be purchasing the physical copy. The very beginning of the book starts out with a Taylor Swift quote which really got me excited to read the book. I wish they would however, include content warnings at the beginning of the book for readers. I felt like there was a lot going on with the different storylines that I think I would have rather it been narrowed down a bit which would have made the story stronger I feel. It gave me a lot of Women in the Window vibes when Casey was spying on the neighbors with binoculars which I didn't hate. I did like the alternating timelines, it felt like it was building the suspense which is what I’m looking for when I’m reading a thriller. I think towards the end some parts became unbelievable for me so that took away from the story a little bit. I also am usually not a fan of an unreliable narrator but it worked well for this book. Overall, I think this is in my top 3 Riley Sager books after The Last Time I Lied and Lock Every Door so I would recommend.

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager is easily one of his best books to date. The claustrophobic and atmospheric whodunit mystery features paranormal aspects--a trope with which Sager often teases his readers. If you enjoy unreliable and unstable narrators, domestic drama, serial killers, and locked-in style mysteries, this one is for you!

Sager channels Alfred Hitchcock in one of my favorite thrillers of the summer! Enjoyable characters, plot twists, and superb writing highlight this entry into Sager’s repertoire.

Not my favorite Riley Sager but a very good thriller nevertheless. The plot twists were really good and the overall story was very entertaining but I get a bit tired of the stereotypical alcoholic unrelatable character.

Not my favorite Riley Sager but a very good thriller nevertheless. The plot twists were really good and the overall story was very entertaining but I get a bit tired of the stereotypical alcoholic unrelatable character.

Another great thriller from the master of thrillers! Although this wasn't my favorite, it was Riley's signature language, strong female characters, and constant questions within the story that kept me going. I didn't feel the twists or resolution was quite as clever as I'd hoped but it's a great addition to my collection of all of his novels!!! I will never NOT read a Sager book because not every one of them is going to be a favorite. This one blends some of the cinematic tensions of Survive the Night with the woodsy eerieness of The Last One To Lie and sets it on a creepy lake where everyone is an oddball who might be a killer. Ha ha ha... everything you want when reading poolside this summer.

Riley Sager is one of my favourite thriller authors, and although this wasn't my favourite book of his, I did still really enjoy it. I highly recommend going into this one blind because there are so many twists and turns that you don't want to lose the shock value of!

Pros:
-So many twists!!!
-Super fast paced
-Loved the setting
-Multiple layers of mystery

Cons:
-Substance abuse issues could've been handled more appropriately
-Unreliable female narrator is overdone