Well that was a bit of a wild ride. Very enjoyable thriller based around mass murders with a tip of the hat to 80s slasher movies I'm sure.

Our main character is Quinn Carpenter, a sole survivor of a mass murder event when she and her college friends were away for the weekend in a cabin in the woods. We pick the story up years later as she just about has her life together, living in an apartment in Manhattan with her boyfriend, running a successful baking blog, Quinn remembers little or nothing of what happened on that fateful night. All she knows is she survived, an escaped patient from a nearby mental asylum was the perpetrator and she owes her life to th cop that was first on the scene and who shot the perpetrator. Coop is her rock. She meets him once or twice a year and he is always on the end of a phone if needed.
She needs this security as she relies on xanax to to keep her calm. She's well known to the public after being hounded by the press after the event. Labelled a "Final Girl" after being the only survivor, a term used in slasher movies, the press now had a threesome of characters with this label, after lone survivors Lisa Milner and Sam Boyd before her were both given the same label. While Lisa has tried to contact Quinn and has been well known in th media, Sam has disappeared off the radar completely, no one knowing of her whereabouts for the last few years.

When Lisa apparently commits suicide out of the blue, which eventually leads to a murder investigation, Sam Boyd appears on Quinn's doorstep. Frightened by Lisa's death, she wants to meet Quinn and spend time with her. Quinn's agrees to let her stay with her for a while but as things begin to unravel all is not what it seems with Sam as she appears push and test Quinn into doing things she doesnt want to and continuously asks about that night, the one Quinn can't remember and has no intention of.

This a well written and enjoyable read. Quinn a very well written central character nicely balanced with vulnerability, fear and anxiety along with anger. As the story unfolds we do get flashbacks to that night as we try to piece together what happened. The pacing of the book was excellent for the most part with nice tight editing and little wastage.
There were occasions where I though the story and characters were going a little array but this was all resolved at the end with the "reveals" and made perfect sense by the time I had finished.

A really enjoyable read and something a bit different, I would thoroughly recommend this book and look forward to future works by Riley Sager with interest and anticipation.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK and Riley Sager for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Quincy Carpenter has spent ten years trying to forget about a massacre that she barely escaped from, but the media calling her and two other girls 'the Final Girls' is making it hard. She's never met the other two girls who survived events similar to her own, but, when one of the girls is found dead, it brings the other remaining final girl, Sam, into Quincy's life. Urging Quincy to think once again about the horrific event that she experienced, Sam's presence in Quincy's life pushes her to make increasingly erratic decisions as she struggles to remember what really happened that night.

Thank you for Netgalley for approving me for this book. Truly, I wanted to love it as much as the concept suggested I would. A psychological thriller about strong ladies rebuilding their lives and unraveling the truth sounded right up my street. The main story is interspersed with chapters slowly revealing what happened during the night that made Quincy a final girl, and these chapters are genuinely compelling. Where the story unfortunately fell short for me was Quincy's motivation. She makes a series of irrational decisions fuelled only because she is a final girl, a moniker she has worked so hard to get away from. Nonetheless, a well-written story with an interesting concept.

Found this story a little difficult to get into, but then, well I could not put it down. The storyline draws you in until you are hooked. A couple of time I thought I knew what would happen next, but I was wrong and the ending took me totally by surprise

I struggled with this book I didn't like the main character and it took much perseverance to finish it. The one good thing about it is the ending which I didn't guess or expect that's why I have given the book 3*

A well-plotted thriller with two parallel storylines which both move at a startling pace.

Tense, compelling and I highly recommend it.

Gripping read from the start. Real page turner! Highly recommended

This could go down as my favorite book of 2017. I was hooked. Welcome to the final girls, the girls who are the only survivors of a massacre. The author does an amazing job of drawing you into the lives of 3 final girls, it's an intense read with twists and turns all over the place. I will be keeping an eye out for more books of this author as its an awesome read.

This book has all the elements I look for in a good psychological thriller, it's twisty and engrossing. I was hooked at the start and I was always going to read through to the end but I did have a few issues with it. I never really took to Quincy as a character and some of her behaviour beggars belief. There was a plot twist that I had earlier considered and disregarded so that didn't fit for me. From the other reviews I have seen this is clearly going to be a best seller but it fell a bit short of the wow factor for me.

This is a dark and unsettling psychological thriller that made me uncomfortable but compelled to get the bottom of the various mysteries in the novel. A hungry media have dubbed Quinn Carpenter, Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd, the infamous Final Girls, a term derived from horror movies for the last woman standing in a bloodbath where a serial killer has murdered everyone else. The women have never met but the suicide of Lisa is the catalyst for Quinn's carefully rebuilt world to begin to disintegrate. Quinn has a beautiful apartment in Manhattan, brought from the proceeds of legal settlements and media interviews. She has a fiance, Jeff, who makes her feel secure, and is planning to marry him. She is supported unwaveringly by Coop, the cop who shot the killer and saved her from the massacre at Pine Cottage where all her friends died. She writes a popular baking blog, which has helped her maintain her sanity through dark times and she relies on Xanax, to mentally cope with the world. She is scared by Lisa's death and the myriad of implications it might have for her.

Quinn receives a visit from Sam Boyd whom she invites to stay in her apartment. No-one else knows what it is like to be a Final Girl, and when the media prints a photograph of the two of them, she becomes closer to Sam seeking reassurance and support. However, Quinn's personality begins to markedly change as she begins to engage in risky and dangerous behaviours and actions that jeopardises the life she has so painstakingly built. She has no memory of the horror that occurred at Pine Cottage but details start to come back to her. She has never been able to call the killer by his name, this triggers an emotional panic attack and Sam is pushing her to remember. Can she trust Sam? In a story full of twists, we come to finally understand precisely what happened at Pine Cottage.

This is a atmospheric thriller I could not stop reading. It has a compelling narrative that grips, you get drawn into into the shaky and unreliable world of Quinn Carpenter. It is so well plotted to ramp up the suspense and the feeling of fear that pervades the book keeps you on tenterhooks. I was mesmerised by the character of Quinn, so stunningly developed and that of Sam, as I wondered who exactly she was and what did she want from Quinn? Sam insinuates herself into Quinn's life and apartment with no intention of leaving whatsoever. A brilliant and gripping read that I highly recommend. Thanks to Random House Ebury for an ARC.

A really good story of three girls who are the only survivors of a ruthless mass murderer. The story is told by "Quincy" who is one of the three girls. It is ten years on from the horrific attack and is indeed a great psychological thriller.
As I do not want to giveaway any of the plot but what I will say is "buy it, read it". It was hard to put down, gripping but also hard at times to digest. It is an excellent work of fiction and I think is right up there in the league of Stephen King.

I was drawn to this book when I first saw it being mentioned on social media – the cover is stunning and very striking, and when I read the synopsis I simply had to get my hands on it despite the fact that I’m a complete wimp and knew this book would unnerve me!

Final Girls is a novel about Quincy, a girl who was the lone survivor in a massacre at a secluded cottage in the woods. The novel starts ten years on from the massacre and Quincy appears to be putting the horrific trauma behind her – she has a successful baking blog and is in a happy relationship.

The Final Girls is a named coined by the media for the women who have each survived a massacre where everyone else was killed, basically after the girl who is always left standing at the end of teen horror movies. Lisa was the first final girl, and she wrote a book about her experiences and since then has attempted to contact and support other people who have been through the same thing. The group consisted of Lisa and Samantha, and then when Quincy survives a massacre she becomes part of the group. She doesn’t want to join the actual group that Lisa has set up, but whether she likes it or not, she has been deemed a final girl. Quincy just wants to put what happened behind her – her memories of that traumatic night are buried and she doesn’t want to remember so she doesn’t want to talk about it or think about, she wants to take her meds and just move on. When Lisa comes to harm, Quincy is left reeling and in fear that something may happen to her too. This leads to her letting Sam into her life and from then on I was on edge. I didn’t trust Sam, I wasn’t even sure if Quincy was telling the truth about what happened. My brain was constantly mulling things over in the background trying to put it all together and work out what was going to happen.

The tension constantly ramps up throughout the book. I loved the way it was predominantly set in the present day but interspersed amongst that are short chapters leading up to the massacre where all Quincy’s friends were murdered. Quincy, under Sam’s influence starts behaving out of character and the stress of what happened to Lisa and the possibility of her memory of the massacre coming back lead to her acting out of character. It seems like she begins to lose her grip on what’s important in her life, and things start to spiral for her. She doesn’t have a support system in place and things start to turn ugly for her.

Once I got to the last quarter of the book I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was compelled to keep reading because I had to know what had happened in that house but I almost wanted to cover my eyes, if that makes sense. Sager gives a real sense of what it must have been like to be in that situation and terrified for your life and it’s hard to read, yet is impossible to look away from.

I had so many suspicions about various characters, and I had various scenarios running through my mind as I was reading, but I never quite figured out who was responsible. I only realised a couple of pages before it was revealed and I love that I couldn’t quite manage to work it all out before then. It’s not often that a book blindsides me but this one absolutely did.

This book is so dark and twisty, it’s addictive and compelling and utterly unputdownable! I literally started reading it early evening and I didn’t put it down until I’d finished reading at gone midnight! It genuinely gave me the creeps, and I was really glad that I wasn’t home alone after I finished reading at night time!

Final Girls is due to be published on 11th July and can be pre-ordered now.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly, I would like to say, that I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I thought, that it will be yet another book about poor girl, who suffered bad things in her life and now tries to be perfect.
However, I was pleasantly surprised, to find a main character, who was damaged, yet tried to work through whatever life threw in her way. Actually, all the characters, that were mentioned in this book weren't just heroes or villains, each and everyone of them, had two sides of them.
The story had some twists, that I wasn't expecting at all and the ending just blow my mind. I still can't wrap my mind around it...So, so good.

I will definitely recommend this book to anyone, who loves thrillers and mysteries.

This really is the book of 2017! Wow i haven't enjoyed a book as much for years. I won't go into the plot too much but the twist is amazing!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the characters were easy to engage with and the story was quite a unique idea. The sense of suspense stayed right until the last few chapters which made it quite a page turner. Although I suspected something was off with a couple of the characters throughout, I could never put my finger on exactly what was wrong. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes thriller or suspense novels.

Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter was the soul survivor of a horror-movie style massacre that happened on a holiday with her friends. To her dismay, Quincy is dubbed a Final Girl by the press, and becomes an unwilling member of a very exclusive group with two other Final Girls, Lisa and Sam. Despite attempts by Lisa and the media, the three girls never meet. Desperate not to be defined by what happened to her, Quincy struggles to move on with her life. She has a successful website and a nice, lawyer boyfriend. All is going quite well, until the news that Lisa has been found dead, with her wrists slit. Until Sam turns up on Quincy’s doorstep and draws her back into her pain and anger. In a rollercoaster of events, Quincy finds herself under suspicion from the law, doubting Sam’s motives, and terrified by her own actions.

I spent about two thirds of this book thoroughly enjoying it but finding it pretty predictable. I thought I knew who was doing what (although not why), but WOW was I wrong. There are so many twists and layers, but they make perfect sense. Every mystery in unravelled in an unexpected but perfectly plausible way – it’s brilliant.

I actually didn’t like the characters very much – especially Quincy. She was quite wimpy and really annoying how she refused to tell anyone what was going on or ask for help, even though she had people she knew would be willing to help her. But considering her background I was able to forgive her for her silly decisions. I also didn’t like the amount of sexual content, but that’s just me (don’t worry, it isn’t overly graphic or unnecessary – I just don’t particularly enjoy reading about sex), but the things I didn’t like didn’t detract from the suspense or mystery at all.

Final Girls is a brilliant story: Clever and very well-written. The best thriller of 2017 (so far).

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Keeps you guessing until the very end ...... Tense twist and turns

A really original read that kept me gripped highly recommended !!

The idea to pay homage to classic horror slasher movies whilst also bringing in a thriller aspect to the whole piece is one I liked (and no doubt t won’t be long before an adaptation of this comes to a cinema screen near you – it could make a very good film), and I’m hoping the surname choose of Carpenter was a hat tip to the great John Carpenter. But I wanted more than I got. Yes, it does well with dangling red herrings in front of the reader, and I was slower to pick up some clues than I normally am in such books, but in the end I just thought it was, solid. Enjoyable enough, fine for a holiday read, but not a book I’d go out of my way to recommend as a ‘must read’.

Quincy Carpenter, Samantha Boyd and Lisa Milner - what do these ladies have in common?

They survived three different kinds of massacre. They were the last women standing. They were the Final Girls.

Ten years ago, Quincy and her friends met a horrific tragedy in the remote Pine Cottage, but only one girl survived. The press people hounded her for months, her story was vehemently featured in all TV news channels, newspapers, tabloids, podcasts and on the interwebs. She endured it all, until she could finally moved on.

Until Lisa Milner, the original Final Girl was found dead. The second survivor, Samantha Boyd who initially had gone missing suddenly appeared in Quincy's doorstep, and soon they found themselves in Pine Cottage again, reliving the manslaughter that happened a decade ago, fearful, anxious, scared to death. Literally.

This has been a bone-chilling, mouth-gaping, mind-boggling suspense thriller that had me wide awake at night even after reading it. The deaths, the ripper, the screams, the blood, the weapons, the murderer - everything was a haze and for the rest of the story, I thought I got the murderer right. Until I was deep into the latter chapters when I realized, my guess was wrong. I was mistaken not just once, but thrice.

I won't further go into detail about the plot or story because I don’t want to spoil it for you. But know this, Riley Sager's writing is clean and fresh and chilling and something to look forward to. If you're a fan of thrillers/suspense/whodunnit mysteries, Final Girls is a good pick!

I had seen this reviewed on someone else's blog and the name and concept made me want to read it immediately. I was kind of horrified to find out that it's not released til July so I went and asked for it on NetGalley and they very kindly complied. Thanks NetGalley, you completely put me out of my misery!
The name "Final Girls" derives from horror movies where there's always one girl left. She's faced the slasher/serial killer and has somehow escaped where all of her friends have been brutally murdered. Quincy has been given the nickname of a Final Girl by the media, after surviving a horrific attack in Pine Cottage, a cabin in the woods that left all of her college friends viciously murdered. There are other Final Girls too, each the victims in their own private but conversely, extremely public horror movies- Lisa, who narrowly avoided being one of nine sorority girls murdered by a serial killer and Sam, who was tortured by the "Sack Man" at a motel she used to work in, where all the guests were left for dead. It's ten years later and Quincy now writes a baking blog and lives as quiet a life as she can with her boyfriend. That is until fellow Final Girl Lisa is found dead and Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep. Did Lisa really kill herself and is Sam a friend or a foe? It looks like someone is after the Final Girls and is trying to drag Quincy back to that forest where she will eventually find out what really happened in Pine Cottage. I am definitely the right market for this- I love horrors, especially 80's slashers so this was right up my street. I was completely addicted to this book. I took a brief break in reading it (I read it in one day) to go to the cinema but spent the time on the way there and on the way back going "I wonder what's going to happen next in my book…and what the hell happened in Pine Cottage?!!!" etc. Sorry, Cilian and Ailbhe for my poor company that evening. I also held my kindle and continued to read whilst simultaneously making tea. Boiling hot water and a lack of attention do not mix, kids. Some of the plot points are a little bit stretched if I'm honest and it was a bit trashy in places, but that's kind of what I liked about it, it made it feel more like an authentic horror movie but in book form. Awesome!

An interesting story, some unlikely turns in the plot, but overall worth reading. I didn't see the final twist coming.
I would read more books by this author.