“At seventeen, Lenora Hope/ Hung her sister with a rope/ Stabbed her father with a knife/ Took her mother’s happy life/ ‘It wasn’t me,’ Lenora said/ But she’s the only one not dead,” (Sager 9-10).
Kit McDeere is familiar with the childhood chant of Lenora Hope, the young teenaged girl who all those years ago was accused of murdering her family. But she was never found guilty, and hasn’t been seen for fifty-four years. Until Kit is hired as Lenora’s caregiver and expected to move into Hope’s End, where the murders took place. Kit would rather do anything than take the job, but after Lenora’s previous nurse fled in the middle of the night, and with her own accusations against her, Kit really doesn’t have any other options. And after a series of strokes and a case of polio has left Lenora bed-ridden and partially paralyzed, she really isn’t a threat. But Lenora has taken a shine to Kit, and with the use of a typewriter she has decided to tell Kit everything that happened the night of the murders.
This is my first Riley Sager book and it might be my last. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy The Only One Left, I actually enjoyed quite a lot about it. The book is incredibly atmospheric, Sager does an excellent job describing the dilapidated Hope’s End where bits of the old mansion are literally breaking off and falling into the sea as well as the wrongness about the house, both from the way it tilts to the foreboding feeling it’s inhabitants create. It has many great Gothic qualities to it, the house and its characters feeling like something out of a V.C. Andrews novel. (bring back the keyhole covers!). I enjoyed the mystery and going along with Kit as she became committed to learning Lenora’s story while dealing with her own past. I also enjoyed that the story alternated between Kit’s perspective and Lenora’s story as she was typing it out.
There are a few twists and turns, some of them good, a few that did actually shock me, but the book really lost me near the end. It seemed to be twist after twist after twist each new revelation getting more ridiculous as the story went on. Some of the characters are intriguing, none of them good but all of them beautiful shades of morally grey except that some of them turn more comical near the end. I could not understand Kit’s father, and Mrs. Baker became more humourous then terrifying, and Lenora ended up more bizarre than anything. And then certain aspects of Kit go ignored, like the fact that this thirty-year-old caregiver is sleeping with her nineteen-year-old neighbour, technically legal but not right. But this is never seen as wrong behaviour, it’s just a way to introduce an, ultimately, insignificant character so he can briefly show up later to provide some crucial information.
A mix of Turn of the Screw and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, there are parts to The Only One Left that are wonderfully creepy, but like Hope’s End in crumbles and falls apart in the end. A fun journey with little payoff, I’m not sure if Sager is an author I’ll be continuing with.
Publication: June 20th 2023
Publisher: Dutton
Pages: 385 pages (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Gothic, Mystery
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:
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.
Sarah O'Connor 