Tara's Book Addiction: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Riley Sager is definitely an auto-buy author for me. See below for my thoughts on The Last Time I Lied!

*I received an arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. I am an Amazon affiliate and I may receive a small compensation if you make a purchase after clicking on one of my links.

The Last Time I Lied
by Riley Sager
Publication Date: July 3, 2018
by Dutton

Genre: Thriller, Mystery

Pages: 370

Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Format: eARC
Goodreads │Amazon │Kindle

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2 (4.5/5 Stars)

Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she--or anyone--saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings--massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. The paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to try to find out what really happened to her friends.
Yet it's immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by memories from fifteen years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp's twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing threats from both man and nature in the present.
And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realizes it may come at a deadly price.

It was Emma Davis's first time away at camp when her friends and cabin mates mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. 15 years later, Emma is given the chance to go back to Camp Nightingale to be a painting instructor, and she uses this opportunity to find out what really happened to her missing friends. Will she find out the truth about the night her friends went missing?

Sager has written another book that I devoured. It was suspenseful and intriguing. This book, (as well as his other novel, Final Girls), made me feel like I was watching a horror movie. The creepy setting of Camp Nightingale really added to the horror movie feel. Camp Nightingale was like a camp right out of Friday the 13th. It's eerie at night and bad things happen there, like when Emma's friends go missing. Emma is an unreliable narrator, and I was constantly wondering if she had something to do with her friends' disappearances.

I loved the glimpses into the past that are given after some chapters. I got to read what it was like 15 years prior, when Emma's friends went missing. Sager always has a smooth transition between the past and present time in his books, so things never got confusing.

I can see this story being turned into a film. Interesting and vibrant characters, an intriguing mystery, creepy moments, and an unreliable main character all made this book a fun and fast paced read.

Definitely recommend checking this one out!

⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2