An unsolved massacre set in a gothic mansion which still continues to be haunted by the nights event? Heavens, yessssss.
The Thirteenth tale meets Verity in this engrossing new Riley Sager novel!
Kit has been working as a caregiver for 12 years, until her repute is tarnished by an unfortunate accident resulting in the death of her patient. Unable to find any new job, Kit is assigned another patient by her old nursing company. Her new patient is none other than Lenora hope, the sole survivor and possibly the culprit of the hope family massacre in 1929.
Mr. & Mrs. Hope and their young daughter Virginia Hope were found dead, brutally stabbed & hanged on a Tuesday night in 1929. Apart from Lenora nobody else was home and she was accused of killing her own family heartlessly but never arrested because of lack of evidence. Even the murder weapon was never found. The town was terrorized by this incident and for several years, the ghastly murders adorned the newspapers and boggled the minds of reporters and detectives. Lenora hope became a ghost story, told by everyone, the tale of her murdering her own family turned into a spooky fable.
“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”
Lenora hasn’t left her house, Hope’s end, since the incident, paralyzed by strokes over the years, she can only now use her left hand. With that hand, she uses a typewriter to communicate.
Although her patient is now harmless and invalid, Kit can’t help but feel scarred by her very presence. But curiosity takes over her fear, when one day Lenora types a single sentence:
I will tell you everything.
Now kit has a chance to find out what happened on that horrendous night in 1929? Why did Lenora kill her entire family? Why was there no evidence? Was it really Lenora’s doing or was it someone else?
Hope’s end is a colossal rotting mansion located at the edge of the cliff such that the view from the terrace shows the tyrant waves below, eating away the chunks of earth surrounding the slanted house. Kit hears sounds at night and sees faint silhouettes of people in empty rooms. When she asks Lenora, she tells us that its Virginia hope, her sister.
And that makes kit wonder if the rumor of the house being haunted by the ghost of Virginia is true. But things take a grisly when another dead body is found at Hope’s end. Even after all those years, the Hope’s end curse continues.
I’ve read Riley Sager before and this is his best work yet. The novel is not outright scarry. There is no screaming banshee or bleeding walls or the evil mirrors with horrifying messages. But as you continue to read, fear instill in you slowly. The worst kind. And halfway through you will find out you can no longer sleep.
Although this is not Stephen King yet the perfect mixture of horror and thrill makes you wolf down this book. I thought ‘Never Lie” would be the best thriller I’d read in a while. Clearly, I was wrong. This book takes the first position.
There were so many plot twists! When I thought that this book couldn’t get any sinister, it actually got way eviler! Brilliant!
Also, I love the way the novel ended. Everything nicely summed up with a very satisfying epilogue. The story was unsettling, the ending was not.
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