The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Penguin Publishing Group | July 2018 | 384 pgs

Source: Publisher via Edelweiss

I enjoyed Riley Sager's first novel, Final Girls, a lot and when I learnt that he has a new book out I knew I'd to read it. 

Fifteen years ago, Emma Davis attended a summer camp located at a secluded woodland. Camp Nightingale is privately owned by a family and it seems its land has a history and is passed down by generations. The all-girls camp is known to cater to the wealthier families and it is no wonder some girls called it the 'Rich Bitches Camp' behind their backs. While not all the girls are mean, Vivian Hawthorne stands out from the rest for her beauty, her bluntness and her confidence. It is easy to understand why Emma look up to her and wants to be accepted, after all Vivian is older and she seems to know what she wants and gets them eventually. Thanks to the overcrowdedness of the camp under her age category, Emma is assigned to share the same cabin as Vivian and her two friends, Natalie and Allison. Emma becomes part of Vivian's entourage as the story progresses, and she learned of a game they always love to play - two truths and a lie. Until one day Vivian, Natalie and Allison disappear and Emma's world is turned upside down.

Now at twenty-eight, Emma is an artist but the things she's painted are mostly about her three friends back then. The day she holds her first gallery show, she meets Franny Harris-White. Franny is the owner of Camp Nightingale and the family property, and after closing the camp for so many years she is going to reopen it and she wants Emma to join her and teaches the girls to paint. Against her better judgement, Emma agrees to her invite despite the girls' disappearance still haunts her. And this is the setup of the suspense here. 

Riley Sager has delivered another intense and breathtaking thriller in The Last Time I Lied. Like his first novel Final Girls, the story alternates between the present and the past and this was told in Emma's POV throughout the book. What made this book so intriguing is aside from the mystery surrounding the missing girls and Emma's credibility (after all the girls loved the game they played and the purpose was to seek the lies, not the truths), there is the history surrounding Lake Midnight (where Camp Nightingale is) and the gothic legend surrounding it. And once again, Mr. Sager excels in the characters developments and the way he tempts his reader into reading page after page until everything is clicked into place at its finale. An engrossing read and will appease to fans of the suspense/thrillers genre. 

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