by Riley Sager
First published 2023
Kit McDeere takes a job as a home health aide at Hope's End, a crumbling mansion on the Maine coast. Her patient is Lenora Hope, now in her seventies and confined to a wheelchair after strokes left her unable to speak. In 1929, when Lenora was seventeen, someone murdered her entire family in this same house. The killer hung her sister and stabbed both parents to death. Police suspected Lenora but never proved her guilt. She has lived as a recluse in the mansion ever since, never speaking about that night. Kit's predecessor fled suddenly in the middle of the night, leaving no explanation. Lenora communicates by typing on an old typewriter, and one evening she makes Kit an offer. She wants to tell her story about the massacre. As Kit helps Lenora type her account, new details emerge that contradict the official version. But Kit discovers troubling information about why the previous nurse left so abruptly. She begins to question whether Lenora is telling the truth or manipulating her for darker purposes.
Genres: suspense, mystery, thriller, gothic
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Hope's End, Maine
Period: 1929
383 pages · Hardcover · Dutton
Content warnings: mental-illness, violence