Riley Sager
Riley Sager has published 10 books. The recommended reading order starts with Final Girls (2017).
Riley Sager is the pen name of American author Todd Ritter, who writes horror and thriller novels. His debut novel, Final Girls, published in 2017, was called “the first great thriller of 2017” by Stephen King. Sager’s books have been published in over 35 countries and have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. He is also a former journalist, editor, and graphic designer, and he now lives in Princeton, New Jersey, having grown up in Pennsylvania. His novels include Middle of the Night and The Only One Left, with With a Vengeance due in 2025. Sager also enjoys reading, cooking, and going to the movies, with a particular fondness for Rear Window, Jaws, and Mary Poppins.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Standalone Novels
- TagsthrillercrimemysterysuspenseDescriptionSome traumas are so deep you bury them alive, and Quincy Carpenter has spent a decade doing exactly that. She's the sole survivor of the Pine Cottage massacre, one of three women the media christened "The Final Girls"—a club nobody wants to join, bound by blood and horror they've never discussed with each other. Until now. Quincy has built a careful life on the ruins of that night: a baking blog, a steady boyfriend, enough Xanax to keep the memories at bay. She doesn't remember what happened in those woods, and she's fine with that. But when Lisa, the first Final Girl, turns up dead in her bathtub, and Sam—the second—arrives unannounced at Quincy's door like a beautiful, reckless storm, everything Quincy has constructed begins to crack. Sam doesn't do careful. She wants Quincy to remember, to face what happened, to stop hiding behind her perfectly frosted life. And as the lies start unraveling and the police close in, Quincy realizes she has no choice. Because someone knows what really happened at Pine Cottage, and they're not finished. To survive this time, Quincy will have to do the one thing she's been avoiding for ten years: remember. And the truth waiting in those buried memories might be more terrifying than anything she's imagined.Publication dateJuly 11, 2017Amazon rating4.2/5Print length352LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagsthrillersuspensehorrormysteryDescriptionWhat happens when the past refuses to stay buried, and the only way forward is to return to the place where everything went wrong? Emma Davis was fifteen when her three cabin mates vanished without a trace at Camp Nightingale, leaving her as the sole witness to a mystery that was never solved. Now, thirteen years later, she's a successful artist whose paintings are haunted by the same birch trees that surrounded the camp, and she's been invited back as a counselor when the camp reopens. It's a chance to confront the lies she told that summer, the guilt that has shadowed her ever since, and perhaps finally uncover what really happened to those three girls. But returning to Nightingale means stepping back into a web of secrets, and Emma quickly realizes that someone doesn't want the truth to surface. Riley Sager crafts a taut psychological thriller that moves between past and present with the precision of a tightening noose, building dread with every revelation. The isolated camp setting becomes a character in itself, claustrophobic and menacing, while Emma's unreliable narration keeps you questioning everything you think you know. This is a story about memory, manipulation, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive—a propulsive page-turner that understands the particular terror of being young, vulnerable, and utterly alone.Publication dateJuly 3, 2018Amazon rating4.3/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagshorrorsuspensemysterythrillerDescriptionThis is a thriller that understands the particular terror of being broke and desperate. Riley Sager traps you inside a Gothic apartment building where the rent is too good to be true and the rules are designed to isolate you completely. No visitors. No nights away. No questions. Jules needs this job. She's lost everything—boyfriend, apartment, stability—and apartment-sitting in a glamorous New York City landmark feels like salvation. The money is absurd. The building is stunning. The catch reveals itself slowly, then all at once. When another tenant vanishes, Jules realizes the rules aren't about preserving quiet luxury. They're about control. About making sure no one notices when you disappear. Sager writes urban paranoia with surgical precision. The building itself becomes a character—beautiful, suffocating, full of locked doors and residents who won't meet your eyes. Jules's isolation is complete, her desperation palpable. You feel the walls closing in as she digs for answers no one wants her to find. This is Rosemary's Baby by way of economic anxiety, a modern Gothic that knows your bank account can trap you as effectively as any haunted mansion. The twists come hard and fast, but what lingers is the dread of being utterly alone in a building full of people.Publication dateJuly 2, 2019Amazon rating4.2/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- Tagshorrorthrillermysterysuspensememoiryoung-adultDescriptionMaggie Holt doesn't believe in ghosts, which is inconvenient when you've inherited the most infamous haunted house in America. Twenty-five years ago, her father fled Baneberry Hall after three weeks of terror and wrote House of Horrors, a bestselling memoir that made their family famous and their Vermont town a destination for the morbidly curious. Maggie was too young to remember any of it, and she's spent her adult life convinced the whole thing was fiction. Now her father is dead, the house is hers, and she's going back to renovate and sell. Simple enough. Except the locals haven't forgiven her family for turning their quiet town into a sideshow, and the people who lived through her father's story are still lurking in the shadows, watching. Then there's Baneberry Hall itself—a sprawling Victorian that seems to breathe with secrets. The whispers start small, but soon Maggie is experiencing the same inexplicable events her father described in his book, the ones she dismissed as lies. Every creak, every shadow, every impossible occurrence pulls her deeper into a mystery she can't rationalize away. Riley Sager crafts a deviously layered thriller that plays with perception and truth, weaving between past and present as Maggie uncovers what really happened in those three terrifying weeks. The question isn't whether the house is haunted—it's whether Maggie will survive learning the answer.Publication dateJune 30, 2020Amazon rating4.3/5Print length400LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- Tagssuspensehorrorthrillerhistorical-fictionmysterycrimeDescriptionThere's something uniquely terrifying about being trapped in a car with someone you're starting not to trust. It's November 1991, and Charlie Jordan—still reeling from her best friend's murder at the hands of the Campus Killer—has made what might be a fatal mistake: accepting a ride home with Josh Baxter, a near-stranger from the campus ride board. What starts as an awkward road trip quickly curdles into paranoia. Josh's story about his sick father doesn't quite add up. He won't let Charlie see what's in the trunk. And the more miles they put between themselves and campus, the more Charlie's movie-obsessed mind starts connecting dots she desperately hopes don't form a picture. Is she sitting next to a serial killer, or is grief warping her judgment into something dangerous? Riley Sager traps you in that passenger seat alongside Charlie, turning every rest stop and dark stretch of highway into a pressure cooker of dread. The brilliance here is the doubt—Charlie's unreliable perspective means you're never quite sure if you're watching a thriller or a tragedy of mistrust unfold. With no cell phone, no escape route, and hours of empty road ahead, Charlie has to decide whether to trust her instincts or her companion. Either way, she has to make it until morning. The clock is ticking, the highway is endless, and survival has never felt so uncertain.Publication dateJune 29, 2021Amazon rating4/5Print length336LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagssuspensehorrorthrillermysteryDescriptionWhat happens when grief turns you into a voyeur, and the lives you watch through binoculars become more real than your own? Casey Fletcher has fled to her family's Vermont lake house with nothing but bourbon and a pair of binoculars for company. A widowed actress dodging scandal, she fills her days watching the couple across the water—Tom and Katherine Royce, all gleaming surfaces and enviable beauty. He's a tech mogul. She's a former model. They're the kind of people who look like they've never known a dark day. But Casey's gaze is sharp, and the longer she watches, the more cracks appear in their perfect facade. When she pulls Katherine from the lake one afternoon, their worlds collide, and what begins as friendship quickly curdles into something far more unsettling. Then Katherine disappears. Casey's certain Tom is responsible, but certainty is a dangerous thing when you're drunk on grief and obsession. Riley Sager crafts a slow-burn thriller that shimmers with menace, where every reflection on the water hides something beneath. The lake is placid, the secrets are not, and by the time the truth surfaces, nothing will look the way it did from shore.Publication dateJuly 7, 2022Amazon rating3.9/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherHodder & Stoughton
- TagssuspensehorrorthrillercrimemysteryDescriptionIn 1929, the Hope family was slaughtered in their cliffside Maine mansion, and seventeen-year-old Lenora Hope became the prime suspect in a crime she could never be proven to have committed—a tragedy so infamous it devolved into a schoolyard rhyme that still echoes decades later. Now it's 1983, and Lenora, elderly and wheelchair-bound after a series of strokes left her unable to speak, has spent her entire life sequestered in Hope's End, the very house where her family died, never once stepping beyond its crumbling walls or breaking her silence about that blood-soaked night. When home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives to care for Lenora after the previous nurse vanished without explanation, she finds herself drawn into a chilling proposition: Lenora wants to tell her story, tapping it out letter by letter on an old typewriter, finally revealing what really happened all those years ago. But as Kit transcribes Lenora's account of the events leading up to the murders, inconsistencies begin to surface, and unsettling truths about the nurse who fled emerge, forcing Kit to question whether the frail woman in her care is a wrongly accused victim or something far more sinister—and whether she herself might be in terrible danger within the decaying walls of Hope's End.Publication dateJune 20, 2023Amazon rating4.4/5Print length398LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagsthrillersuspensehorrormysteryDescriptionThis book understands that childhood trauma doesn't just fade—it festers, waiting in the dark corners of memory until you're forced to face it again. Riley Sager takes one of our deepest fears—a child vanishing in the night—and builds a slow-burn mystery that refuses to let you look away. Thirty years ago, ten-year-old Ethan Marsh woke up in a slashed tent to find his best friend Billy gone, stolen by someone who crept into their suburban backyard while they slept. Billy was never found. Now Ethan is back on Hemlock Circle, sleepless and haunted, when strange things start happening in the middle of the night. Someone is prowling the cul-de-sac. Signs of Billy appear in his yard. Is it a sick joke, or has the impossible happened? Desperate for answers, Ethan digs into that terrible night, reconnecting with old neighbors and venturing into the woods where Billy once claimed ghosts lived—woods that hide a crumbling estate and a secretive institute conducting research no one talks about. Sager masterfully weaves suburban dread with genuine psychological tension, proving that the most terrifying monsters aren't always supernatural. The past doesn't stay buried here. It watches. It waits. And sometimes, it comes back for what it left behind.Publication dateJune 18, 2024Amazon rating4.1/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagsmysterythrillersuspensecrimeDescriptionRiley Sager returns with another standalone thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. A woman's past comes roaring back when the man who destroyed her family is released from prison. She's spent years building a new life, a new identity. Now she has to decide how far she'll go to settle old scores. The setup is classic Sager: a seemingly ordinary protagonist harboring extraordinary secrets. The tension winds tighter with every chapter. What starts as a story about revenge becomes something more complicated, more dangerous. Because the past never stays buried, and the truth is never as simple as it seems. Sager knows how to craft a page-turner. The twists come fast and sharp. The moral lines blur until you're not sure who to root for anymore. This is thriller writing that understands the genre's pleasures—the propulsive plotting, the gasp-worthy revelations—while delivering characters who feel real enough to haunt you after the final page. If you loved his earlier work, you'll devour this. If you're new to Sager, prepare to lose a night of sleep.Publication dateJune 10, 2025Amazon rating3.7/5Print length393LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
- TagssuspensehorrormysterythrillerDescriptionRiley Sager has built a career on twisting the familiar into something unsettling, and with The Unknown, he delivers another standalone thriller that refuses to let you settle into comfort. This is a writer who understands that the best scares come not from what lurks in the shadows, but from the slow realization that the ground beneath your feet was never solid to begin with, and here he leans into that instinct with the precision of a master craftsman who knows exactly when to tighten the screws. What sets this apart from the crowded field of psychological thrillers is Sager's ability to marry propulsive plotting with genuine emotional stakes, creating a narrative that moves with the urgency of a page-turner while never sacrificing the human complexity that makes you care about the outcome. The Unknown operates in that sweet spot between literary ambition and pure entertainment, offering readers the satisfaction of a cleverly constructed mystery alongside prose that lingers long after the final revelation. It's the kind of book that makes you question your assumptions about genre fiction, proving once again that a thriller can be both intellectually engaging and impossible to put down, a rare combination that Sager has made look deceptively effortless.Publication dateAugust 4, 2026Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherDutton
Frequently Asked Questions about Riley Sager
Riley Sager writes standalone novels, so you do not have to read them in any particular order. Each book offers a new story with different characters and settings. However, if you prefer to read them in the order they were published, you can start with Final Girls, published in 2017. Following that would be The Last Time I Lied (2018), Lock Every Door (2019), Home Before Dark (2020), and Survive the Night (2021). This chronological approach allows readers to see the evolution of the author's work over time, though it is not necessary for understanding individual plots.
The best place to start with Riley Sager is with any of his standalone novels, as they are not connected by plot or character. Many readers enjoy beginning with his debut novel, Final Girls, published in 2017. This book introduces his signature style of suspenseful storytelling with a horror-tinged mystery. Alternatively, Lock Every Door, published in 2019, is also a popular entry point. Its plot, involving a young woman taking a job as an overnight house sitter in a luxurious and eerie Manhattan apartment building, offers a compelling introduction to Sager's knack for creating atmospheric and suspenseful narratives that keep readers engaged from beginning to end.
No, you do not have to read Riley Sager's books in order. He writes entirely standalone novels. Each book features a new cast of characters, a unique plot, and a distinct setting. This means readers can pick up any book and enjoy it without needing prior knowledge of other titles. Whether you choose his debut, Final Girls, or a more recent release, the story will be self-contained. This approach makes it easy for new readers to discover his work without feeling lost or needing to catch up on a series.
Riley Sager writes standalone novels. This means that each book he publishes is a complete story with its own set of characters and plot, and they are not part of a connected series. Readers can jump into any of his books without needing to have read previous ones. This format allows for a fresh experience with every new release, offering a variety of suspenseful tales that can be enjoyed individually.
As of late 2023, Riley Sager has written at least nine standalone novels. His debut, Final Girls, was published in 2017. Since then, he has released subsequent titles including The Last Time I Lied (2018), Lock Every Door (2019), Home Before Dark (2020), Survive the Night (2021), The House Across the Lake (2022), and The Only One Left (2023). The exact number may continue to grow as he publishes new works.
The first book Riley Sager wrote and published is Final Girls. This novel was released in 2017. It tells the story of a young woman who is the sole survivor of a massacre at a remote cabin, only to find herself entangled in a new mystery years later. Final Girls established Sager's reputation for crafting suspenseful thrillers with a strong sense of atmosphere and unexpected twists, setting the stage for his subsequent successful standalone novels.
As of late 2023, Riley Sager's most recent book is The Only One Left, published in 2023. This gothic thriller is set in 1983 on a crumbling estate in Maine, where a caregiver is hired to look after a woman accused of murdering her family decades earlier. The novel explores dark secrets and unreliable narration, characteristic of Sager's suspenseful style. It follows his other standalone novels, continuing his pattern of delivering atmospheric and twist-filled mysteries.
Riley Sager writes suspense novels, often incorporating elements of horror and mystery. His books frequently feature themes of unreliable narration, hidden secrets, and suspenseful plots set in atmospheric locations. While not strictly horror, his work often draws inspiration from classic horror films and tropes, blending them with thriller elements to create a unique reading experience. Readers can expect tense narratives with surprising reveals.
We verified the reading order for Riley Sager's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: July 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Riley Sager Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/riley-sager