Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Formulaic Comfort to Start the Year

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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As a reader or viewer I expect and even enjoy the predictability of a formula in certain genres – romance immediately comes to mind of course. And I likewise seek out twisted and shocking unpredictability in my suspense thrillers (essentially a formula of its own with a goal of being unpredictable). With a mystery I want to be whipped about, teased with red herrings, and for the solution to fall into place at just the right moment in both the narrative and my realization. My […]

Great potential, horrible execution

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

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Cannonball Read introduced me to Riley Sager and I’ve become a huge fan. That’s why Lock Every Door was such a disappointment.  Jules Larsen has recently lost her job, her boyfriend, and her apartment. She’s been sleeping on her best friend’s couch while unsuccessfully looking for a new job. Desperate for money and a new place to live, she answers an ad for an apartment sitter at the luxurious Bartholomew. The Bartholomew is a small apartment building in Manhattan, known for its strange history and […]

Catching Up – Eight for CBR12 Book Bingo

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

The Final Girls by Riley Sager

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

What You Wish For by Katherine Center

The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

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Lock Every Door – Violet The Bingo space reasoning for this book is obvious given the color of the cover. Lock Every Door completely kept my interest throughout; however, I would put it at the bottom of the list for Riley Sager’s books. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth checking out. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a creepy read in the same vein as Get Out. In fact, I’m interested to know which one came first. The plots are so similar that […]

CBR12 Book Bingo – Gateway

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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What was it like? Living in that house. Home Before Dark is a gateway book for me for two reasons: 1. It’s my first introduction to Riley Sager, and now I am OBSESSED with his books; 2. It’s my intro into LOVING horror books. I have spent a great deal of my life afraid of the horror genre, due to a traumatic viewing of the original Carrie at an impressionable age. In my adult life, I read Carrie to try to rid myself of the deeply embedded fear […]

Haunted house or horrible people?

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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Maggie Holt is shocked to learn she’s inherited Baneberry Hall, the Victorian mansion in Vermont that her family fled 25 years earlier. The 20 days they lived at Baneberry Hall were chronicled in a bestselling book, House of Horrors, written by Maggie’s father. Although Maggie has no memory of that time, she’s spent her life being asked by fans, critics, and journalists if the house really is haunted. Her parents have never given her a straight answer, so Maggie decides to go to Baneberry Hall […]

A good book but not what I expected or wanted

Final Girls by Riley Sager

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Quinn Carpenter is the only survivor of the Pine Cottage massacre. She has no memory of the massacre, but she knows a knife-wielding maniac murdered her closest friends and stabbed her three times. She only survived because she ran into a police officer while the killer was chasing her.  Shortly after the incident, another Final Girl, Lisa, reached out to Quinn to teach her how to handle the aftermath. Lisa wanted her and Quinn to meet Sam, another Final Girl. She thought they could support […]



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