Tag: psychological thriller

3 star

ARC Review: When We Were Monsters by Jennifer Niven

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

A simmering psychological thriller about a dead teacher at an elite boarding school, the students who had every reason to want her gone, and the tangled web of rivalry and romance concealing the truth—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places.

At an elite boarding school, 8 students are selected for an exclusive program, but only one will walk away with a lifechanging opportunity to realize their creative dreams. 

Effy is piecing together a story about the tragic betrayal that led to her mother’s death. Arlo hopes to publish a novel—but he’s also trying to start a new chapter with Effy after he broke her heart and ghosted 3 years earlier. Everyone has a compelling reason to be there—they all want a big break—but only the most ambitious will prevail as the students are eliminated one by one.

Their mentor is the one and only Meredith Graffam, an enigmatic writer, director and actress, whose unorthodox teaching methods push them past the breaking point. Under Graffam’s tutelage, the students reveal their darkest secrets, take unthinkable risks, and slowly start to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .

**When We Were Monsters comes out September 2, 2025**

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

A “simmering” psychological thriller is a pretty apt description. A fairly classic way of starting a thriller, the author reveals who the victim is right away. These kinds of stories usually start then divulging from the beginning, and we slowly have our re-build up to the climax of how the murder happens. However, this book was slightly different.

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4 star

Review: Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to Stanhope – a safe neighbourhood. A place for families.

William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Ella unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.

Hours later, Ella’s family declare her missing.

Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe. And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Ella’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged.

Who took Ella Wooler?

I’m not entirely sure why the synopsis on goodreads says the daughter’s name is Ella when in the book, it’s Avery. But nevertheless, this was the latest book from Shari Lapena in 2023, and I really enjoyed it! There were a couple of things that threw me off, but overall it was such an exciting page-turner I finished reading it in about 2 hours. That’s a win in my books.

Everyone Here is Lying is about a safe neighbourhood in which a 9-year-old girl suddenly goes missing. The book takes place over more and more POVs as we follow two detectives trying to solve the mystery of this small town. The missing girl’s father was a respected doctor in the town, who was having an affair with a woman in their neighbourhood. More and more characters from the neighbourhood are introduced, but all seem to have a secret agenda. The book really lives up to the title—just who is telling the truth in this town?

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5 star

Review: The Only One Left by Riley Sager

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

I’ve had some experience with this author’s work before, and while the premise is usually very good, my impression is that it doesn’t usually quite live up to my expectations. However, this time, it really did. The number of twists and turns were outrageous, and they were just on the brink of acceptable plausibility too, which was impressive for the number of times I had to experience that suspenseful emotional whiplash. Even though I picked this book up on a whim, I’m so glad I did, and honestly I’m not surprised I finally found one of Riley Sager’s books that I really enjoyed.

The Only One Left is based off a very charming schoolyard chant reproduced above, about the tale of Lenora Hope murdering her whole family at age seventeen. Our protagonist, Kit, who isn’t perfect herself, finds herself working to take care of the now very old Lenora Hope. Lenora had been sequestered away in her gigantic palatial home for over fifty years, and no one has seen her since. When Kit meets her, she finds out that Lenora only has the use of her left hand. But still, she can use it to communicate and tries to tell Kit the truth of what happened all those years ago. But is she telling the truth? And what secrets just beg to remain buried?

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