THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of . . . Parade’s “Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2019” • PureWow’s “The Best Beach Reads of Summer 2019” • BookBub’s “Books That Will Make the Perfect Addition to Your Beach Bag This Summer”The next heart-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager follows a young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest … next heart-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager follows a young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest and most glamorous buildings may cost more than it pays
No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsen’s new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken and just plain broke, Jules is taken in by the splendor of her surroundings and accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.
As she gets to know the residents and staff of the Bartholomew, Jules finds herself drawn to fellow apartment sitter Ingrid, who comfortingly reminds her of the sister she lost eight years ago. When Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her, Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story . . . until the next day, when Ingrid disappears.
Searching for the truth about Ingrid’s disappearance, Jules digs deeper into the Bartholomew’s sordid past and into the secrets kept within its walls. What she discovers pits Jules against the clock as she races to unmask a killer, expose the building’s hidden past, and escape the Bartholomew before her temporary status becomes permanent.
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Move over Rosemary’s Baby, urban paranoia has a deliciously Gothic new address.
The Bartholomew is an apartment building of terrifying secrets. You’ll find startling twists and alarming surprises down every dark hallway. It’s too late to lock the doors — the horror is already inside. My favorite thriller of the year!
Riley Sager is doing a lot of good work lately, and Lock Every Door fits well into his canon. Echoes of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby are clear, and The Bartholomew is a character unto itself. A satisfying thriller with a great twist.
Riley Sager is one of my auto-buy authors. He’s mesmerized me before, but he hit it out of the ballpark with his latest release.
Jules has had a string of bad luck, starting with getting laid off from her job, followed by discovering her live-in boyfriend banging another woman. She ends up near penniless, sleeping on her BFF’s sofa until she finds a classified ad for an apartment sitter. $12,000 to occupy a luxury apartment in the Bartholomew—a New York high society landmark—for three months. It sounds too good to be true, especially given the building is the fairy-tale setting of a novel that bound Jules and her sister as teens.
The rules are bizarre. Among other things, no visitors and no sharing any information about the residents who live in the Bartholomew, but Jules is too desparate to give them a second thought. Not long after she’s in the apartment, more luxurious than she could have imagined, she realizes something is not quite right. Previous “apartment sitters” have gone missing, one of the current sitters hints all is not as it seems, and the woman who wrote the novel she and her sister loved as teens is—surprise!—a resident.
The “big reveal” is a blind-side from left field, nothing I would have ever seen coming. Sager uses history, both fake and real to weave a tale that feels urgent and present-day as well as dusty with the footprints of a faded yesteryear. An intoxicating tapestry every bit as formidable as the bizarre wallpaper in Jules apartment in the Bartholomew. Extra points for the atmospheric use of the building’s gargoyles. Superb!
Eerie, fast-paced and twisted, I simply couldn’t put it down!
Welcome to the Bartholomew…
“The place is haunted. By its past. So many things have happened there. So much dark history. It fills the place…like smoke…and I’ve breathed it in.”
Lock Every Door was a different type of horror/mystery with an ending I did not guess, and that makes it a fav! Would recommend to fans of this genre!
Riley Sager is officially a must-read author for me. He captured my attention with Final Girls and solidified his status with Lock Every Door. This book has a little bit of everything in it and that’s what makes it such a great read and fantastic thriller. Jules is a relatable character that you instantly want to pull for and there are so many weird side characters its impossible to know which is the bad guy. I won’t give away spoilers so I won’t tell you more than that about the plot, but here’s what you should know going in. It’s creepy. Creepy to the point I sometimes wondered if Sager hadn’t decided to jump rails into paranormal, which is exactly what he must’ve been going for and succeeded in masterfully. I loved it from the first page to the very last and while I caught on to a few hints along the way the big final reveal still managed to make me gape in horror and awe. Don’t you just love it when you finish a thriller and go, Oh My God, I need someone else to read this so I can discuss it with them? I do. So go read it.
Great read…the main character is compelling and you are pulling for her the whole story to figure out the sinister activities happening in a historic, luxury apartment building adjacent to Central Park, and routing for her to fight to survive it all. Interesting flash forward chapters that eventually the story catches up to. This one was hard to put down after the first couple chapters of setting the scenario.
Let’s just say this book is great, not amazingly great, but great. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager is an engaging page-turner of a thriller that had me guessing until the very end — which was not at all what I was expecting!
Jules Larsen is broke, sadly single after her boyfriend cheated on her, and out a job. With no work in sight, the opportunity of a lifetime falls into her lap. She is offered to apartment sit at one of the most famous, and yet mysterious buildings in New York City — the Bartholomew.
Not only is she living the high life in a fancy apartment, she is getting paid $12,000 under the table to do so. While staying at the Bartholomew, she soon befriends another apartment sitter. Within a day, that fellow sitter goes missing. Unable to let it go, Jules begins to discover the creepy stories that are whispered about the Bartholomew could be more that just stories!
I honestly couldn’t put this book down. I desperately wanted to find out what this building was hiding. With all the creepy back-story details on deaths and mysterious vanishing tenants, this book almost felt like The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red by Ridley Pearson. It certainly gave me the creeps…that was until the bloody ending! I’m not going to ruin it, but let’s just say this book would have been five stars if it weren’t for the ending!
Putting the ridiculously strange ending aside, this book was extremely addictive. From the pace, to the quirky cast of characters, even the dark atmosphere of the hotel’s Gothic features and old money captivated me from start to finish!
I really enjoyed how the narration varied between the present and Jules’ arrival at the Bartholomew a few days earlier. It was so strategic of Sager to give us glimpses into what will happen without giving too much away.
I absolutely adored Riley Sager’s other two books Final Girls and The Last Time I Lied. It’s not to say I didn’t love this book, but again this ending really missed the mark for me! If you enjoy thrillers with a wee bit of a crazy ending, Lock Every Door by Riley Sager is the book for you!
Thank you to NetGalley, Dutton and Riley Sager for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.
Read my full review here: https://bit.ly/2Lktzws
Wow. Just wow.
Riley Sager does it again. This book kept me guessing right up until the end. Sager makes your emotions run the whole spectrum and keeps you on the edge of your seat. This book proves that a fancy apartment building in New York has more secrets and weird characters than any creepy small town. Wonderful book!
LOCK EVERY DOOR is the second book I’ve read by author Riley Sager. As with my first taste of his work, I found the characters compelling, and the setting/situation one I didn’t want to stop reading about. Sager’s writing style is fluid and set at just the right pace to keep things moving forward without any noticeable lulls.
In this novel, we have Jules Larsen–a young, orphaned woman–who just had a major life setback. Losing her job, she goes to her apartment only to find that the rest of her life has fallen apart. Alone–aside from her friend, Chloe–she feels it a miracle when she answers an ad for an apartment sitter.
This is not just any building, either.
The Bartholomew, is known as one of Manhattan’s “most glamorous and secretive buildings”. Home to the very wealthy who prefer their privacy, the prospect of living among them for three months–with pay–is a chance too good to be true.
“Every so often, life offers you a reset button . . . ”
Of course, things aren’t as placid as they seem on the surface. There’s an underlying tension that you can pick up on immediately, but with her situation, Jules can’t afford to be skeptical.
“. . . here’s the thing about being poor–most people don’t understand it unless they’ve been there themselves.”
Rumors of former apartment sitters that have run off are disturbing, but she tries to focus on the new start this money will allow her.
“There’s aways a moment when worry turns to fear . . .”
The complexity of the characters kept me on my toes the entire time, and I tried to puzzle through what the common factors could be. Cryptic comments made me pause, but didn’t quite give any secrets away.
Overall, I guessed at a few of the key points, but not all of them by any means. This story kept me enthralled until the very end.
“. . . certain places. The closer you get to them, the uglier they become.”
The secrets behind the Bartholomew’s facade are so numerous that this story is sure to keep many up reading all night long.
Recommended.
Okay, so I read all of Riley Sager’s books (in publication order) this year and he is officially one of my new favorite authors. Lock Every Door is a book about a girl who takes what sounds like a dream job. She is going to be an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, a historic complex in the heart of NYC right across the street from Central Park. If that isn’t enough, the pay is amazing, but there are a handful of weird rules she must follow. Jules has barely settled into her new digs before she starts uncovering the building’s dark secrets. Before she knows it, she’s got a target on her back and is literally fighting for her life.
I keep telling myself that Riley Sager’s writing can’t get any better, but it does. His ability to write women as real people and not just vapid sex objects who constantly put themselves in danger and don’t know how to get out of it without the help of a rippling man. Jules has had it rough over the years, but she is determined to find a way to make her life better. Sure, there were moments where I was practically screaming at my book (or my car stereo) because she was falling into a few traps, but in the end, I admired her will to survive and found myself hoping I could be as resilient as her if I somehow ended up apartment sitting in a creepy old apartment complex that might also be a murder house.
None of the characters were very round, but I don’t think that took away from the story. I got the feeling that Jules did all of her developing before and after we knew her and that felt right. I think this would make a great Netflix miniseries or movie (hint, hint) because it was such a page-turning thrill-ride. Since I started it right before Christmas it took me a little longer to read, but I was thinking about it and trying to unravel the mystery even when I wasn’t reading it. PLEASE go out and buy EVERY RILEY SAGER BOOK! You won’t regret it.
5* Creepy Stars
I went into this book blind and I was glad I did because I had no idea what I was going to find behind the closed doors.
The story of Jules, who is homeless and jobless is one crazy ride. When she signs up to “apartment sit” at the infamous Bartholomew Apartments she can’t believe her luck and ignores all the rumours about what really goes on at the Bartholomew.
It was a very engaging read, the characters fascinating and real. It was an addictive thriller that took you on twists and turns you did nor foresee coming and the ending was very satisfying.
Wow – that was a thrill ride! Completely unexpected and terrifying.
This is a story of a fictitious apartment building in Manhattan, which is very luxurious. People are being asked to apartment sit, and are paid handsomely for it. However, when Jules accepts the job, her friend, Chloe is very anxious and worried. Chloe tells Jules that many strange things have happened at The Bartholomew, and begs Jules not to take the job. Jules needs money, and since The Bartholomew job pays well, she accepts the job.
Jules then begins to notice some bizarre things about the building and its inhabitants. When someone goes missing, Jules begins to investigate, and then things turn really sinister.
My heart was racing at one point during this book, the tension is high and the story is gripping. If you like thrillers, this one fits the bill!
I have enjoyed each of Riley Sager’s books, and this one is a winner, his best one yet!
#LockEveryDoor #RileySager
This turned out to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be when I started it. For the first half of this story I didn’t know where the author was taking the reader! We know something sinister is going on, something is not right at the Bartholomew.
Well there is definitely something wrong when apartment sitters keep coming up missing, leaving behind no trace of ever having been in the building! And it’s right near the end of the book that a “plain, quiet girl with no job and no family takes down an evil criminal enterprise.” Another thriller from Mr. Sager!
I’ve read all three of Sager’s books and I’ve loved them all!!! This one actually scared me a bit. Great characters, great unpredictable storyline.
Lock Every Door indeed. I like the atmospheric presence in this story probably more than anything else. It’s a menacing, sordid, living thing. Basically, the atmosphere of The Bartholomew is a character, and it’s awesome when books are written this way. This story could have veered off into multiple outcomes, so I definitely couldn’t predict the ending. Jules has gotten herself into….something? The rules are crazy. It’s too good to be true. But, the money always wins, doesn’t it? Truly, this is a great read with thrills and twists and omg moments. I recommend checking this one out. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed reading this one, as I enjoy everything he writes, although I must confess that I found this one more eye-rolling in it’s big reveal then either of the previous books he has written. I understand that he takes on Horror Story / movie tropes and stereotypes and then gives them his particular spin. It’s one of the things I enjoy, since I find myself too much of a scaredy-cat to watch those movies, but thoroughly enjoy the types of tales that they tell. His books are a perfect antidote to that, because somehow even though my imagination is incredibly vivid, what I conjure doesn’t disturb me in the same way as what I watch on a big screen.
This one began brilliantly, as they all do. The setup, pacing, characters, and setting we’re all perfectly designed to make the hairs on the back of your neck come to disturbing attention. I honestly had no idea what the secret behind the Bartholomew was going to be. When it was revealed, I actually laughed out loud at first, because I couldn’t quite believe this was what he went with… He tied it all together well, again as he always does, and the lesson about the divide between rich and poor was well taken. Still, it felt like I had read this before – his reveal is/is related to the reveal in a handful of things I’ve read recently. While that is purely coincidental it meant that it didn’t have the resonance for me as a reader that it might have if I hadn’t read what I have recently…
All of that aside, if you are looking for a wholly immersive and engaging Thriller / Horror Story, you can’t do much better than a Riley Sager novel. He has a fantastic knack for crafting extremely believable female protagonists and for helping them discover what I have referred to in previous reviews as their backbone of titanium – which always seems to exist in a hyper-state within a shell that seems too fragile to exist on its own… He is wonderfully evocative in his imagery and sets a scene like few others. This may not have been my favorite, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable story.
Thanks to Penguin First to Read for my review copy. The book releases in the U.S. on July 2, 2019.
Addictive. Creepy. Pulse-poundingly perfect. Riley Sager knows how to write to impress. Lock Every Door is creepy, mysterious, sinister and vividly written. Not so much a who-dunnit as a what-the-hell-is-gonna-happen-next?!
With numerous plot twists, creepy characters, urban legends, and atmospheric writing galore, Lock Every Door is a study in perfect storytelling. I was glued to the book until the very last pages, and even then Jules and her story stayed in my mind long afterwards. A 5*+ for me!