#BookReview: LOCK EVERY DOOR by Riley Sager @riley_sager @EburyPublishing

Publication: 25th July 2019 – Ebury Press

You’ve been offered a luxury apartment, rent free. The catch: you may not live long enough to enjoy it…

No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents. 
These are the only rules for Jules Larson’s new job as apartment sitter for an elusive resident of the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile private buildings and home to the super rich and famous.

Recently heartbroken and practically homeless, Jules accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.

Out of place among the extremely wealthy, Jules finds herself pulled toward other apartment sitter Ingrid. But 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 – but the next day, her new friend has vanished.

And then Jules discovers that Ingrid is not the first temporary resident to go missing…

Welcome to the Bartholomew…You may never leave.

**********

After he kept me completely captivated with Final Girls and Last Time I Lied, of course I had to read Riley Sager’s new novel, LOCK EVERY DOOR, and I did read it. In. One. Single. Day. Wow!!! This book hooked me from the first page thanks to the different timelines, the sinister characters, and the highly suspenseful story.

The heroine of this new novel is Jules Larson. Like the heroines of the author’s previous novels, Jules is trying to survive. She has a troubled past that she slowly unravels and a complicated present that she hopes to turn around. After being laid off, heartbroken, and made homeless on the same day, Jules responds to an online ad that she hopes it will be her fresh start. Her new job consists of apartment sitting in one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan. There are a few rules to follow, but the job is straightforward and Jules gets paid a lot of money to do it. Who wouldn’t accept such a job? Despite the concerns of her best friend Chloe, Jules moves into her new home, but it’s clear from the beginning that something weird is going on and the darker the story got the more I couldn’t put the book down.

Once again, the author created the perfect setting for a chilling thriller, a setting that becomes a character itself of the story. The apartments of the Bartholomew are one of the most sought-after and luxurious in Manhattan. With views of Central Parks, secret passages between the apartments, and characteristic gargoyles outside the windows, the Bartholomew is unaccessible to non-residents and there is a ten-year-long waiting list to buy one of the apartments. However, the Bartholomew is a gilded cage and the beautiful and luxurious building becomes a claustrophobic and creepy prison for Jules.

I liked the character of Jules, so realistic and relatable. She isn’t looking for much from her life, just stability, a job that allows her to pay the rent and, possibly, someone who loves her, but she hasn’t been very lucky so far. Tragedy and bad luck has followed her around. The job at the Bartholomew seems too good to be true, but Jules is desperate. She is also smart and she quickly figures out that something is not right among the residents of the Bartholomew.

LOCK EVERY DOOR is definitely my favourite novel by Riley Sager. A gothic, gripping, page-turning mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat from the first to the last page and makes me eager to read whatever the author is planning next!