Ten years ago, college sophomore Quincy Carpenter and five of her friends went to a remote cabin in the Poconos. The fun weekend at Pine Cottage turned into a killing spree with Quincy being the only survivor of the massacre. This puts Quincy in a small group of single survivors who are no longer just massacre survivors, but now nicknamed the Final Girls by the press. "Final Girl" is apparently a film-geek idiom for the last woman standing at the end of a horror mo movie. The Final Girls include Lisa and Sam, who are also st struggling to put their tragic pasts behind them. Though they have contact with each other, the girls have never met personally.

Traumatized by her horrific experience, Quincy does not remember the events of the worst night of her life. She wants nothing more than to put it all behind her. Striving for a normal life, Quincy lives with her fiancé Jeff in a lovely apartment and writes a weekly baking blog. For the times she needs help coping with her trauma, she calls on Coop, the policeman who found her running through the woods covered in blood. Her mantra is: You can\'t change what\'s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it.

When Lisa is found dead from an apparent suicide, Sam shows up at Quincy\'s apartment determined to make her recall the fateful day of the massacre. Why is Sam so interested in Quincy remembering the past? The more Sam becomes involved in Quincy\'s life, the stranger things are for everyone involved. Then it turns out that Lisa\'s death was murder, not suicide. Quincy becomes unnerved by some of Sam\'s revelations about Lisa and the truth behind Quincy\'s survival. Then Sam\'s involvement with Coop takes the situation to a whole new level. Everything that was once secure in Quincy\'s life is now in total upheaval from Sam\'s manipulations. But it\'s nothing compared to what ensues when the truth is finally revealed about Pine Cottage 10 years ago.

FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager is a cleverly devised, expertly written psychological thriller with a gripping premise that kept me turning pages long into the night. Sager Sager\'s ingenious use of flashbacks to the happenings at Pine Cottage 10 years ago, but not from Quincy\'s point of view, adds a suspenseful layer to the already gripping storyline. Interspersed with surprising twists and turns, FINAL GIRLS kept me enthralled until the final shocking elements of the plot were revealed. This is the first book written under the author\'s pseudonym Riley Sager...I can\'t wait to see what\'s next.

Book Summary

“The first great thriller of 2017 is almost here: Final Girls, by Riley Sager. If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this.” –Stephen King

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.

That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.