Really enjoyed !! Typical Riley sager love his writing style keeps you guessing the whole way through

The synopsis of this had me thinking this would be high intensity. However I felt it lacked it a little.
While I love isolated settings. This just missed the mark a little bit for me.

I found it hard to care about why she was so mad. Mad enough to go to these lengths.
The ending also just felt flat for me.

I love Riley Sager, so missing this book was never an option.

Do I like historical fiction? Absolutely not. But this is Riley Sager we're talking about, so I shoved my skepticism aside and dove in headfirst.

Unfortunately, the formatting is a war crime. Not Riley's fault, of course, but my eyeballs filed a formal complaint before I even reached page three. Still, it's Riley Sager, so I braced myself, adjusted my expectations, and valiantly scrolled through the typographical battlefield.

I made it to 28% before frustration mounted a full-scale rebellion, and I was forced to concede defeat. And yet—despite the chaos, despite the suffering—I refused to give it one star. Why? Because loyalty sometimes means enduring a truly tragic reading experience in silence.

For Riley Sager, I suffer

Riley Sagers ‘With a Vengeance’ is a twist on the classic ‘killings on a train’ theme. It was a great idea and kept me guessing until the end.
I have read all of Riley Sagers books, and although I cannot honestly say this was my favourite of them all, it is certainly not to be missed.
Easy to read, the plot moved along swiftly and pulled you in.
I am now eagerly awaiting Riley’s next novel!

WITH A VENGEANCE, in theory, is not a typical Riley Sager novel. This is much more of a historical mystery in the veins of Agatha Christie's The Murder on the Orient Express.
We follow a not so big cast of characters inside a train journey while some of them are picked off one by one. This is a story about revenge and trying to set things right.
Riley Sager makes sure to spend a lot of time trying to develop these characters and making us, the readers, intrigued and confused about who the killer is and how they're doing it. We are led to believe there might be multiple culprits and fingers are pointed constantly.

I personally really liked this book. I enjoyed all the characters, mostly the protagonist, Anna, and I had a blast doubting the characters over and over again. This book doesn't read like a RS novel, in general, up until the last 10%, when the typical ludicrous (in the good way, in my opinion) plot twists are presented one right after the other.
I'm glad RS wrote a book just like this. It's refreshing to see an established author trying to deliver something different from what they are used to do.
However, I'm pretty sure many RS fans will not be as receptive as I was.
Some will complain about its pacing; others will complain saying how repetitive some of the chapters are; others will simply not buy the idea of a group of people being stranded inside a moving train for 13 whole hours under the threat of going to jail when the train stops at its destination; and so on.
I have a strong feeling that this book will be the new 'Survive the Night': many readers (fans or not of the author) will not be pleased by this new book. LOL

I'd still recommend it to RS readers and especially to readers who are into historical mysteries. Just go into this book knowing this is NOT a typical Riley Sager thriller. Honestly, I don't consider this book a thriller at all. Be aware of that to avoid further disappointments.

Thank you, NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton, for providing me with a free eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO GOOD!
Think Agatha Christie meets Fredia McFadden add a sprinkle of twists and a dash of gasps and Riley Sager has done it again!
I’ve loved every single Riley Sager book I’ve read and this one does no disappoint.
It’s fast paced and the twists makes you non stop turning the page for me ITS JUST SO GOOD!
Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance to read it

Revenge is fleeting. Vengeance lasts a lifetime.

Locked door thrillers are some of my favourite reads. I often enjoy them, and find myself flying through them whenever I pick one up. Though I did fly through this one, I definitely did not enjoy it as much. The book was a little slow to start with the introduction of characters. However, I didn't mind that too much as it helps set the tone.

When things got going though, it was non-stop action, suspense and thrill. There were times when I was immersed in this book, and other times I found myself rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. For the life of me, I couldn't get behind Annie or see the logic in her plan. Her character was very conflicting at times and I couldn't connect or sympathize with her. At times, I also forgot that this was set in the 50s. I think that has a lot to do with the dialogue though.

Around that 50% mark I was no longer invested and had at least one of the twists figured out. The ending was a series of revelation after revelation that just felt way too overwhelming for me. There was way too much happening that didn't need to be. I feel like there was definitely some Agatha Christie inspiration here but it just didn't work as well for me. I'll still continue to read Sager's work. Though I may not always love it, you can't make me hate him.

Thank you to Netgalley, Hodderbooks, and Riley Sager, for my eARC of this book. All opinions are my own. Pub date: June 12th, 2025.

I didn't like this a lot, unfortunately. I love a good locked-room mystery, but this train setting felt very familiar and not very original and I wasn't sold on the idea from the start. It was also incredibly slow, which isn't usually a problem I have with Sager's books, but it just took ages to get going. The writing style was also quite different from his usual style and I found it a little harder to read. This just felt more like a slow mystery rather than a thriller, which wasn't what I expected knowing his previous books.

I also don't think we needed that many POVs, it got so confusing sometimes, and I couldn't remember which character I was reading about. The story was also just honestly really boring, the twists were predictable and by the end I was just glad it was over. He tried to make you care a lot about these people but there was so much info dumping in their backstory and we just didn't need to know all that.

All in all, this was probably my second to least favourite book from Riley Sager, and honestly maybe finally my last.

I love Riley sager books, each one has twists like no other and usually another aspect. This is a very murder on the orient express type whodunit which was good but I feel I expected a little more?

3.75 stars
Having read every single one of Riley Sager’s books, I would definitely class myself as a bit of a super fan.
And while there have been a few that I didn’t love as much as the others over the years, I’ve always enjoyed the spin that they put on the thriller or horror genre and the way that they were executed.
Yet, sadly this is probably my least favourite of his books so far.
First and foremost, I didn’t care about any of the characters in this, meaning it didn’t really affect me in any way when they were ultimately killed.
Understandably the six guilty parties were all unlikeable, but I didn’t connect with any of them at all. And because of this, there wasn’t any jeopardy for me.
Even Anna, while I understood her need and quest for justice, the whole plan didn’t make much sense to me as who is really going to sit quietly for all those hours and wait to be turned over to the FBI upon arrival in Chicago.
The final twist (and subsequent reveal) didn’t really go anywhere either.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cluedo meets Murder on the Orient Express in this slow-burn, locked room murder mystery with an army of shady and unreliable characters. Who do you trust when no one can be trusted?

It’s 1954, and the Philadelphia Phoenix is making a non-stop journey to Chicago, but this isn’t any old trip. Anna Matheson has gathered six people from her past on this train, the six people she holds responsible for destroying her family, and tonight, she’s delivering them to justice. If they all make it there alive…..

This one kept me on my toes! I enjoyed Sager’s deviation from the usual paranormal theme of his books, and this felt like a real commemoration of the classic “whodunnit”. So whilst this wasn’t exactly a fresh and overtly original take, it was nostalgic, as well as being deliciously twisty and ominous.

Thank you so much to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy!

I loved the premise of With a Vengeance but unfortunately due to a formatting issue I am unable to read the novel. If the publishers are able to correct the issue I’d love to have the opportunity to read this,

One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.
In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson's family, now twelve years later, she is ready for revenge.
This is how a group of people find themselves on a train bound for Chicago. She confronts them with their wrongdoings and they will then be delivered to the authorities and justice. But her plan is derailed after a passenger is murdered and there is a killer on the train.

I did not read the synopsis of this one before requesting it, so I must admit I was surprised to find myself in a historical fiction, albeit still a murder mystery. This is not a genre I usually enjoy but the author made it suspenseful, in his usual style and there were plenty of surprises along the way. Another enjoyable one.

That was unoriginal, frustrating, long-winded and just ridiculous. I can't remember the last time I rolled my eyes as much whilst reading a book. Definitely not a Riley Sager classic.

Riley sager is such a hit or miss author for me but this one was a huge knockout of the park!

One of the best locked room mysteries I’ve read in a long time with twists and turns that just kept coming! I was questioning everyone and in the end didn’t see it coming!

Loved loved loved and can’t recommend enough

Think Agatha Christie's murder on the orient express but with more bodies racking up. Actually, think Murder on the Orient Express combined with And then there were none. Two of my favourite classic crime novels. Anna's family was destroyed by 6 people. 6 people she's tricked into getting onto a train that began the whole thing, and that is delivering them straight to the doorstep of the FBI, where she's got the evidence to put them behind bars. But things start going wrong when bodies start piling up, old flames seemingly become reignited, and guns seem to appear abroad the train. Anna wanted revenge but not quite like this..

I really enjoyed this, having not enjoyed Riley's last one I was skeptical about this but this seems to be back to Riley's usual page turning brilliant standards.

Great writing style with entertaining twists. Definitely different than the Riley Sager novels that I’m used to. Fast paced and easy to follow. Not sure why it had so many typing errors unless that’s done deliberately. If your fan of historic mystery, twists, love triangles you’ll love this one.

I was looking forward to this book because I love Riley Sager and I adore this type of setting/situation in thriller books, but unfortunately I was quite underwhelmed by it. Maybe I have read too many novels with a similar premise, because it didn't stand out in any way. for me 

The cast of characters was all right. I quite liked the main character, Anna, and I sympathized with her, and Seamus was also quite interesting. The others weren't anything special. I liked how we slowly discovered how each character was responsible for what happened to Anna's family and why they did it, but none of them was particularly noteworthy.
There was also a bit of romance and even a love triangle which I really didn't care for. Luckily it was a minor subplot, but it was completely unnecessary for me.

As for the mystery, the plot was definitely fast paced and it made for a quick and easy read. There were quite a lot of twists and turns, but none of them was particularly impressive, and instead they felt a little too much, especially a couple of them. Also, you definitely need to suspend your disbelief several times while reading this book, and, while it usually doesn't bother me, here it was definitely a bit much.

All in all, I didn't dislike it but it was just okay for me, and definitely not memorable.

Dnf on chapter 9 at 18%

I’ve noticed a pattern in the past when it comes to Riley Sager books. If I dislike one then his following book ends up being enjoyable. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this time.

I’ll start with the positive. The premise gives And Then There Were None vibes.

I found the talks about the mechanics of the train boring and the typing errors were off putting.

An enjoyable locked room mystery written in the style of a period Agatha Christie. This was my first book by Riley Sager and although it seems to be very different from their others, I would read more by them