Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Photo Credit: Dutton

This book was gifted to Traveling With T by a dear friend.

Home Before Dark

Summary: What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

I have read all of Riley’s books and enjoyed most of them (I enjoyed The Last Time I Lied the most, then Final Girls and finally Lock Every Door was my least fave). So when I saw Home Before Dark- I knew I had to get it.

Of course the road to getting a copy was not easy. I knew that everyone and their mama would be clamoring for a paper ARC, so I requested a Netgalley version- figuring I would get approved eventually (I was approved for his earlier 3). But I got denied. Not a HUGE ordeal- but it’s always a head scratcher to me on the who gets approved/denied on NG. Anyway. Luckily a dear friend of mine had wound up with a paper copy and instead of donating to her LFL- she donated to me 🙂

What I Liked:

The cover! The real book glows in the dark- which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the ARC does not.

The book in the book. The chapters from the book that Maggie’s dad wrote gave me the creeps. I was wrapped up in a blanket and tensing at every noise.

Maggie. She was a great character.

Bottom line: For me, I really (mostly) liked this book. It was a good read for the week of Halloween (that is when I read it). I’m a little picky about the ending and would like to discuss it with someone- but overall, 2 creepy thumbs up.

*Traveling With T received this book from a friend. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*