Book Review / Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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?

Published:     30th June 2020
Publisher:  Dutton Books
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:   Owned

 

 MY REVIEW

 

After reading all of this author's previous works this year, I was so addicted to his writing that I just could not wait until this new book came out.  Normally, I would have read it straight away but I have to admit that I am not too much of a reader when the weather has been hot and even though I bought this when it came out I have been waiting for the right moment to pick it up when it gets a bit cooler!  

I just could not put this book down!  This has all of the elements in a thriller that I really enjoy and actively look for.  We follow Maggie who we see with her parents living at Baneberry Hall when something happens which means that they had to flee the Hall seemingly never to return.  For some reason, her father never sold the Hall and Maggie inherits this.  She decides that she is going to live there to restore it so she can sell it but as soon as she is back things are not what they seem.  

Honestly, what I loved about this story was both the journey that Maggie goes through in this story, from being a kid living at the Hall to being an adult going back to the Hall, and also the very interesting twists and turns this story takes you through. 

It is not often that a twist in a thriller surprises me but this one did and I loved it!