Review: Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Title: Home Before Dark

Author: Riley Sager

Genre: Adult, horror

Publication date: June 2020

Published by: Dutton Books

Source: Library book

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Synopsis: 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.

My rating: ★★★★★

I really enjoyed this book and the mystery in it. And it’s almost like there was a mystery within a mystery. The book is told in this sort of dual POV, where we got Maggie in the present day returning to the house, but also the POV of the book her father wrote about the house and the terrible tragedy that happened there all those years ago. I really liked the parallels between the two stories and the possibility that history could be repeating itself.

I really felt for Maggie though. It was not easy growing up with this famous book about her family. Potential friends and boyfriends with their unclear intentions—she just never knew whether or not they were only befriending her because they wanted to know about the house and her father. It sucked. And it basically made her either a curiosity or an outcast. That doubly sucked 😬

Maggie doesn’t remember what happened that night, she was only 5 after all. But she does think that the book her father wrote was filled with lies. I mean, a haunting? Please. Or so she thought. Because now that she’s back at the house spooky things are happening again 😰

This was SO good! I loved the haunted house story within the story and I loved all the mysteries and how they came together in the end. Just trying to unravel the mysteries and trying to figure out whether something supernatural was going on or not was fun! I also really enjoyed the way the story was told, switching between Maggie's present day POV and the POV of the book her father wrote. Plus, the double plot twist got me! Well, the first one more so. Lol. But it was good! I enjoyed it!

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊