Home Before Dark By Riley Sager My rating: **** out of 5 Stars Published: Dutton; June, 2020 Pages: 400 Genre: Thriller; Suspense Buy It: Amazon
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What it’s about:
Maggie Holt inherited Baneberry Hall from her father. This is where Maggie and her family spent a terrifying three weeks before leaving in the middle of the night, never to return. An adult now, Maggie has no recollection of that time in her life and resents the fact that her father made the family and the house famous by writing a book about it. Maggie returns to Baneberry to renovate and sell the old house, and also to see if she can remember what happened. She soon realizes that maybe her father didn’t make everything up after all.
Why I liked it:
Home Before Dark reminded me of Hill House, the series on Netflix, not the book. I loved Hill House and really enjoyed this book as well. It was not as scary, but definitely had some supernatural elements that kept it just creepy enough to make it a fun read.
This book alternates between Maggie’s perspective in the present, and chapters from the book that her father wrote, chronicling their three week stay at Baneberry Hall when Maggie was only 6. The clues are dropped subtly throughout the narrative, revealing what really happened so many years ago. I was able to predict the ending, but that didn’t ruin the book for me. It was very well written and the characters were engaging enough to make up for the predictability.
I really like Riley Sager books, but this one was definitely different than anything he has written before. I hope he writes more books like this one!
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