Home Before Dark

A Novel

By: Riley Sager

Narrated by: Cady McClain, Jon Lindstrom

Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The Instant New York Times Best Seller

One of USA Today's Best Books of 2020

“A haunted house story - with a twist.... [Sager] does not hold back” (Rolling Stone) in this chilling thriller from the author of Final Girls and Survive the Night.

Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share.

Twenty-five years ago, Maggie Holt and her parents moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. Three weeks later they fled in the dead of night, an ordeal her father recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His story of supernatural happenings and malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity - and skepticism.

Maggie was too young to remember any of the horrific events that supposedly took place, and as an adult she doesn’t believe a word of her father’s claims. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When she inherits Baneberry Hall after his death and returns to renovate the place and sell it, her homecoming is anything but warm. The locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous, and human characters with starring roles in House of Horrors are waiting in the shadows.

Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself - a place where unsettling whispers of the past lurk around every corner. And as Maggie starts to experience strange occurrences ripped from the pages of her father’s book, the truth she uncovers about the house’s dark history will challenge everything she believes.

©2020 Riley Sager (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"What could be better than a haunted house with ghosts aplenty? Home Before Dark is equally superb and terrifying. Buckle up for a wild ride. This book should come with a warning not to be read after dark." (Mary Kubica, New York Times best-selling author of The Other Mrs.)

"Flawless pacing, a dexterous dual narrative, and character through the roof. But the biggest revelation to be found in Home Before Dark is this: There's nobody writing scarier books than Riley Sager is right now." (Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Malorie)

"Houses breathe. Some have a heartbeat. None forget. Grabbing you from the first page, Riley Sager crafts a devilish plot, twisted timelines, and horrors that linger in this haunting thriller that needs to be on your reading list!" (J.D. Barker, international best-selling author of She Has a Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be)

Sager does it again.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, book, plot twist. This is not a typical cliche story of a haunted house.

Good spooky fun

I finished it in 3 sittings and thought it was a fun, creepy little book! An easy read and perfect early Fall ghost story/mystery/thriller. *Listened at 1.4x speed

ok

female narrator was a little abrupt, male narrator was amazing. story was slow going but picked up speed towards the end.

Good, Not Great

I've been diving into Riley Sager's novels recently, first reading Lock Every Door, then Final Girls. While those stories had a few things that stuck out to me as problems, overall, I really enjoyed my time and experience with those books. With Home Before Dark, this is probably the weakest one I've read so far.

The story follows a young woman known as Maggie Holt, who lives under the shadow of a popular book her father wrote about a supposed haunted house they lived in when she was young. As Maggie is featured heavily in the book, seeing ghosts and talking to apparitions known as Mr. Shadow and Mrs. Penny Face, the book has left her with doubts on what actually happened. Even though she was incredibly young, she has no memory of living in a haunted house. Regardless, her parents swear by the books authenticity and that the house, known as Baneberry Hall, is still incredibly dangerous to her, even as an adult. She grows up, doubting the stories found in the book, and eventually finds herself with an opportunity to investigate the house and its history. Her belief that “every house has a story to tell,” holds true as she uncovers more than she expected, leading her to believe that her father's book may not have been as false as she initially believed.

The ideas in this book are solid. Maggie is an interesting character, but ultimately she becomes the weakest link in the chain. As the novel goes on, she constantly tries to prove her hypothesis that her father was simply making up lies to sell a book. While this is a valid point to start her character arc and the investigation she undertakes, she doesn't really shift her perspective or point of view regarding the situation. She begins to encounter unsettling facts, on top of conflicting information that collides with her world view, yet she still holds on to her original theory that the book is nothing more than a collection of lies. As the book progresses, her attitude starts to wear down on the reader and becomes tiring. She's stuck in denial and as a character arc, she doesn't really change drastically from beginning to end.

To be fair, Maggie Holt does grow as a character. It's just by the time that she's evolved as a character, the book is in its final pages. This eventually leads into another bump in the road: the ending is incredibly rushed. The book takes its time to explore the character of Maggie Holt as she confronts the hidden truths of Baneberry Hall, when in the last 50 pages, it suddenly decides to wrap up every story line into a neat, little bow. The ending itself is fine, it just came out of the blue and really could've been introduced or been set up a lot earlier.

Ultimately, that's the book in a nutshell. Maggie Holt's journey wasn't particularly interesting to me, her arc wasn't as well-paced as well as I expected it to be, and the ending comes in so quickly, I was sure that I accidentally skipped a chapter or two. It's not a bad book, by any means, and personally, I find Riley Sager's books to be enjoyable. It's just that personally, I found this book to be difficult to finish.

Addicting

This book sucked me in from the start! There are so many twist and turns in this book. Chills would go up my spine with every little twist! I absolutely loved this book.

Mixed feelings

I read reviews before I bought this book and while I agree with some I also realize that everyone's opinion will be different as we all like and dislike different things. The female narrator isn't the best but Maggie isn't a likable character so Cady did okay with what she had to work with. I won't go into any of the storyline as it had good and bad moments for me. What made me cringe is the unessary use of the F Bomb! Come on Riley find other words to use beside that. For other's who feel the same beware.

fantastic book!

I did not expect this book to go the way it did. It was fantastic! Definitely worth a credit! Every opportunity I had to listen to this book I did. It was great! I LOVE LOVE LOVE RILEY SAGER.

Satisfying Haunted House Novel

The book follows two stories in parallel, the father's version from his famous novel based on the family's experience twenty five years past and the grown up daughter trying to find the truth behind his book which she believes is a lie. The combination creates a fantastic balance. The father's story is creepy and the daughters keeps us grounded in a sensible reality. When the daughter starts to experience things we know something bigger is going on. I won't give away the ending except to say it was nothing I had expected and it also satisfied both the creepy and realistic views of the father and the daughter.

The two narrators did a great job, so glad they went with two, one a man for the father's version and a woman for the daughter's. Great job, hit the mark perfectly.

So good

I could not stop listening to this book. It was amazing. I finished it in a day.

Decent story, female narrator annoying

i was hooked right away, however there was a lot of similarities to The Haunting of Hill House, which IMO is a far better book. it does have decent ending with some twists that redeemed it somewhat. Therr is some repetition too, how many time can you hear "my father's book was bullsh&#.....or maybe not"? the Maggie narrastor
is annoying, and distracted from the story. ahe sounds a bit toddlerish.