Reviews tagging 'Death'

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

127 reviews

marpaige's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicide, Murder, and Death

mstall_'s review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I'm happy to share that I am officially a Riley Sagar fan. For years I have been unable to get into his writing style, specifically the frequent and repetitive 3-5 word sentences in the middle of a passage to add drama, always something like "but I can't." or "I'll never leave." It's clear that is a signature style for him and one I had a hard time getting in to. I thought I would never actually like a Riley Sagar book.

Until I finally did. (See what I did there?)

I absolutely loved Home Before Dark. This story was exactly the kind of twisty, turny, ghosty book you find yourself craving on a chilly night. The story is about a family of three who buy an abandon mansion in the Vermont woods that was the sight of

brutal father on daughter killings throughout the years

. The family only lasts 20 days in the house before fleeing in the middle of the night, terrified. Twenty five years later, the now adult daughter Maggie comes home to face the ghosts and ghouls of her family’s past. 

If you dream of fixing up an old Victorian with "good bones", despite the probability that it already has some spectral residents, you'll absolutely love this book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Child death

Snakes are mentioned frequently, just in case you had a phobia

kirstyyreadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Alcohol, Child death, Murder, and Violence

chasingpages1's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Death of parent, Death, Dementia, Gaslighting, Stalking, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual content, Chronic illness, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cancer, Cursing, and Religious bigotry

amyyp's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I couldn’t read it at night because it made me paranoid and scared 😂 Did not see the end coming! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Child death, and Suicide

Minor: Dementia

bookcheshirecat's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

“Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back.”

➽ Home Before Dark is among my favorite Riley Sager books! The story follows Maggie Holt whose family got famous for living in a supposedly haunted house back when she was a child. Her father wrote a bestselling book called House of Horrors about their ghostly phenomenon and Maggie's been dealing with its popularity for years. She's not thrilled to be famous in ghost-hunting circles and doesn't remember much of what happened. The only hints are in the book and Maggie's convinced her father made it all up. Her parents have never talked about it with her and Maggie got tired of being shot down. Now her father has passed away and left her the house ... and a lot of unanswered questions. She decides to renovate the House of Horrors and confront her past once and for all!

➽ I love haunted house stories and I liked the fine line between truth and fiction! We get alternating chapters of Maggie renovating the house and experiencing suspicious phenomena and excerpts from the book told by her father when they last lived in the house! I loved how we were left guessing how much of it was true, especially as Maggie lacks any concrete memory of the time. Strange things are happening in the house, but she's never sure if it's supernatural or simply bad vibes. After all the house had a dark past, as it was the scene of a brutal crime. I loved all the twists and turns! I also liked the exploration of Maggie's grief and complicated relationship with her father. Now that he passed away, she can never directly ask him for the truth!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Violence, Dementia, and Grief

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Cancer

spookychelle87's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Suicide, Death of parent, Death, and Child death

Minor: Blood, Dementia, and Cancer

meaghanelizabook's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Dementia, Child death, Death of parent, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Car accident

melissa_l_mcabee's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

What starts out as your typical haunted house story turns into a maze of family secrets, surprising twists, and a shocking finale. Maggie knows her parents lie but she is blind-sided when she finds out why they did it. This dark, mystery/thriller novel draws you in and at the end spits you out with an overload of information in the last 20-30 pages. I was overwhelmed by the amount of twists in those last pages and then the epilogue kind of fell short after all of the action. I would recommend this book to mystery and thriller fans and I would be willing to read more by this author.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Suicide

murder

amberjackonski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Child death

Moderate: Murder and Suicide