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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is my first Riley sager book. I’ve been wanting to read his books for a while now and I’m glad book club introduced me to him. I like his writing so I’ll be reading his other books. I loved the beginning and the middle of it. I didn’t think it would but it actually spooked me a bit on some parts. I had quite a few theories throughout the book and it was fun trying to put pieces together and try to figure it out. The ending though I wasn’t that happy with. It was still good but Idk I was expecting something different.
'Home Before Dark' by Riley Sager is a fun beach read, if you are on a beach at midnight during a storm, the wind moaning, with lightening strikes showing large rocks suspiciously shaped like a hulking ghosts in dripping clothes surrounding you....
Hehe. I recommend this novel for your next Halloween read!
I copied the book blurb as it is accurate:
"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?
"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 non-fiction 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."
I enjoyed the novel! It's a fun entertainment as a mystery and as an paranormal investigation. PG-13 in violence and there is no gore, but still scary nonetheless.
Hehe. I recommend this novel for your next Halloween read!
I copied the book blurb as it is accurate:
"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?
"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 non-fiction 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."
I enjoyed the novel! It's a fun entertainment as a mystery and as an paranormal investigation. PG-13 in violence and there is no gore, but still scary nonetheless.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this book. As a lifelong fan of the Amityville hoax and all things associated, it was very much in my zone of interest, and it delivered a good story based on the same tropes with a lot of great allusions. What weakened it for me the predictability. While I do realize that predictability is a bit of a feature, rather than a bug, for this kind of book, I think this broadcast its twist(s) a bit too early. Still, though, the house at the center of the story is great, and the characters, while basically stock, were enjoyable. It was a great way to pass some commuting time.
I will say that this probably would have hit a 4⭐ if I had read rather than listened - I was not a great fan of the accent work and some of the diction, and it often pulled me right out of the story.
I will say that this probably would have hit a 4⭐ if I had read rather than listened - I was not a great fan of the accent work and some of the diction, and it often pulled me right out of the story.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Kind of campy, a little repetitive. The split timeline between the present and a novel written in the past didn't work for me, the pacing was off between the two. It was pretty clear this wasn't going to end up being a haunted house novel and more of a mystery. One too many unnecessary twists at the end but the ending wrapped it up well.
4.5
WTAF!
God damn I will continue to read Riley Sager just for the WTF moments at the end of every book.
This was again another great book. So far my favorite of his I've read.
WTAF!
God damn I will continue to read Riley Sager just for the WTF moments at the end of every book.
This was again another great book. So far my favorite of his I've read.