Home Before Dark
by Riley Sager
Blurb:
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 Reaction:
I believe this is my second time "reading" (listening to an audiobook version) anything written by this author. The previous one, The House Across the Lake, was more to my liking, though the major plot twist comes out of the blue and feels odd and out of place. Home Before Dark, on the other hand, had essentially the opposite twist—a comparison that will make no sense unless you've read both books...
I found it more entertaining before it became obvious that... Well, without going into spoilers, before that twist I referred to before.
The atmosphere through much of the book reminded me of the recent(ish) miniseries adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. But unfortunately, part of that similarity was a pervasive feeling of sadness. It feels less frightening than depressing. So much wasted potential, in so many lives!
Another problem was that I couldn't warm to the main character, or feel much of anything for her, one way or the other. Her father, who speaks through his "book within a book", is more engaging, but there are issues with him, as well. (For one thing, you never know—until the end—how much of what he's saying is true.)
Ultimately, it's fine, but not something I'll revisit. I'd happily read or listen to more by the author, though. This type of book doesn't need to be amazing and unforgettable to be a perfectly decent read, in my opinion. I'm just looking for something fictional to think about while I quilt, and this did the trick!
Nitpicky Specifics:
- The title doesn't make much sense. I like it as a title, but it doesn't fit with the story.
- I really don't understand the need for a father to discuss any aspect of his sex life with his daughter. Gross. Should have been left out, as it was completely unnecessary.
- The regional accents adopted by the two narrators are strange and distracting. Every time the male narrator voiced the teenage girl I cringed, and all the "locals" voiced by the female narrator sound like a version of Rhoda Morgenstern from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I very much doubt was intentional.
- The female protagonist keeps making unforced errors, putting herself into stupid situations for no apparent reason. Not uncommon in fiction, but always annoying!
3.5 stars, but not rounding up this time.
