Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

 
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
My Rating: ★★★

Being the kid of the person who wrote a famous non-fiction ghost novel is hard. Maggie Holt would know since her dad is the author of that book. Despite her parent’s claims, Maggie knows that Baneberry Hall is not haunted. She may not remember living there, but she knows ghosts aren’t real and that her parents have been lying to her for the last 25-years. When Ewan Holt passes away, Maggie becomes the new owner of Baneberry Hall, the very house her parents claimed they no longer owned. As the new owner, Maggie is determined to find the answers to all her questions now that no one can stop her.

I picked up this book thinking it would be a thrilling mystery, and a possibly paranormal one at that, only to find it was simply a mystery. There was absolutely no suspense to be found here! That said, it was a fast and easy read. We follow Maggie as she’s about to find out that she’s inherited Baneberry Hall, the same home she and her family fled and never returned to… or so she thought. It was hard growing up with people thinking they knew her and her family based on the haunted tale her father published, a tale that depicted her in a way she believes is unflattering. We also follow Ewan as he presents himself in his book. Each chapter is told through a combination of a chapter of his book followed by Maggie in the present.

As far as the characters go, not many were particularly likable, Maggie included. Everyone Maggie meets after returning to Baneberry Hall has ulterior motives. She doesn’t know what they are yet, but she can see that’s the case after every meeting. While they weren’t necessarily likable, they do make an interesting cast of characters. There’s also one character we never actually meet: Allie. For someone who is a close friend and business partner, she mostly appears through the occasional text message. Honestly, it seems like she’s there to prove that Maggie has at least one friend even though this friendship isn’t exactly believable.

There are some details that aren’t very realistic. For example, Maggie arrives to check out her old childhood home in the evening. Alone. For a house that may have been left abandoned for a few decades, why would anyone show up alone and at night? That’s not even including informally hiring a guy she just met to help her work on the house because he said he’s the groundskeeper even though she has a partner. There’s no background check, no gathering of info, just superficial information exchanges and running on his family name and the fact that he’d been allegedly working for her dad. There’s a few other details that are spoilers that just seemed odd to unrealistic reactions, but they each stuck out to me.

I do like that we read passages of Ewan’s book alongside Maggie in real time. It was interesting to see how fact and fiction differed as well as what Maggie remembered from being back at the house. While many of the answers Maggie was looking for were obvious early on, my favorite part of the entire book is Ewan’s letter to her and the aftermath of what he had to say. It’s the only time in the book that didn’t have Ewan or Maggie putting their walls up. Ewan had many walls even in his book because there was something to be hidden, and Maggie was jaded between being a character in a famous paranormal non-fiction novel and knowing her parents were lying about it to her all along.

All in all, I don’t think this is a bad book and I did enjoy reading it. My best friend says Riley Sager’s other books really pack a punch, so I look forward to checking them out after reading this.