Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself-a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity-and skepticism. 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. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. And she’s like I ain’t afraid of no ghost! and she moves the fuck in even though her father used his final words to be like don’t fucking do that. But to do that, Maggie needs to move back in.

What is one to do with an abandoned haunted manor that probably holds the key to all Maggie’s questions? Flip it and sell it, obviously. Now her dad’s gone and her mom is all “ I’m leaving for Paris!” so if Maggie wants the truth, she’ll need to search for it herself. Any time she’s tried to get the truth from her parents they are dodgy and shady AF. Now a house-flipper and designer, Maggie was too young to really remember what happened, but she’s sure her father’s book is whole ass bullshit. Just like the real Amityville – who many believe was a long-con by the family – not everyone believes the Holt family’s claims. Her father even wrote a bestseller about it that gained the family national fame and scorn.

She and her parents fled in the middle of the night from Baneberry Hall and never returned, claiming the house was going to murder them, basically. When Maggie Holt’s father dies, she inherits the haunted house she lived in for 15 days when she was 5-years-old, totally unaware that her father still owned it. But it does read like more of a mystery-thriller. Home Before Dark is a little bit spooky with a touch of Amityville vibes and lots of that signature Sager misdirection and twisty-twists. You never really know what you’re going to get with each new chapter. It’s intentionally walking that line of fact or fiction, skepticism or belief. I wish this had fully been a horror story because, from the bottom of my bottom, I know Riley Sager could totally kill a haunted house horror novel.īut, this is like haunted house horror adjacent.

Filed Under: I’m not in the habit of blaming Satan for every phenomenon.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager