Since it’s creepy season, I stuck with the same theme: Haunted Houses. For the next read, I chose Riley’s Sager’s Home Before Dark.
Let me tell you that this may be my favorite book so far. It’s my first from this author and one of my fastest reads. I just could not put it down.
This book starts with our main character, Maggie, going to a lawyer to discuss her recently deceased father’s estate. In doing so, you realize that her father wrote a book about her family’s time at Banenerry House in Vermont. Maggie, her father, and her mother bought this house but spent only 2 weeks there before fleeing the hauntings that took place. But Maggie doesn’t have those memories and this book caused such a rift between her and her parents who are now divorced.
Unbeknownst to her, Maggie’s father never sold the home. Instead, he left the estate to his daughter. She goes there with the decision to fix it up and sell it. Since she’s now a home designer and renovator, this should be perfect for her. But, strange things start happening. She’s trying to find the truth, something she never got from her parents, but she ends up finding more than she ever thought.
I love how this book wove her father’s book with what’s currently happening to her. And I loved seeing how she starts to lessen her hatred for the lies from her parents and the book itself. Since things in the book start happening, she starts to believe that maybe they’re true. Or, at least, partially true. You can practically see her emotions change in the writing – see them evolve and see her struggle with what she’s always believed with what’s happening now. And it was beautiful to see how her surpressed memories finally started to come back. But the end…oh my, the end was something else. The twists and turns were not what I expected!
And now I’m rethinking my next read. I wanted to stick with Haunted Houses and either do The Haunting of Ashburn House or We Live Here Now. However, I really like this author and have another book by his I might read next instead: Survive the Night. An excerpt from that book was in Home Before Dark and let’s just say it’s more than intriguing.
I certainly have a delimma!