Down Time-Home Before Dark

Although I love reading and horror movies, I never considered reading a supernatural/paranormal novel. I didn’t understand how something could be so scary on a page when you can simply close the book, just as you can pause a movie. However, with Riley Sager’s novel, Home Before Dark, along with his other novels, it’s not that simple. 

The first Riley Sager book I read was The House Across the Lake, and I recall finishing it late at night, having to turn all the lights on around me to dispel the shadows and my interpretation of what they meant. 

Home Before Dark was no exception. Told from the perspective of a “ghost-denier,” Maggie Holt revisits a home she lived in as a child with her parents. In similarity to the Amityville story, the family fled after just a few weeks of staying, and Maggie’s father wrote a haunting tale about their experiences. Now back in that town, she is being haunted by the same things that her father wrote about. She constantly writes it off as something explainable because she doesn’t remember the experiences her father wrote about. As her denial increases, unexplainable events mount up against her and continue to confuse the reader. 

Riley Sager is known for his plot twists, and this book is no exception, right at the climax of the story. I do read a few authors that consistently write things I like and therefore continue to seek them out, and Riley Sager earns one of those places. I hope to read Middle of the Night or The Only One Left when I find the time. I read Home Before Dark in August of 2024 and rated it four stars on my Goodreads profile