Home Before Dark

3.75/5⭐️

This one I keep going back and forth on. I have read a paranormal thriller before and I really enjoyed it and for most of this book I couldn’t keep a true level of interest into it. But then the twist of the book was actually really good. It all came together don’t get me wrong but it took so long to sort through it all and to reveal everything it but the ending of the book was really good. So again I keep going back and forth and I honestly still don’t know if I liked it or not.

Not my favorite book but it did have some good plot twists.

this was a crazy ride. i genuinely couldn’t look away

The way my jaw dropped at the twists at the end of this book. I had to explain this whole book to my boyfriend while I was reading the last three chapters because I needed to talk about it so desperately

This one follows the life of Maggie Holt as she uncovers the sinister secrets of her family’s old home. Sooo good!! It’s giving me The Haunting of Hill House vibes but spookier.🙈

first book i read by the author and it surprised me.

This is an AMAZING book!! Mysterious and frightening!! Told in a way that made me just need to know what really happened in the House of Horrors and once I found out...dang it gave me chills!! Highly recommend!!!!

The only saving grace of this book were the narrators.

not me reading this while my fiancé is out of town...

This book is very haunting of hill house, which I love!

Riley sager NEVER fails to amaze me with his writing. This was one of the spookiest books I’ve read in a long time. But let me tell you the TWISTS were insane. Definitely a must read

Thoroughly enjoyed!! This book was a little creepy and never lost my attention. The first plot twist was meh but the SECOND 👀

This one was tough to put down and had me a l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ lot creeped out. I had sooo many running theories throughout this book, but it still kept me guessing until the very end. A few of my ideas panned out but not exactly the way I was expecting. The ending felt a bit rushed for me, but the suspense was wonderfully done. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a haunted house story… BUT at the same time, if you want a haunted house story just go watch @thehaunting of Bly Manor because it is so so so good. If you’ve read HBD you’ll know what I mean by this… Sound Of Music is one of my all time favorite movies and I’m not sure Sixteen Going on Seventeen will ever be the same. 👻🎶 ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 3.5/5 (my favorite Sager book so far) Full post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CidtU3yPN...

Prob 2.5 stars for me, just too many things to nitpick in the book to ever feel fully engaged or invested.

** spoiler alert ** Really great book, it reminded me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House show on Netflix (not the Shirley Jackson novel). It was so intriguing and I definitely got scared on more than one occasion. Spoilers: The only reason I am giving it 4 stars, rather than 5, is because I wish some of the supernatural things that occurred throughout Ewan’s version of the story were true. I love a good haunted house story and the fact that it was almost all explained away as real people left me wanting an actual Mister Shadow or Indigo spirit hanging around. Other than that it was amazing and I loved the way it was told by going back and forth between the fiction and reality.

I should read more books about ghosts because they are the only ones that really can scare me. At first the plot looked like it came out of a bad horror movie from 2010 but it's okay because I like those kind of movies. I liked how the chapters alternated between the present with Maggie and the book her dad wrote. Did it scared me? Definitely. I was convinced that I was not going to like this book since i had a bad experience with this author, but I was surprised. 4/5 stars.

** spoiler alert ** this was my first riley sager book and i honestly quite enjoyed it! some of the writing, especially within the chapters “written” by ewan, wasn’t my favourite but i cant tell if that was just sager’s writing style or intentional, especially as quite a few times in the story his writing was more or less described as mediocre. i’m not gonna lie, i Really didn’t expect the ending and (sort of spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the book yet) the not single, not double but triple twist! this book had me crying at Least three different times throughout my time reading it, especially towards the end. i found myself really wanting to continue this book whenever i had to put it down and during work would end up wishing the hours away just so i could get out and continue it, which hasn’t really happened with me and a book in a while! i’ll definitely read more of sager’s book. i really hope they reach the same standards of this book, if not exceed them! edit: i really should mention that this is one of the very few thrillers i’ve ever read so it’s probably not very hard to impress me within this genre. if you are more familiar with thrillers than i am, or even if you’re not, you might not like this book! you might absolutely HATE this book, or u might absolutely love this book. i definitely think it’s worth the chance tho bc i really did enjoy it a lot

The horror was good. The story was good. The plot twists were good. I just didn’t feel the usual Riley Sager has blown my mind feels from it so 4 stars instead of 5.

Some of the twists were predictable and leaned a little trope-y, but some were pretty clever and surprised me. Overall a fun read with enough spooky/crime intrigue to keep me reading to the end even though the characters felt a little flat and expected.

I was quite excited for the new Riley Sager book since he is one of my favorite thriller authors, and probably the only writer of psychological thrillers that I enjoy, always delivering. I'm generally more of a procedural fan but his books are different. That's because each of his books, even though they are thrillers, includes tropes from horror sub-genres. This one is no exception. I really enjoyed his take on the haunted house genre, which confirms he's quite good at making characters doubt their beliefs and their sanity. As for his previous works it is a thriller, not a horror book, but it clearly has a lot of horror elements and I was wondering the whole time whether it would turn into a full blown horror story. The story is told in both the present and past, including excerpts from the father's book. This is quite interesting because the past storyline doesn't inlude an objective account of what transpired, but a romanced account of the short time the family spent in the house. Therefore, it is impossible to know what is real or not. All her life, Maggie has wondered why her parents ruined her life by making her "the girl from the haunted house" and has struggled with relationships. The "book within a book" setup worked really well because the dad's book was so well-written and felt quite realistic, so I was questioning whether any of the story had actually happened, whether the parents actually believed in the fact that the house was haunted. I was not able to guess the ending and there were a few instances in which I thought I finally knew what had happened, but I never realized why the dad had written the book before it was revealed, and it was quite a good twist. Overall it was my least favorite of Sager's novels, but it is still very solid and I really enjoyed the ride

it was fine but not outstanding. i definitely guessed part of the ending but it did keep me intrigued and was a great start to spooky season!

Another fun and spooky tale by Riley Sager. This one relies on the old back-to-the-haunted-house trope. You know, "We left the house forever, but now I MUST go back!" Kind of silly, sometimes predictable, but still fun. One more Riley Sager book to go, then I have to wait until next June for a new one.

It has been a long time since I read a book that scared me. That had me unwilling to read it at night. This book is really well done. It will scare you and bring you for a ride and keep you guessing about what is real and what isnt. Highly recommend!