Home Before Dark
Riley Sager, 2017
Mystery, thriller & crime HorrorContemporary fiction
A troubled family's chilling memoir of a house that captivated the world, only to leave them haunted by a truth that is much stranger than ghosts.
Feels like unease, melancholy and curiosity. About memory, identity and home.
A page from the book
When a lie becomes a narrative, dismantling it requires a courage that defies history.
Every house has a story. Ours is a ghost story. It’s also a lie. And now that yet another person has died within these walls, it’s finally time to tell the truth. Riley Sager.Sager, known for her sharp psychological hooks, often writes from the perspective of flawed, unreliable narrators, making the reader constantly question reality.
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A home-care aide tends a notorious invalid in a crumbling mansion, where every kindness feels like a clue.
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A baking blogger who survived a notorious massacre is drawn back into the final-girl mythology when another survivor turns up dead.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Home Before Dark like?
- Feels like unease, melancholy and curiosity. About memory, identity and home.
- What should I read after Home Before Dark?
- If you liked Home Before Dark, try In a Dark, Dark Wood (Ruth Ware), Before I Go to Sleep (S.J. Watson) and Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng).
A taste of the feed
When the light feels like a trap, the darkness is watching.
The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass.
In a Dark, Dark Wood · Ruth Ware
The particular dread of a long life that leaves nothing behind.
I cannot imagine how I will cope when I discover that my life is behind me, has already happened, and I have nothing to show for it. No treasure house of collection, no wealth of experience, no accumulated wisdom to pass on. What are we, if not an accumulation of our memories?
Before I Go to Sleep · S.J. Watson
To confront true darkness is to risk becoming part of what you fear.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
A Flicker in the Dark · Stacy Willingham
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