Home Before Dark - Riley Sager
A defining experience of my childhood was the broadcast of a BBC program on Halloween night of 1992 entitled Ghostwatch. It featured a well-known UK TV personality of the time entering a house in North London that was purported to be haunted by a Poltergeist. The wholesome morning television presenter, named Sarah Greene, visited the house live on air in the hours leading up to midnight to interview its occupants - a mother and her two daughters - and to capture evidence of the supernatural on camera.
The show began quite lightheartedly, with carving pumpkins and bobbing for apples, but as the night went on, strange things started to happen, and the poltergeist - named Mr. Pipes by the two young children for his habit of banging on the houses water pipes - began to cause havoc. As the seconds counted down to midnight, Greene descended into the cellar of the house, as all hell was breaking loose around her when, suddenly, the broadcast abruptly ended, leaving viewers wondering if she survived.
The next morning, after 30,000 viewers had called the BBC to find out if Greene had lived, and to say the broadcast had terrified their children, the BBC released a prompt statement communicating that the show had been entirely fictional, and, had been recorded many weeks before, but broadcast "live" to increase the dramatic effect of the show for viewers. The show was banned from repeat broadcast and only resurfaced as a cult classic in recent years.
I was nine years old at the time, and I certainly wasn't allowed to stay up and watch it on the night it aired. As I was fascinated, even at that age, by ghosts and the supernatural, my mother recorded the show for me, and I was able to watch it the next morning. It terrified the life out of me. I was terrified of Mr. Pipes and, for some reason, believed that he was situated on our home staircase for months after watching the show. Later, in the car, a radio show was discussing the controversy, and my mother reiterated that the show was entirely fictional. Mr. Pipes stayed with me, and, from then on, I've always been fascinated by haunted houses, ghosts, poltergeists, and all things paranormal.
Cut to 2020, and 36-year-old me reads the synopsis for Home Before Dark, the new novel from Riley Sager. I had to get my hands on that novel, and boy was I glad I did.
"What was it like, living in that house? Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents...moved into Banebury Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. 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. His tales of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity - and skepticism."
Home Before Dark begins as Maggie Holt inherits Banebury Hall upon the death of her father, and heads back to the infamous property to renovate and sell it. Sager brilliantly structures the novel, alternating between chapters of Ewan Holt's book, House of Horrors, and Maggie Holt's experiences as she attempts to flip the house and rid herself of it, but also find out the truth about her father's book.
I won't say much more, as I don't want to ruin a single twist or turn in this wonderfully paced, thrilling adventure. It doesn't surprise me one iota that Home Before Dark has already been optioned for adaptation. Needless to say, you might not want to read late at night if you're of a nervous or easily scared disposition.
Home Before Dark is published on June 30, 2020. A huge thank you to Dutton Books for sending a copy my way, it was much appreciated.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
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