Blurb:

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry 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 tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

Review:

I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to be along for the ride of this book. I am not a person who watches scary movies or reads too many thrillers but there is just something about Riley Sager’s writing that makes me throw all caution to the wind whenever he releases a new book.

This book was no different. I was going thru a reading slump like most of us have during this time and although I only had access to the egalley, I devoured it. What I like most is how Riley takes a troupe and puts his own little twist on it making it something a bit new. He also has the ability to write his stories from a female perspective without making you feel like he is patronizing her.

There were parts in this story where I cringed, but I was still able to sleep at night. There were also some parts where I had to extend my imagination just a bit more than normal, but that was not a problem for me because that is what reading a story like this is all about.

I have to admit that I did not feel any connection with any of the characters, but that is because I just kept wanting to see what would happen to them. A bit cruel, huh? Hey, it’s a thriller. What do you expect?

I recommend this book especially if you are a fan of haunted house stories with weird twists or if you are just a Riley Sager fan in general.

Rating:

4 Stars

A special thank you to Mystery Book Club and Dutton Books for the opportunity to read and review this title.