Cover of Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark

  • 2020 first published
  • 416 pages
  • ★ 4.1 (14 ratings)
  • 6 editions

Todd Ritter's Home Before Dark (2020) is a ghost story and horror novel. Much of the action takes place in Vermont, United States. It features Maggie Holt, Ewan Holt and Jess Holt. Readers will find themes of Psychological, Ghost, authors and Vermont.

Open Library readers give it an average of 4.1 out of 5 from 14 ratings, and 132 more have it on their want-to-read list. It has been published in 6 editions. It appeared on the New York Times Combined Print And E-Book Fiction bestseller list in 2020.

At about 416 pages, most readers finish it in 7–8 hours.

About Home Before Dark

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of USA Today's Best Books of 2020 “A haunted house story—with a twist….[Sager] does not hold back”(Rolling Stone) in this chilling thriller from the author of Final Girls and Survive the Night. Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share. Twenty-five years ago, Maggie Holt and her parents moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. Three weeks later they fled in the dead of night, an ordeal her father recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His story of supernatural happenings and malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism. Maggie was too young to remember any of the horrific events that supposedly took place, and as an adult she doesn’t believe a word of her father’s claims. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When she inherits Baneberry Hall after his death and returns to renovate the place and sell it, her homecoming is anything but warm. The locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous, and human characters with starring roles in House of Horrors are waiting in the shadows. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place where unsettling whispers of the past lurk around every corner. And as Maggie starts to experience strange occurrences ripped from the pages of her father’s book, the truth she uncovers about the house’s dark history will challenge everything she believes.
Description from Open Library

Awards & lists

  • 📰New York Times bestseller list — Combined Print And E-Book Fiction, 2020

Themes, setting & tropes

Genres

Tropes

Setting

  • Vermont, United States

Characters

  • Maggie Holt
  • Ewan Holt
  • Jess Holt
  • Curtis Carver
  • Katie Carver
  • Marta Carver

Subjects

  • Thrillers
  • Psychological
  • Ghost
  • Authors
  • Vermont
  • Homecoming
  • Haunted houses
  • Inheritance and succession
  • Ghost stories
  • Secrecy
  • Murder
  • Horror
  • Thriller
  • Mystery
  • Mystery Thriller
  • Suspense

Quick answers

Who wrote Home Before Dark?

Home Before Dark was written by Todd Ritter and first published in 2020.

What genre is Home Before Dark?

It is usually shelved as Ghost Stories and Horror.

How long is Home Before Dark?

The median edition has 416 pages, about 7–8 hours of reading at 250 words per minute.

What books are similar to Home Before Dark?

Readers who like it often enjoy Bag of Bones, Julia and The Haunting of Hill House.

More by Todd Ritter

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