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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
A lot
Horror violence — supernatural threat; a death; period physical danger
Language
Some
Contemporary language; some strong words
Sexual Content
Barely any
No significant sexual content
Substance Use
Barely any
Minimal substance use
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
Haunted house horror — the supernatural elements are genuinely unsettling; Grief — Maggie's father has just died; A father's account that may have been fabricated — the gaslighting potential; The truth about what the family actually experienced
What this book is about
When Maggie Holt was five, her family fled Baneberry Hall in the middle of the night after weeks of terrifying experiences. Her father wrote a bestselling memoir about it. Now Maggie is an interior designer who has been hired to renovate the same house—and she's never believed any of it was real. Home Before Dark alternates between the memoir's account and Maggie's present-day renovation, with the two accounts increasingly diverging.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Haunted house horror — genuinely unsettling
A father's memoir that may have been fabricated — gaslighting as a plot element
Grief — Maggie's father's recent death
The alternating timelines converge in a disturbing way
Reader Verification
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