Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

I finally got off my duff and concentrated on a book long enough to finish it. I've been bouncing between 3-4 books since August 1st and not making headway in any of them. However, Home Before Dark took over and the more I read, the more invested I got in the story and couldn't put it down. And since today is National Book Lover's Day, I thought it was appropriate to have a relaxing Sunday and read all morning. 

Home Before Dark is the first book I've read by author Riley Sager, and I'm happy to say I'll definitely be reading more. This was a blend of thriller, ghost story, and mystery all rolled into one. I honestly didn't know where the story was taking me until the very end. 

Maggie Holt's life has been ruled by her father's infamous haunted house memoir, published when Maggie was around six years old. In it, her father tells the story of their experience living for just a few short weeks in Baneberry Hall, an old estate in the Vermont woods. His book House of Horrors describes the increasingly uneasy happenings in the house, which culminate in Maggie and her parents fleeing one July night, never to return to the house again. The memoir made her parents rich, but tore the family apart. It also caused Maggie to have a somewhat miserable childhood. Her parents wouldn't discuss the book and whether or not it was true, and Maggie was always known as "that girl". Now her father has died, and to Maggie's surprise, he has left her his whole estate-which includes Baneberry Hall. He never sold it, and Maggie doesn't know why. Now she's returning to get the house ready to sell, and also to dig deep and find out if her parents made everything up or if the home is actually haunted. 

As Maggie returns, she's not very welcome in town. Her father's memoir made the small town and some of its inhabitants infamous, and even though it's been 25 years, the resentment is still strong. Maggie just wants to quickly renovate the place, put it up for sale, and never see it again. However, things begin to happen that make Maggie question everything about her father, his memoir, and her own memories of that long ago July. If she can't remember specific things that happened in the book, does that mean they never happened? Or was she so traumatized by it all that she simply can't remember? 

I was completely ready for a spooky horror novel. What I got was a puzzle that slowly unfolded, and kept me trying to figure out what exactly happened at Baneberry Hall 25 years before. Why is Maggie's mother so reluctant to talk about it? Why is Maggie having horrible night terrors of Mister Shadow coming out of the armoire in her room, just as she did as a child? Is the place really haunted? And if so, by whom? The history of the house is steeped in sadness and a whole lot of death. 

This was a great read. Every other chapter is a chapter from the House of Horrors memoir, and that definitely kept me glued to the pages! 

Rating: 5/6 for a thriller with a supernatural element that leaves you guessing: is it true? Twists and turns that make it hard to figure out until the very end. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. 

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Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

I first read Paulette Jiles years ago, when I stumbled on Enemy Women at my bookstore.  I was gobsmacked by that novel, and it remains one of my favorite Civil War novels. 

I've had an advanced reader's copy of this book for a few years.  I was excited to read it, but somehow lost my enthusiasm about 30 pages into it, put it down, and didn't pick it up again until last week. I deliberately picked it for my book group this month so I would finally read it.  It's only a few hundred pages; easy enough, right? Read it in one sitting.  

Yet it still took me the better part of a week to read, and my only thought about that is because I liked Captain Kidd and Johanna so much I didn't want anything to happen to them on their journey.  I just couldn't bear to read a passage that would endanger, injure, or tear Johanna away from the Captain.  So that very reason kept me from reading it a few years ago, and had me taking a week to read a book I could have read in a day. 

It's a simple enough story.  Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is a man in his early 70's who travels the West reading newspapers to audiences. It is, indeed, news of the world. His eloquent, commanding voice, and his choices of which articles to read make him a popular man in his travels.  The Civil War is over, yet fallout remains.  Texas, where this novel is set, is torn apart by political factions, hideouts from the war, and Native Americans attacking pioneers, cowboys, and pretty much everyone. Kiowa Indians are in a fight for survival that sadly they won't win. Captain is asked to deliver ten year old Johanna to her Aunt and Uncle, after being rescued from the Kiowa tribe that killed her parents and sister four years earlier.  Johanna has completely lost any identity as a white child, and is scared, angry, and speaks only Kiowa. She wants to go back to the tribe, which she considers family.  

As Captain and Johanna travel from Wichita Falls through Texas on a 400 mile journey, they slowly get to know each other. Their developing relationship is the heart of the novel, and for me that was the best part, and the most surprising part.  I kept waiting for disaster to strike, and it did, but Captain and Johanna came together and saved themselves in a pretty ingenious way.  My fears of a journey plagued by fire, floods, and attacks were unrealized, and that made me very relieved.  Instead, this novel is about a child who is suffering from PTSD, an elderly gentlemen who has been around (and also suffers from PTSD), fought wars, lived, loved, raised children, and is now continuing to spread the "news of the world" to folks who have little contact with the world outside their towns.

A bigger conversation could be had about the effects of tragedy on small children, and what family means, especially when children are forcibly returned to family that neither cares nor wants them. It's stirred my interest in historical figures Cynthia Parker and Olive Oatman, two women who were returned to white society after living with Native Americans.  Their stories are available in books and films, and are fascinating.  

Rating: 4/6. I'm glad I had the chance to go back and finish News of the World. I love Paulette Jiles' writing style; she says a lot with few words, and her characters  become quite endearing very quickly. You'll not soon forget the Captain and Johanna. 

Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audio. A National Book Award Finalist. 

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News of the World by Paulette Jiles