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

Dead Set by Richard Kadrey

I needed to read a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel for my book group on Tuesday, and what is usually a super easy pick for me turned out to be not so easy! I tried a couple of different novels before I picked this up at my library on Friday. It turned out to be a pretty darn good read, and my introduction to author Richard Kadrey. 

Kadrey writes the Sandman Slim series, which are urban fantasy and very popular. I've looked at that series many times over the past few years, but never actually picked one up. Now I'm more inclined to do so, after reading Dead Set. It is not part of the Sandman Slim series, and is a stand alone fantasy novel--something that's getting harder and harder to find. If you're a reader of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, you know that the majority of writers craft a trilogy or a series instead of single novels, and that can be frustrating. Sometimes you just want to read a story that ends with the last page, and leaves you satisfied with the conclusion. I'm bad about series, anyway. I usually read about half the series before I lose interest. I'm not opposed to series; I've been sucked into a few and entranced by the plot and the characters so much that I'm glad there are more novels. But, I do get a bit restless and always feel that eventually, the series jumps the shark and isn't quite as good as it was in the beginning.

Back to Dead Set. It was a quick read, and definitely one you can zip through in a day or two. I stayed up late last night and got up early this morning to finish it. I couldn't wait to see what happened. Zoe is a teenager, in a new crummy apartment with her mother in San Francisco. Her father died suddenly, and until the insurance money comes in, they are really broke. Her mother is searching for a job, but she's been out of the workforce for years and is just not having any luck. Depressed, grieving, and angry, Zoe starts at a new high school. Bored with her teachers and her classes, she skips school one day and finds a really weird record shop. She's in familiar territory, since her father used to work with punk rock bands and famous rockers, and her mother used to design the artwork for album covers. 

This is, of course, not a usual record shop. And Emmett, the creepy dude who runs it, is a little outside of normal. Dusty, musty, and crammed with hundreds of albums, Zoe wanders around, until she sees another room and just has to look. Inside are more albums, but they're very different. These albums contain the lives and souls of people. 

Oh, and Emmett gleefully shares with Zoe the news that he has her father's album there, and she can listen to it-for a price. 

Zoe's a pretty smart kid, and a tough one, too. But she's a kid missing her Dad, and of course she's going to pay whatever price is required so she can see her Dad one more time. 

And from there, the story takes off! Zoe's recurring dreams of her friend Valentine, the treehouse they occupy, the scary black dogs roaming around, and the beautiful woman she sees in quick glimpses are all part of the adventure Zoe is about to take. Egyptian mythology marries with a startling look at what happens when we die. Modern concepts of what lies beyond are always fascinating, and this novel explores that--with a twist, of course. Zoe has to keep all her wits about her in order to survive and return home; but her grief and sense of duty may doom her. 

I'm so glad I spotted this book at the library and took a chance. It was a great introduction to a new author (new for me), and it was just the kind of fantasy novel I was looking for the past week. It is suitable for young adults, too. Some folks think it's firmly a YA novel, but I think it's an adult novel that YA would enjoy, too. 

Rating: 4/6 for a novel with big themes: death, the other side, grief, coping, love, loyalty, and oh heck yes-being stronger than you ever though you could be. A quick read the ramps up in action that will have you biting your nails and rooting Zoe on to victory. And ICK! SNAKES. 

Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audio. 

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Dead Set by Richard Kadrey

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

After reading this book, I know I wouldn't last more than a day in the jungle. Mosquitoes just love me, and I can't even survive a few hours in my back yard during the summer when they come out in droves. I'd be a giant mess in the jungles of Honduras. Couple that with an absolute terror of snakes, and I'm done. Douglas Preston is a much braver soul than I ever will be, and thanks to him, I got to read about this archaeological adventure in the comfort of my home.

The Lost City of the Monkey God is an adventure that takes you into the vast, dense jungles of Honduras to look for the famous "White City" or "Lost City of the Monkey God". For centuries, rumors have told of a famous city, lost for years in one of the most remote places on earth:  the jungles of Honduras. Hard to get to; once you do, the time spent hacking through the jungle just to walk a few feet keeps most people out. It is one of the last places on earth that still remained a mystery; untouched by humans for centuries. It's been so long since humans have lived in the area that animals are not afraid and are merely curious at the new arrivals.  

As I read this book, I thought of Bill Bryson's funny take on Australia, where he says that pretty much everything there can kill you. That's just what Mosquita, the vast, impenetrable jungle in Honduras presents.  Mosquitoes, snakes of all shapes and sizes (and all horribly lethal), sand flies, and a host of other creatures that require constant vigilance and constant spraying of DEET. Yet Douglas Preston (yes, the co-author of the Preston and Child novels) gets a chance to go along on a trip to finally find out if the rumors are true: is there a lost city in the jungle? When National Geographic calls, you go!

Using LiDAR, which is, from what I can understand, a very expensive scanning machine (this is a much simplified description), archaeologists discovered not one, but two potential sites in 2012. Known as T1 and T3, the LiDAR scans proved for the first time definitively that there were man-made structures in the jungle.  Not only man-made, but huge, and spanning miles.  Were they vast cities?  And who built them?  

Preston and crew returned to the jungle in 2015 to finally start exploring what their scans had found, and what they discovered was beyond their biggest dreams.  Untouched, intact proof of a sophisticated civilization that disappeared hundreds of years ago. They simply walked away from their cities. Why? The jungle doesn't leave very many clues. The high acidity in the soil means that anything organic is quickly broken down. Any hope of finding tombs with remains were swiftly dashed. What they did find opened up a huge debate over the culture that existed, how to protect the sites from looters, and how Honduran cultural identity would be formed. It also brought up a huge debate regarding what exactly archaeology is, and how advanced scanning technology is both at once a huge gift to the field, and damaging to the practice of actually going into a site and excavating.  

There's much more to this tale, and I'll leave it to you to discover. Preston and crew didn't leave the jungle alone; they were exposed to a dangerous illness that in itself is fascinating to read about. Preston talks about Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and I think it's probably a book I should read sometime soon. The whole Old World bringing disease to the New World issue plays a big part in this story, and even carries over into Preston's life after he returns home.

I highly recommend this adventure to anyone who enjoys travel memoirs, archaeology, history, and science. Those who have devoured The Lost City of Z must read this--it's full of rascals who claimed to have found treasure and the lost city, and the excitement their travels created in newspapers in the early and mid-20th century.  

Rating: 4/6 for a really interesting read on something that was never on my radar; the archaeology geek in me was hooked. How do you begin to understand a civilization that was lost to time?  

Available in hardcover and ebook.     

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The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston