"A Hand to the Plow" (2022, Red Rock Review), "Tickleneck" (2022, Spotlong Review), "The Cycle" (2021, Evening Street Review), "Seen" (2020, Every Day Fiction), "The Parent License" (2020, The Virginia Normal), and "Sunset 9037" (2013, Strangelet Magazine).
At Electric Lit Kenitz tagged seven novels in which "authors have skillfully used unique real estate situations for all sorts of literary purposes: metaphors, side plots, symbols, and entanglements." One title on the list:
Home Before Dark by Riley SagerRead about another novel on the list.
A literal House of Horrors here as the protagonist, Maggie Holt, inherits the mansion that had inspired her late father to write abestselling book about the haunted house. Finding out the causes of the haunting feel a bit like demo day during a renovation—you’re never sure what’s going to turn up behind the walls. The House of Horrors book-within-a-book is a fun way to unravel the mysteries here, including a collapsed kitchen ceiling that reveal a secret love affair. You know. Standard demo day stuff.
Home Before Dark is among Tom Ryan's six top suspense novels featuring mysterious mansions, Chanel Cleeton's nine novels about grand homes that are filled with secrets, Philip Fracassi's ten best thrillers with supernatural elements, Ana Reyes's six top books with embedded narratives, James S. Murray's five top books about women fighting their way out and Karen Dionne's eight top thrillers that turn home into a place of mortal danger.
The Page 69 Test: Home Before Dark.
--Marshal Zeringue
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