Home Before Dark Book Club Discussion

Go Carrie for bringing us October’s virtual book club meeting ON TIME this for the first time in a bit (eek!) despite all the endless online learning craziness. You rock, Carrie! Read on and hop in our Home Before Dark book club discussion, friends!

As weird as this year has been, I refuse to give up on Fall! I will LOVE those leaves and LOVE those pumpkin spice lattes (fight me!) and LOVE the weird, perfect weather and LOVE those cornstalks and cute, baby white pumpkins and LOVE the smell of apple cider and LOVE jeans and flip flops that eventually turn into tall brown boots and, lastly, I will LOVE Halloween – no matter what it looks like this year. And there’s nothing better than curling up with a cozy blanket, cinnamon tea and a spooky, scary book.

Home Before Dark Book Club Discussion

So, did I like this month’s pick, Home Before Dark? Yes. Yes I did. Was it well written and a chilling and creepy story? Yep. Could part of my fondness for this book have been because it’s fall and this is the absolute best time to read an eery, ominous story? Maybe. Either way, let’s dive in!

First, Baneberry Hall. Sager set up the perfect atmosphere for a potentially paranormal tale. I loved his descriptions and I loved the history of the house that was slowly revealed over the course of the book. It reminded me a little of the house in the movie Clue or any other Victorian gothic mansion with lightening cracking in the background. Definitely sufficiently spooky.

Home Before Dark Book Club Discussion Questions

What were your thoughts on the house? Did you feel adequately scared?

Maggie’s relationships with both her mother and her father, but particularly her father, were a strong theme throughout the book. I thought it was an interesting take to have her father’s book interspersed throughout the novel so we could get an almost real-time feel regarding what the young family had gone through when they first bought the house while also showing what Maggie was discovering in present day. The history of the house provided the clues that shaped Ewan’s book and also lined up with all the paranormal activity. The only thing that I found kind of confusing was why her father left the house to her.

How did you feel about the relationship between Maggie and her parents? Did you understand Maggie’s anger? 

I personally love a great paranormal thriller where you are not sure if it is truly ghosts or real people messing with the main characters. I thought Sager did a great job up until the very end before revealing what was really happening.

Are ghost stories your thing? What do you love about them? How about if they turn out to NOT be ghost stories?

Sager really had me guessing up until the very end. I had guessed parts of the ending near the middle of the book, and while some of that was semi-true, the actual ending was a true surprise. My favorite!

Did you guess the ending? Were you clueless? We won’t judge!

What was the scariest part for you? I’d have to say the snakes falling from the ceiling was pretty disturbing to me and I may have checked my own ceilings for bulging.

Overall thoughts? While I definitely found a few flaws with the book, I found it properly suspenseful and was perfect for the season!

And now … onto our next pick!

Meredith and I are super excited about our next pick, Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel! Read on for the description below, and as always, we are giving away a copy for free! Leave a comment on this blog post by 10/9/20 by 5:30am ET, and as long as you are 18 or older and live in the continental United States, you are eligible to win!

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel

The “quick-witted and razor-sharp” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six) author of Limelight and Small Admissions returns with a hilarious and heartfelt new novel about a perfectly imperfect summer of love, secrets, and second chances.

Bridget and Will have the kind of relationship that people envy: they’re loving, compatible, and completely devoted to each other. The fact that they’re strictly friends seems to get lost on nearly everyone; after all, they’re as good as married in (almost) every way. For three decades, they’ve nurtured their baby, the Forsyth Trio—a chamber group they created as students with their Juilliard classmate Gavin Glantz. In the intervening years, Gavin has gone on to become one of the classical music world’s reigning stars, while Bridget and Will have learned to embrace the warm reviews and smaller venues that accompany modest success.

Bridget has been dreaming of spending the summer at her well-worn Connecticut country home with her boyfriend Sterling. But her plans are upended when Sterling, dutifully following his ex-wife’s advice, breaks up with her over email and her twin twenty-somethings arrive unannounced, filling her empty nest with their big dogs, dirty laundry, and respective crises.

Bridget has problems of her own: her elderly father announces he’s getting married, and the Forsyth Trio is once again missing its violinist. She concocts a plan to host her dad’s wedding on her ramshackle property, while putting the Forsyth Trio back into the spotlight. But to catch the attention of the music world, she and Will place their bets on luring back Gavin, whom they’ve both avoided ever since their stormy parting.

With her trademark humor, pitch-perfect voice, and sly perspective on the human heart, Amy Poeppel crafts a love letter to modern family life with all of its discord and harmony. In the tradition of novels by Maria Semple and Stephen McCauley, Musical Chairs is an irresistibly romantic story of role reversals, reinvention, and sweet synchronicity.

Thanks so much for joining our Home Before Dark book club discussion! As always, we love hearing your thoughts and opinions! Keep them coming!!

Happy Reading!

***Thank you to Dutton Publishing for providing copies of Home Before Dark for review/giveaway. All opinions are 100% our own.***

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Meredith

Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.

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