THE INSTANT
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER• One of
USA Today
's Best Books of 2020
“A haunted house story—with a twist….[Sager] does not hold back”(
Rolling Stone
) in this chilling thriller from the author of
Final Girls
and
Survive the Night
.
Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share.
Twenty-five years ago, Maggie Holt and her parents moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. Three weeks later they fled in the dead of night, an ordeal her father recounted in a memoir called
House of Horrors
. His story of supernatural happenings and malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling
The Amityville Horror
in popularity—and skepticism.
Maggie was too young to remember any of the horrific events that supposedly took place, and as an adult she doesn’t believe a word of her father’s claims. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When she inherits Baneberry Hall after his death and returns to renovate the place and sell it, her homecoming is anything but warm. The locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous, and human characters with starring roles in
are waiting in the shadows.
Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place where unsettling whispers of the past lurk around every corner. And as Maggie starts to experience strange occurrences ripped from the pages of her father’s book, the truth she uncovers about the house’s dark history will challenge everything she believes.