Maggie grew up in a famously haunted house, her family made millions from selling their story. Now she is back to see whether it was really all a lie, or if there really is a darkness in these walls.

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into a rambling Victorian estate called Baneberry Hall. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon.

Now, Maggie has inherited Baneberry Hall after her father's death. She was too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father's book. But she doesn't believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don't exist.

But when she returns to Baneberry Hall to prepare it for sale, her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the pages of her father's book lurk in the shadows, and locals aren't thrilled that their small town has been made infamous. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself - a place that hints of dark deeds and unexplained happenings.

As the days pass, Maggie begins to believe that what her father wrote was more fact than fiction. That, either way, someone - or something - doesn't want her here. And that she might be in danger all over again . . .

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER