I think we need a Spoiler Discussion for Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose, author of The Perfect Marriage. There’s a lot going on: three siblings, one mysterious VHS tape, three missing persons, and a lot of drama! Includes a Full Plot Summary for Home is Where the Bodies Are and the Home is Where the Bodies Are Ending Explained.
Main Characters in Home is Where the Bodies Are
Full Plot Summary of About Home is Where the Bodies Are
Plot Summary Part One: The Set-Up
Click to Read Plot Summary Part One
- Siblings Beth, Nicole and Michael head back to their childhood home in Wisconsin at the impending death of their mother, Laura.
- Beth, the only one present as Laura died, decides not to mention that her mother’s last words: “Your father didn’t disappear. Don’t trust…”
- The siblings’ father, Brian, vanished seven years ago, after leaving a note saying, “Laura, I’m sorry. Love, Brian.”
- A lawyer shows up, informing them that Laur left the house and a mysterious lockbox to Beth. Nicole and Beth will each get to pick two of their father’s belongings and the rest will go to Michael. Nicole gets Laura’s journals and car.
- Laura also left a letter to each child that she wants opened after her funeral.
- As the siblings start going through the house, they find a bunch of VHS tapes. Laura loved filming the family on her camcorder.
- They play a tape from 1999 and are shocked to see their father wearing a bloody shirt and discussing with their mother how to dispose of a body.
Plot Summary Part Two: Who is the Body?
- Beth knows: Emma Harper, their next-door neighbor, who went missing as a teenager in 1999.
- Michael and Nicole decide the video is a prank, but Nicole changes her mind after reading Laura’s journal, which refers to a “night that everything changed, shook her faith and made her realize monsters walk among us.” Well, then.
- Nicole also notices that some pages have been torn out of the journal. Very suspicious!
Why Did Laura Film Herself Talking About Disposing of a Body?
Apparently Laura carried the camcorder everywhere. She was filming when Brian interrupted her saying, hey, we need to dispose of a body. He told her to turn the camera off, but she didn’t. Maybe she was too shocked.
Plot Summary Part Three: What Do The Siblings Do Next?
- Nicole is still in touch with a local police officer and convinces him to give her Emma’s case file.
- Someone ransacks the house. Strangely, they don’t take the incriminating VHS Tape.
- After no contact for seven years, Beth gets an email from her father saying no worries, he’s safe and well.
- Beth tells her siblings her mother‘s last words: their dad didn’t disappear. Michael is able to track the location of the email to a town an hour west.
- Michael and Nicole decide to drive there and are somehow are able to find the exact house the email was sent from. But there’s nobody there.
- They stop at a run-down motel so Nicole can visit a “friend.” She’s an addict and owes someone money. Michael roughs him up, pays him, and says to leave Nicole alone.
Plot Summary Part Four: What About the House?
- Meanwhile, Beth watches more videotapes from 1999.
- In the present, Lucas (Beth’s ex-boyfriend and Emma’s brother) comes over. They walk down to the creek and he kisses her.
- In a flashback, Laura is wracked with guilt for helping Brian get rid of Emma‘s body. He tells her “we did what we had to do.”
- Michael and Nicole stop at the methadone clinic, then head home. Michael suggests that Beth keep the house and let Nicole live in it.
- Nicole bursts in saying she thinks their parents had something to do with another missing girl Christie Roberts.
Plot Summary Part Five: Another Missing Girl?
- In a flashback, Laura worries about Christie Roberts and thinks that Brian had something to do with her disappearance.
- Emma’s mom Susan comes over and tells Brian and Laura that a man named Charles Gallagher confessed to killing Emma.
- In the present, Nicole reads old newspaper clippings about the second missing girl. Beth remembers Christy: she had a camera and used to take a lot of pictures.
Plot Summary Part Six: A Suspect?
- Nicole says there was a suspect in Emma‘s disappearance: Charles Gallagher, the “town creep.” Charles confessed.
- But Laura planted Emma’s bicycle at a dead end in town while Charles is in jail to make sure Charles isn’t blamed.
Plot Summary Part Seven: Laura’s Funeral
- Nicole asked her police officer friend Casey to meet her at the Boar’s Nest with Christy’s case file.
- Michael tells Beth that giving Nicole the files is against the law. He offers Beth a check for $400,000 for the house. He says he wants to keep it and wants Nicole. Uh huh.
- Well, what do you know? Casey found another missing persons case: Charles went also missing.
- Susan in a wheelchair to Laura’s service and tells the siblings that Laura told Susan that she knew where Emma was and she would show Susan.
- The siblings scatter Laura’s ashes on the property, as she requested.
Plot Summary Part Eight: Brian’s Up to Something and Beth Loses It
- In a flashback, Laura is concerned. Brian was missing from bed and then took a shower. He says he woke up sick and decided to shower but she thinks he’s been out doing something bad and then washed off the evidence. He accuses her of leaving Emma’s bicycle at the dead end he tells her he killed Charles Gallagher.
- Beth and Lucas sleep together and then he has a lot to say: he broke up with Beth senior year after his father’s suicide. The sheriff agreed to call it a “hunting accident: so that Susan could get his life insurance money.
- Lucas always wondered if his father had something to do with Emma‘s disappearance, because he left a letter saying he “couldn’t forgive himself.”
- Beth, feeling horrible, she shows him the tape.
- He’s totally freaked out and says they shouldn’t have slept together.
- Beth starts a huge fire in the front yard and starts burning stuff in the house. Michael is furious and says he’s leaving.
Plot Summary Part Nine: Brian and Laura Turn on Each Other
- Brian tells Laura that Eddie (Emma’s father) killed Charles because he was convinced that he did something to Emma.
- Laura asks Brian where Charles body is and he says he “took care of it.”
- Laura says she wants to know every single thing about what happened to Emma. By the end of his story she hates him and hates herself, but would’ve done the exact same thing. I think I see where this is going!
Plot Summary Part Ten: Nicole and Beth Figure it All Out
- Michael drives off in rage. Beth’s fire is still burning. Nicole decides to open her mother’s letter, which says “you’re not the child I wanted but you’re the one I deserved.” Wow.
- Beth looks for Emma’s body by the creek. She finds the family’s pet graveyard. She recognizes some of the names of some of the pads but not others, which is odd. She starts digging.
- Nicole goes to the bank and, pretending to be Beth, gets access to the safe deposit box that her mom left for Beth. Inside Nicole finds an envelope.
- Inside that there’s a mood ring, a receipt, a piece of torn clothing, and a note: “I’ve taken these secrets to the grave, but that’s as far as I can take them.”
- Beth decides the three graves must be Emma, Christie and Charles. A voice comes through the trees.
- Nicole, in her car, calls the police.
What Was the Ending of Home is Where the Bodies Are?
- Lucas shows up and Beth tells him she found Emma and Brian. Lucas asked her if her parents killed Emma.
- Michael appears and whacks Lucas over the head with a shovel.
- Beth asked Michael if this is why he wanted the house so much.
- Michael claims Emma’s death was an accidental fall from a bridge.
- Michael says Brian tried to strangle him and was killed in self-defense.
- Michael fakes the email from their father and tore pages out of the journals.
- Nicole shows up and there’s a huge three-way fight in the mud. Nicole bites Michael and he hits her in the face with a gun. Beth hits Michael with her shovel and his gun discharges.
- Beth tells Nicole what Michael confessed to her before Nicole got there: Michael switched the letters. He was the child she didn’t want but deserved.
- Nicole gives Emma the letter from the safe deposit box.
What Did Laura’s Final Letter Say?
- Brian told Laur Emma was dead and they need to get rid of the body. She went along with it.
- Eddie killed Charles in a drunken rage six months after Emma‘s death. Laura and Brian helped cover that up because they felt responsible. And I guess Eddie’s suicide was due to his guilt.
- Laura and Brian believed Michael when he said Emma’s death was a tragic accident.
- Then Christy Roberts showed them her photos that proved Michael was lying: he pushed Emma off the bridge.
- Christie offered Brian the photos for $5000 and he paid her. She’s alive and well.
- Seven years ago, Michael came to his parents, claiming his girlfriend had died in an accident.
- They didn’t believe him, and Michael and Brian got in a terrible argument, with Brian ending up dead.
- Laura and Michael buried Brian’s body. Laura told Michael she never wanted to see him again.
Epilogue: Three years later
Beth and Lucas have three-year-old son, Jack. Michael is in prison. Nicole wrote a book about the family story. Knowing the truth allowed her to forgive her parents and heal old childhood wounds. She and Beth always thought Michael was their parents’ favorite, but they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Why Do You Think Laura Didn’t Destroy or Erase the Tape?
That was odd to me.
Did a Teenage Christie Really Blackmail the Thomas Family?
Maybe she wanted to get away from her “overbearing” parents and cut off all contact after she got her blackmail money. Laura only learned the truth about Christie on the night that Eddie killed Charles.
So BOTH Christie and Laura Are Obsessive Photographers?
Yes, it’s a bit coincidental that they both manage to capture incriminating evidence. But it was the 90s and there was no social media and less going on!
Fun Fact: The Setting is Real!
Most if not all of the places mentioned in Home is Where the Bodies Are a real! Here’s a photo collage of The Boar’s Nest, inspired by the Dukes of Hazzard (lol).
