The September House

eBook, 344 pages

Published Nov. 25, 2023 by Berkley.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-54863-9

(1 review)

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.

2 editions

WardenRed reviewed The September House by Carissa Orlando

None

5 stars

Things don’t happen all at once, of course. They start gradually, changes occurring imperceptibly. You barely notice the differences, and once they make themselves known, they seem so small that you easily accept them, adjust your life in a minuscule way. Everyone can make minuscule adjustments. Then there’s another change, a bigger one, but you can still adjust so easily. No problem, really. Then another change, another adjustment, and so on and so on, and before you know it, you’re living a life that by all accounts should be unrecognizable but to you is just normal.

Every September, like clockwork, Margaret’s dream home turns into a horror movie scene, complete with bleeding walls, terrible all-night screams, and ghost children that bite. But that’s fine. It only happens for a month out of every year. No reason to even consider moving. If you play by the rules, after all, everything is …

Things don’t happen all at once, of course. They start gradually, changes occurring imperceptibly. You barely notice the differences, and once they make themselves known, they seem so small that you easily accept them, adjust your life in a minuscule way. Everyone can make minuscule adjustments. Then there’s another change, a bigger one, but you can still adjust so easily. No problem, really. Then another change, another adjustment, and so on and so on, and before you know it, you’re living a life that by all accounts should be unrecognizable but to you is just normal.

Every September, like clockwork, Margaret’s dream home turns into a horror movie scene, complete with bleeding walls, terrible all-night screams, and ghost children that bite. But that’s fine. It only happens for a month out of every year. No reason to even consider moving. If you play by the rules, after all, everything is survivable. Right?

The atmosphere here is delightfully thick from the get go, and I really like the mundane bend applied to all the horror movie clichés. Why, yes, the walls are bleeding. Yes, we don’t go anywhere near the basement. Yes, now and then we have to invite the priest over, and there’s a chance he’ll get violently sick with flies. But those are just things that can happen to anyone, really. It’s honestly not quite clear why the MC’s husband decided this was too much. Couldn’t he have just played by the rules for one month out of the whole year? This is all such a normal situation, after all!

And then you pause to make yourself a cup of tea, shake off the book’s vibe, and realize that no, fuck it, that’s not a normal situation at all, it’s just that the human mind’s ability to normalize the most terrible things when we don’t think escape is an option is truly vast and terrifying. And there are so many reasons to convince yourself that escape isn’t an option. Even when the doors are right there.

It’s no wonder, probably, that with an attitude like that, the haunted house horror plot obfuscates a domestic thriller plot about alcoholism and abuse. The two themes co-exist very well, with the way MC applies the same coping mechanisms to both making complete sense. Still, there was something about the transition/establishing clear links between them that didn’t sit 100% well with me. I think there should have been more subtle set-up coming in the early chapters—I feel like I can even point out specific places where I would personally insert some double-layered foreshadowing, of the sort the author actually *does* utilize beautifully later on. I just think it could have been a good idea to start earlier.

My absolute favorite thing here is the mother/daughter relationship between Margaret and Katherine. I feel like it’s the heart of the book: how they co-exist, how they don’t understand each other but seek understanding, Margaret’s protectiveness, Katherine’s struggles with her past. They clash often, and they don’t often make the best decisions when it comes to their interactions, but it’s so clear how well they both mean and how they both want the best for each other, even if it hurts. I kind of wish I could get Katherine’s perspective now and again, but overall, even without her getting a POV her arc is very clear, as is the inner turmoil she’s going through at any given part of the plot. Besides, I’ve already read a pretty stellar book from the perspective of an adult daughter there to free her mother from the clutches of a haunted house (A House with Good Bones, my beloved). It’s refreshing to see one from the other perspective.