The OCD in me REALLY wanted to read this in September ... but the library hold didn't come in until October. Oh well, I'm manipulating my Storygraph Mood Map (usually "emotional/reflective" tops my chart) going for dark/tense/mysterious for spooky season. This fits the bill. I don't usually do horror. 

This was an odd mix, because our MC Margaret has this very blasé attitude about the whole "haunted house" thing. Oh, the walls are bleeding, well ... it's September. As long as I stay out of the way of the little boy he won't bite me, I'll just chat with the former housekeeper/ghost.  She does get a little more irritated than usual ... this is the first year without her husband Hal (he couldn't handle it and finally left) and with her daughter Katherine (who Margaret is trying to hide the haunting from). 

While gory (blood seeping down the walls, various "ghosts" who show the horrendous ways in which they were killed), the first half of the book doesn't feel that spooky. Especially in audio, the "voice" of the MC is just matter-of-fact and almost chipper about it all. She calls the murdered ghost children "pranksters" and as Fredricka says, goes on with her day, "needs must!"  ... "just because something is upsetting doesn't mean it is harmful" ...  something to deal with during the month of September.  

Bring in the daughter, who although she doesn't have a good relationship with her father (there was domestic abuse, some chapters flashback to the past ... no headers in the chapters, so of course nothing in the Table of Contents. I would have liked to do a quick look at some of the "past", but too hard to try and find them again, needing to flip through the text) ... but nonetheless, is a little worried as she hasn't heard from him in so long. When Margaret finally admits he left, Katherine wants to bring in the police, as it's just not right that he hasn't been in contact at all.  So add that complication to the whole "haunted house" and Margaret is dealing with a LOT this September!

Some thoughts/SPOILERS

so as soon as M/K were out looking for Hal and the people start saying "he's down there" (like the murdered children have been saying, pointing to the basement where Master Vale resides) ... ahhhhh, Hal is down there. Took a while for that reveal to be confirmed, but I wasn't surprised. I had also anticipated that Edie was a ghost too. I think I somewhat suspected the whole "Margaret is just crazy" idea, but hoped that wasn't going to be the explanation (ala "A Brilliant Mind" reveal), that would have been too easy an out. I wasn't expecting the carnage there in the last 1/3 ... that fulfilled the "horror" aspect more than anything up to that point in the book.

Overall, I liked the resolution/conclusion. 

First person/past tense. While there weren't technically two timelines, there were "present" chapters, and those in the past. Personally, I wish they had headers or something to distinguish them more. Anytime Hal was present, I knew it was the past, when Katherine was there, it was the present ... but why not just make it a little easier on the reader? We really don't know Hal in the present, but he does sound like he was pretty awful in the past (although he did seem to be better in the years before he left). 

Quite a bit of proFanity (x71). Nothing sexually explicit. Quite a bit of violence and gore/murder.