Humans really can normalize anything, regardless of whether or not it’s healthy for them to do so. The September House is a masterpiece in Horror, and you know that I do not say that lightly.

Margaret has found her dream home, and it’s absolutely perfect. Okay, sure, every September the walls start bleeding and the ghost children return, but it’s her dream home, and it’s not so bad, really. You see, Margaret has learned the rules, and so long as you follow the rules, everything will be fine… (Reader, everything will not be fine). 

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. There were moments where I sat frozen in fear simply from the anticipation of what might happen next in the novel (and it is incredibly difficult to scare me). There were other moments where I was laughing so hard, tears were running down my face. And then there were the moments where my heart truly broke as I grappled with the horrors of humanity that haunt these pages. The September House was a blistering journey of emotion that I was wholly unprepared for, and of which I loved every second.

Carissa Orlando has taken the haunted house trope, flipped it on its head and given us a brilliantly clever novel about so much more than ghosts. This is one of the best horror books of the year.