THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE by Carissa Orlando
Berkley; 9/5/23
CBTB Rating: 4.5/5
The Verdict: a playful & fresh haunted house story
Home ownership feel like a distant dream? Zillow listings have you convinced you’ll be renting for the rest of your life? The woman at the heart of Carissa Orlando’s debut The September House feels your pain—and she’s prepared to put up with a lot if it means she and her husband can finally have a place to call their own. In this case, that might just mean living in a house that’s haunted. Playful and irreverent, spine-tingling and spooky, The September House puts a fresh spin on the classic haunted house story, delivering an immersive tale about the secrets lurking within one building’s walls, and within the lives of its inhabitants.
Margaret and Hal have always wanted a house to call their own, but for years it’s seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream. And then they see the listing for the big Victorian home on Hawthorn Street—and its listing price. Could this be the place where they can finally put down roots? The couple can hardly believe their good fortune… but there’s just one catch. Their dream home is seriously haunted. Every September, the walls in their house drip blood. What starts as a slow trickle becomes, over the course of the month, a full-on horror show. And that’s not all: as the month progresses, ghosts of former inhabitants begin to appear, stirring up trouble and disturbing the house’s living inhabitants with incessant screaming. That explains the listing price. But Margaret isn’t a quitter, and she’s not about to give up on her dream home. The house has rules, and Margaret knows that if she can just abide by them, she and her husband can survive its horrors. That is, until her husband vanishes without a trace and her adult daughter, who doesn’t know about the house’s quirks, returns home to help track him down. As Margaret and Katherine investigate Hal’s disappearance, while Margaret also tries to shield Katherine from the supernatural activities surrounding them, the house’s hauntings become all the more dangerous. But Margaret knows one thing to be true: everything is survivable, even this, and she’s not giving up on her house.
I love a haunted house house story, and The September House is a fresh, playful new installment in this genre. Right from the outset, The September House differentiates itself with a premise that feels like a breath of fresh air. In this book, there’s no unwitting protagonist trying to figure out what’s going on with her home—instead, there’s Margaret: a woman who is keenly aware of her home’s quirks, and tackles them with a frank candor that is equal parts refreshing and straight-up funny. The balance author Carissa Orlando strikes is compelling and engaging; through Margaret’s matter-of-fact lens, horrors that should send a chill down your spine become pitch-perfect entertainment. Furniture moving around inexplicably? That’s just the ghostly housekeeper, a woman whose spirit wanders around with an ax still stuck in her head. Wake up in the middle of the night with a terrifying apparition trying to bite you? It’s really not a big deal, just steer clear of his teeth. I’ve read haunted house novels where protagonists are terrified and overwhelmed by the goings-on in their house; I’ve read haunted house novels where protagonists are in utter denial about their home’s supernatural tendencies; until I read The September House, I’d never read a haunted house novel where the protagonist knew exactly what was going on and was determined to simply ignore it. Turns out, that’s exactly the kind of haunted house novel I needed. Anyone who’s grown tired of the cliched protagonist unwittingly wandering into the darkened basement when she hears a sound late at night will love Margaret and her fresh, no-nonsense approach to her home’s hauntings. Carissa Orlando gives us the matter-of-fact horror heroine I didn’t even know I needed in her story’s protagonist.
As it develops, The September House turns out to be as much about uncovering the secrets of the house in which the story takes place as it is about uncovering the secrets of the couple who have purchased it. No relationship is without its challenges, and in the pressure-cooker environment of a home that literally bleeds every September, Margaret and Hal’s are brought to a boiling point. When Hal vanishes and their adult daughter Katherine catches wind of his absence, Margaret can no longer get away with ignoring the crisis in which she’s found herself—and solving the mystery of Hal’s disappearance will inevitably lead her to uncover the truth underlying her home’s hauntings, too. The September House is an elegant blend of family mystery and supernatural suspense story, its earthly and supernatural horrors seamlessly woven together. The September House is as much about survival and resilience as it is about the literal ghosts stalking the halls of Margaret’s beautiful old Victorian home; both elements, the worldly and the otherworldly, come to life with visceral, vivid precision here. While The September House may not be as downright scary as other haunted house stories—Margaret’s candor about her home’s hauntings naturally diminish the shock value of some of the things she and the reader witness together—it nevertheless delivers all the spine-tingling entertainment value you’d hope for from a story in this genre. As an added bonus, the story’s dark humor and heartfelt exploration of familial bonds contribute layers of emotional resonance that balance out its chills beautifully.
I did ultimately predict a few of the reveals that The September House has in store for readers, but that really didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this book in any major way. I loved spending time with Margaret, her spooky house, and its unruly ghostly inhabitants. The September House is a clever, darkly funny, wholly original entry into the haunted house genre, a story that proves that even the most well-trod tropes can be made new and fresh. If you loved Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark, you’ll love this book! Highly recommend.
I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions my own.
Recommended for fans of:
Protagonists who would 100% survive a horror movie!
Supernatural suspense + dark humor
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Anyone looking for a fresh and unique haunted house story for their Halloween TBR!
Book Details:
Publisher: Berkley (September 5, 2023)
Language: English
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 0593548612
ISBN-13: 978-0593548615
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Home ownership feel like a distant dream? Zillow listings have you convinced you’ll be renting for the rest of your life? The woman at the heart of Carissa Orlando’s debut The September House feels your pain—and she’s prepared to put up with a lot if it means she and her husband can finally have a place to call their own. In this case, that might just mean living in a house that’s haunted. Playful and irreverent, spine-tingling and spooky, The September House puts a fresh spin on the classic haunted house story, delivering an immersive tale about the secrets lurking within one building’s walls, and within the lives of its inhabitants.