Author: Carissa Orlando
Publisher: Berkley
📚 Buy the book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop

Some books sneak up on you, and The September House was one of those for me. I’d give it about 3.75 stars — not perfect, but definitely a worthwhile read that left me glad I stuck with it.

From the start, the setup hooked me: an old Victorian home filled with strange noises, blood running down the walls, and a main character who refuses to leave despite the horrors inside. It’s got that haunted house energy I can never resist.

That said, the early sections leaned a bit too much on telling the scares instead of letting me feel them. Instead of goosebumps and tension crawling up my spine, it sometimes felt like I was just being informed that something scary had happened. But even then, the atmosphere kept me turning pages. There’s a moodiness to the house and the story itself that carried me through.

Where this book really shines is the ending. The final act brought the intensity I had been waiting for, with a satisfying conclusion that made the journey worth it. It took all the pieces that had been building and snapped them together in a way that felt both surprising and inevitable.

If you like haunted house stories that balance unsettling domestic horror with a sharp, memorable finale, The September House is worth picking up.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.75 rounded up)

Have you read The September House yet? Do you prefer your haunted house stories slow-burn and atmospheric or fast and terrifying?

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