The September House, by Carissa Orlando

Hal and Margaret, who have been married for over twenty years, buy their dream house after their daughter Katherine goes off to college. The house is perfect. Except for the minor detail that it's haunted as fuck eleven months of the year, and every September it really gets bad.

Three years later, Hal has vanished under mysterious circumstances, and Margaret is living in the still-haunted as fuck house, conversing with the ghosts and apparently totally fine with the situation as it, though it gets tiresome cleaning up the blood that pours down the walls every September. Unfortunately, Katherine has heard that her father has disappeared, and is determined to visit to come look for him. And September is right around the corner...

Every haunted house story has to deal with the question of "Why don't they just leave?" (The movie His House had a particularly compelling and brutal answer to that question: the couple are asylum-seekers who were given the house, and will be deported to their deaths if they leave it.) In The September House, the question forms the central mystery to both the story overall and to Margaret's character, as the book is largely a character study. Why doesn't Margaret just leave? Why is she so willing to cope with everything the house throws at her? Sure, anyone who's ever bought a house can identify with the willingness to overlook flaws that maybe shouldn't be overlooked, but this seems a little extreme...

The September House is best read unspoiled. It's a slowly unfolding revelation of character and situation, and also has one plot turn (not a twist, just a thing that happens) that was so unexpected that I burst out laughing at the author's audacity. It's got great dark comedy and character development, and comes to a very satisfying conclusion. Margaret's inner monologue can get repetitive at points, but it's a minor flaw.

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Content notes: Child abuse, ghosts of murdered children, domestic violence, suicide (all of the fromer mostly off-page or in the past), horror-style violence, non-malicious attempt to convince Margaret that she's delusional and put her in a mental hospital, issue of whether any of this is real or Margaret is delusional and/or has dementia.