Spoilers Ahead. You have been warned.

Let me preface this by saying I usually steer well clear of the entire horror genre. As a kid I watched the classics, and read my fair share of Goosebumps books, but in my teen years movies like Saw and Hostel absolutely sent me running from the whole vibe. So when I say I devoured The September House in two sittings and loved every psychologically unsettling moment of it? That should carry some weight.

Here’s the premise: Margaret and her husband buy a suspiciously affordable, beautiful Victorian house in the woods. Shortly after taking ownership, they realize it’s haunted. Oh bother. Except this is no slow-build ghost story. The house goes full Exorcist every September. Walls gush blood, ghosts appear, each of them more broken and gruesome than the last. Something unspeakable lives in the basement. Hal (the husband) nopes out after four years. Margaret stays. Margaret stays.

This is where The September House hooked me. Margaret isn’t your typical horror heroine. She’s older. Reserved. Gripping to her routine and rules like it’s a life raft. She’s flexible. She doesn’t scream when the walls bleed, she rolls up her sleeves and cleans the mess. I found her fascinating. Funny, even. She reacts to supernatural carnage the same way a tired parent reacts to a toddler’s tantrum: with quiet, unflappable endurance and a mildly exasperated expletive.

The horror of The September House isn’t just spectral. It’s deeply psychological. Margret’s 30-year-old daughter Katherine discovers that her father has left Margret, and is now refusing to answer her phone calls, she descends upon the house in the middle of September. Margret tries her best to reason with the poltergeists (called Pranksters), and shield her daughter from the supernatural horrors, going as far as to slip Katherine sleeping pills so she won’t hear the ethereal howling that happens every night. The September House becomes more about the lies we tell to keep our own sense of safety intact. About what we’re willing to ignore, to normalize, cope with, and even to cover up, if it means holding on to a version of life that feels bearable.

I laughed. A lot. Not because it’s slapstick or silly, but because the dark comedy is interwoven brilliantly. Margaret’s narration is deadpan, bored, and describes the events as utterly mundane, even when she’s casually dealing with flies coming out of a 90-year-old priest (Well that’s never happened before), or that one pesky prankster who bites if you get too close (You just need to respect his personal space).

But then, slowly, You’re starting to pull back the layers. The real horror creeps up on you, not through cheap jump scares, but through slow, dawning realization. You start to ask yourself: Wait, what actually happened here? What has Margaret been dealing with all this time? Why is she so good at following these rules? Are her descriptions actually happening, or is this all happening in her head? An elaborate story she’s conjured up to cope with something real and horrific?

Would I call it horror? Absolutely, the final act cements it. There are certainly memorably grotesque moments. But it’s also a fascinating subversion of the genre. It’s more of a psychological thriller with a horror coat of paint. I’m so glad I gave The September House a shot and didn’t let my horror aversion stop me. This book is going to stick with me for a while, not because of the blood on the walls, but because of the way it used psychology to show who the real terrors are.