To get into the spirit of October, I wanted to pick something a little unique for my Halloween reading. I came across Clara M. Miller’s Echoes of a Haunting Revisited after hearing it recommended on a podcast last week, and it fit everything I was looking for. A supposedly true story set against the beautiful backdrop of rural New York, this is the account of a family who lived in what has been called one of the most haunted houses in Appalachia.

Appalachia is already pretty well-known for its unsettling folklore and tales of strange occurrences, so it wasn’t particularly surprising to me that someone would write a book about their family’s experience living in the region, marketed as a true story of a haunting. What did throw me for a loop, though, was just how bizarre this particular property seems to be.

This story reads as though the family genuinely lived in The Twilight Zone for five years. It’s far from your typical ghost story, featuring everything from strange, disappearing “furry” creatures to UFOs illuminating the property in the middle of the night.

Clara M. Miller (whose married name was Dandy at the time, though she has since reverted to her maiden name following her divorce) is the mother of the Dandy family, who moved into the house with her husband, Phil, and their four children in 1970. As time goes on, what begins as a series of strange, seemingly unexplainable occurrences escalates into full-blown apparitions. These aren’t just described by her children, either. Even skeptical visitors to the property report seeing strange figures, sometimes without realizing that what they’re describing is supposedly a ghost!

This is genuinely one of the most confusing books I’ve ever read, but I don’t mean that as a criticism. Quite the opposite, actually! Much like the narrator, I found myself completely stumped by whatever the heck was going on in this house. The family’s recollections read like a fever dream in the eeriest possible way, with each new experience somehow managing to be stranger than the last.

I’ve never actually read one of those “nonfiction, tell-all haunting memoirs” before, but this one is honestly perfect for spooky season reading. Just don’t make the same mistake I did and read it while lying awake in the middle of the night (which I’ve been doing quite a bit lately, thanks to the third trimester), because you might end up with some pretty bizarre nightmares.

Whether you believe the family’s story or not, Echoes of a Haunting Revisited is one of the most unsettling books you’ll ever read.