Starling House
Ratings95
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings95
Average rating3.8
A new novel from New York Times Bestselling author Alix Harrow, Starling House is a contemporary Kentucky Gothic about a small town haunted by the history it can't quite seem to bury, and the clever, surly young woman who finds herself drawn to the house that sits at the crossroads of it all. No one in Eden remembers when Starling House was built. But everyone agrees that it's best to let the house--and its last lonely heir--go to rot. Starling House is uncanny and ugly and fully of secrets, just like its heir. Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but it might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. It feels dangerously like something she's never had: a home. But Opal isn't the only one interested in the house, or the horrors and wonders that lie beneath it. If Opal wants a home, she'll have to fight for it. She'll have to dig up her family's ugly history and let herself dream of a better future. She'll have to go down, down into Underland, and claw her way back to the light. Also by Alix E. Harrow Fractured Fables series A Spindle Splintered A Mirror Mended Other Works The Ten Thousand Doors of January The Once and Future Witches
Reviews with the most likes.
If you're into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Locke and Key and Mexican Gothic then this book is for you.
A mysterious house with an even more mysterious owner, and the burgeoning dark secrets underneath threatening to swallow a town whole. This book was such a fun read!
Unfortunate Opal, not much of a family or history to speak of, she did her best to provide for her little brother, Jasper, and send him to greener pastures. The oppressive small town have bothered her and her kin long ago and would rather have them gone.
Opal somehow keeps her curiosity and wonder alive partially in part to her favorite book, The Underland, a Lewis Carroll-esque written by a previous owner of Starling House.
Then, Opal meets the current young legacy owner of Starling House and breadcrumbs turn into life or death decisions. Trust is earned and easily dashed.
I loved how all these storylines intersect as the characters get to know themselves and each other, all while they fight an even greater evil. Yet, The Big Bad is not painted in black or white but in satisfying shades of grey. The final hurrah, as characters dash forward to fulfill their purposes, felt earned and satisfying. Great book.
Horror like this isn't really my thing, but I feel like this is a very solid follow up to Shirley Jackson... and it makes a bit more sense.
The secret of the house isn't much of a secret, but the how to deal with it was what I wanted to discover. The way the secrets are unveiled and the layers are pulled back kept me listening to the audiobook. The sense of gothic darkness around the house definitely came through the audiobook as well. It is a great creepy book, but not as scary as I had hoped.
Although this has a pretty slow start to the storyline, the character building and mystery keep you hanging in till things begin to pick up. Where I thought the story would have a natural ending, I discovered the book was only half-way done, leaving one to wonder where the story could move to from here? I wasn't disappointed at the remaining half of the book, nor the epilogue.
