Starling House (A Reese's Book Club Pick)

by Alix E. Harrow

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

“This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid&eerie setting—plus, characters willing to risk everything.” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)

Starling House is a gorgeous, modern gothic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January.

I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen….

Opal is a lot of things—orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier—but above all, she's determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

All she left behind were dark rumors—and her home. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.

I should be scared, but in the dream I don’t hesitate.

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House—and make some extra cash for her brother's escape fund—she can't resist.

But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.

In my dream, I’m home.

And now she’ll have to fight.

Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.

A Book of the Month Club Pick
An October 2023 Indie Next Pick
A LibraryReads October 2023 Hall of Fame Pick
Apple, Best Books of October
EW.com, Fall Book Must Reads 2023
Washington Post, Noteworthy Books for October
Paste Magazine, The Must-Read Fantasy Books of Fall 2023
PopSugar Best New Fantasy Books of 2023
BookPage, Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023
Observer, Must-Read Books of Fall 2023
Polygon, 12 Best New SFF for the Fall
LitHub, October’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
Bookish, October’s Most-Anticipated Books
Gizmodo, October's Huge List of New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250799074
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	5,122
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Alix E. Harrow is the Hugo Award winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, and various short fiction. Her Fractured Fables series, beginning with the novella A Spindle Splintered, has been praised for its refreshing twist on familiar fairy tales. A former academic and adjunct, Harrow lives in Virginia with her husband and their two semi-feral kids.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/31/2023

Hugo Award winner Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January) does it again in this tender and triumphant haunted house story. The closest thing to a home that Opal has ever known is the motel room where she lives with her younger brother, Jasper, but she’s plagued by mysterious dreams about wandering through Starling House, the most notorious building in the coal-mining town of Eden, Ky., complete with perpetually slamming doors and a light that cuts through the town’s thick, rising mist. None of the townsfolk have ever seen the inside save for the unsettling and reclusive Starling family, but in Opal’s dreams she knows the interior intimately. She feels called to investigate her connection to the house and the family, but along the way she’ll have to determine which secrets she’s ready to uncover and who and what she’s willing to fight for. Harrow’s prose cuts straight to the heart as she melds a story of family legacy and historical oppression with a stirring call to speak the truth. Readers will be left chewing on this tale long after the last page, and Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction’s most memorable haunted houses. (Oct.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly described the protagonist as a teenager.

Publishers Weekly

"This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting—plus, characters willing to risk everything." —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)

"Alix E. Harrow is an exceptional, undeniable talent, and Starling House, with its gentle reassurances of the homes we make and the love we deserve, is more than satisfying. It’s pure loveliness in book form." —Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

"Gorgeous, poignant, and honest—an unforgettable read." —Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter

"As knife-edged and sharp as its protagonist...A smart, spectacular contemporary Gothic that will leave its roots in you and linger in your dreams." —Kat Howard, Alex Award-winning author of An Unkindness of Magicians

“Harrow's lyrical prose propels this contemporary Southern gothic, offering an atmospheric fairy tale with delightfully jagged-edged characters.” –EW.com

“From Ten Thousand Doors of January to A Mirror Mended, Alix E. Harrow is a fantasy author who just does not miss. This magical, heartfelt haunted house tale is no different.” —Paste Magazine

"As sumptuous and romantic as it is sinister, Alix E. Harrow’s foray into Southern gothic literature is a perfect book to ring in the start of spooky season." –Polygon

"Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January is one of those books where people who’ve read it fall all over themselves to push into other readers’ hands (I am one such person) and her growing legion of devoted readers will be happy to know that Starling House is a full-bore masterpiece." –LitHub

"Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction’s most memorable haunted houses.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Harrow’s mash-up of twisted fairy tales and Southern gothic fiction is a haunting story of longing, lies, and generational curses." —Library Journal, starred review

Praise for Alix E. Harrow

"Devastatingly good, a sharp, delicate nested tale of worlds within worlds, stories within stories, and the realm-cracking power of words." —Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“One of the most unique works of fiction I’ve ever read.” —Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“I couldn’t put it down.” —Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"One for the favorites shelf... Here is a book to make you happy when you gently close it. Here you will find wonder and questions and an unceasingly gorgeous love of words which compasses even the shape a letter makes against a page." —NPR on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love." —Kirkus Reviews on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"A breathtaking book-brilliant and raw and dark and complicated. It's also, to be blunt, uncannily relevant." —Sarah Gailey, author of Magic for Liars, on The Once and Future Witches

"This book is an amazing bit of spellcraft and resistance so needed in our times, and a reminder that secret words and ways can never be truly and properly lost, as long as there are tongues to speak them and ears to listen." —P. Djèlí Clark, author of The Black God's Drums, on The Once and Future Witches

"This is a delightful, satisfying novel, a tale of women's battle for equality, of fairy tales twisted into wonderfully witchy spells, of magics both large and small, and history re-imagined. All of it is told in Alix Harrow's exquisite language and with her vivid characterizations-a great pleasure to read." —Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches, on The Once and Future Witches

"A brilliant dazzle of a book. This story of sisters and witches, memory and power cracked open my heart and set down roots there. I devoured it in enormous gulps, and utterly loved it." —Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians, on The Once and Future Witches

"A love letter to folklore and the rebellious women of history." —Publishers Weekly, on The Once and Future Witches

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2023

The town of Eden, KY, has its share of bad luck, and Opal has seen much of it her entire life. She will do anything to get her younger brother out of Eden and on a path to a better life. When an opportunity arises at the infamous Starling House, Opal won't let scary stories, dire warnings, or a moody heir get in her way. The house, built by a reclusive author, has intrigued Opal since her childhood. However, it seems that family secrets are not limited to the Starlings, and Opal will have to face down her own legacy that ties her to the house, the beasts of Underhill, and those who want the dark secrets for their own use. Harrow's captivating prose centers her flawed, cynical protagonists in a haunting plot of horrible actions, fog-hidden beasts, and moving connections between family, friends, and lovers. Fans of Shirley Jackson and Catriona Ward should pick this up. VERDICT Harrow's (A Mirror Mended) mash-up of twisted fairy tales and Southern gothic fiction is a haunting story of longing, lies, and generational curses.—Kristi Chadwick

Library Journal

Natalie Naudus narrates the story of Opal, who is living in the desolate town of Eden, home to the mysterious Starling Mansion. The old house appeared on the day that the writer-illustrator of the gothic fantasy children's book THE UNDERLAND, Eleanor Starling, disappeared. Opal, who is providing for her brother, works for the current heir, Arthur Starling. Strange things are happening that involve them both. Naudus captures the angst and anger of Opal, who depends on her street smarts and tough attitude for survival. Likewise, Naudus conveys the loneliness and heartbreak of Arthur as he fights to protect those he loves from the evils of the mansion. Listeners will feel all the desperation and longing that make this story so engaging. L.M.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

★ 2023-11-04
A broke young woman takes a job as a cleaner at the creepiest house in town.

Opal’s life in Eden, Kentucky, has never been easy. When their mother died, teenage Opal faked her way into getting custody of her younger brother, Jasper, and years later Opal and Jasper are still struggling to make ends meet. Jasper is an exceptionally bright and creative boy, and Opal desperately wants to scrape together enough money to send him out of Eden to a fancy private school with all the resources he deserves. Opal has always been mysteriously drawn to Starling House, a big old mansion shrouded in rumor and local legend. When she encounters the house’s reclusive owner, Arthur Starling, she talks her way into the opportunity of a lifetime. Arthur is willing to pay Opal enough money to send Jasper to school; in return, she gets to explore—while cleaning—the house she’s been dying to see for as long as she can remember. But when a sleek woman claiming to be working on behalf of the local power plant offers to pay Opal even more handsomely for information about Arthur and the house, Opal must discover for herself why Starling House seems to have a mind of its own and why powerful people want so desperately to get inside. Harrow has a gift for turning settings into characters, as she does with both the strangely alive Starling House and the working-class town of Eden. Carefully unpacking the institutionalized power dynamics of class and race, Harrow untangles the many mysteries of Starling House, revealing how powerful people and groups will twist the truth until the story suits their purposes.

A spooky story about how hidden truths always come back to haunt you.

Kirkus Reviews