Horror Book of the Week: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

 

This week’s Horror Book Recommendation is Starling House written by Alix E. Harrow. Published by Tor in October 2023, the book is in the bestseller’s list of Fairy Tale Fantasy and Dark Fantasy. 

STARLING HOUSE is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and has garnered positive reviews upon its release. Reviewers have described the book as poignant, and a terrific Gothic read that will linger in your dreams. The author’s characterization and exquisite language use is also praised. 

Customers who bought this book praised the author’s distinctive writing style and found the novel to be riveting. There were criticisms regarding the overuse of fantasy elements in the story as well as the author not tying up loose ends. Many criticized the book’s slow pacing and that they almost didn’t finish it because of it. 

Quick Book Review of Starling House based on sample

Opal lives in Eden, Kentucky with her brother Jasper. The town is no longer known as the coal county and instead known for an eerie house called the Starling House. 

When Opal was young, she was gifted a book, The Underland, by her mother. The book gave her nightmares but it also filled her with curiosity regarding the author, E. Starling who mysteriously stayed out of the limelight and disappeared. All that was left behind was that house which is now occupied by one of the heirs. 

Opal is drawn to the house and to its architecture and the house seems to call out to her in her dreams. 

When she meets Arthur Starling unexpectedly, he offers her a cleaning job and pretty much lets her choose her hours. Opal is skeptical at the job offer but since she’s desperate for money, she accepts it. 

Arthur doesn’t seem too happy though and on their first meeting, warns her to run away. But Opal’s blood had fallen on the gates and somehow absorbed. 

The first few chapters of the Starling House are indeed promising and engaging. Told in the first person, the writing style is indeed distinctive and the protagonist is relatable. 

The sample will definitely ignite your curiosity and quite possibly want you to buy the book so you can find out just what is going on with the house. 

STARLING HOUSE Plot (Taken from Amazon.com)

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.

Get the book