Synopses & Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
This trade paperback edition features beautiful purple sprayed edges and a bonus short story that reaches beyond the house's gnarly, tangled gates...
"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
Review
"Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction's most memorable haunted houses." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
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)
Review
"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
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.