Starling House

May 1, 2023

In 19th-century Kentucky, E. Starling wrote a well-known fantasy called The Underland and then disappeared, leaving behind the now tumbledown Starling House, inhabited by its last moody heir, Arthur. Opal takes a job there, hoping to earn money to help her brother. But the house starts feeling like home, and soon she's teaming up with Arthur to uncover its secrets. From the Hugo Award--winning Harrow; with a 250,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 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.

Starred review from July 1, 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

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2023
In Harrow's latest (after A Mirror Mended, 2022), a redheaded girl named Opal dreams of drowning and of a decrepit house. She ignores the dreams, too busy taking care of her younger brother and figuring out where they might find their next meal. When she ventures to Starling House, she meets Arthur Starling, who has been fighting a lifelong battle against what lies beneath, and who swears he will be the house's last warden. But Opal, hard edged and hungry, wants something different. Starling House is a brilliant book; Harrow's world building and writing style speak to her authorial experience and love of the story she writes. It is at once fantasy and reality, tied up in an inextricable knot that speaks truth about the things we need and the things we want, what we wish we could do to those who try to make us feel less than, and what reality calls for. This is a tale readers can get lost in, and they will still be in it long after the final page.

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Starred review from December 1, 2023
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.

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