Starling House by Alix E. Harrow is a gorgeous Gothic fantasy with a mysterious house, a cursed town, and everything on the line. It was a Reese’s Book Club Pick for October 2023, and since everyone goes crazy for Reese’s recommendations, the wait at the library was very long. But this book was worth the wait.
In a Kentucky town called Eden, a girl named Opal is just trying to survive. She doesn’t let herself want and does only what needs to be done to ensure her brother’s future away from a town that only brings bad luck. After their mother’s death, she’s all he has left, and she will do anything to protect him. Including taking a job cleaning at Starling House, a mysterious mansion with a mysterious heir.
Dark rumors have always surrounded the property, warning of its dangers, but Opal finds herself drawn to the house nonetheless, and drawn to the opportunity to finally have the money to send her brother to a good school far away from Eden.
As Opal gets to know Arthur, the strange young man who inherited the house from his parents, she becomes invested in the house and the world of secrets surrounding the home, the town, and everyone in it.
There is a touch of romance in this fantasy, but it is mostly a rich, satisfying contemporary fantasy in the same vein as Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. It combines magic and intrigue with important social commentary on this small Southern town and the world as a whole. The book reimagines It employs folklore and legends to ultimately explore those whom society left behind, people without power or influence.
Like many Gothic stories, this book explores female rage, the inequities in the class system, and the trauma that history leaves behind. The town is fictional, but the problems the town and the people living in it face are all too real.
Starling House explores pain, grief, and suffering, but also love, hope, and a found family. This book managed to capture my heart and my attention. It kept me hungrily turning pages and kept me deeply invested in these characters from start to finish.
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