This was a great, gory retelling of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher done in signature T. Kingfisher style. Overall it was a fun and quick read!

This book is really really weird and I think that’s its best trait. I was extremely spooked by The Fall of the House of Usher as a small child, (and also confused it with the popular musical artist, Usher, and was terrified of him as well). The narrator has a really interesting Narration Style, which is sometimes weird and sometimes makes everything spookier. The audiobook is also narrated by the fantastic Avi Roque, who gets five stars from me! Also, the main character is nonbinary. If you’re looking for something spooky, especially around this October, you should definitely pick this up. Also, just look at that COVER! Five stars.

What Moves the Dead was described as a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. Yes, please! I love me some Poe. Reading this rewrite made me really appreciate the decisions that Poe made in the original short story. Let me go back and say that I love T Kingfisher’s writing style. It was moody and creepy and made the whole thing flow. Everything I’ve ever read by Kingfisher has been beautifully written. Let me also say that I understand the changes made in this retelling. There were definitely themes added-mostly around gender identity.

Now, unfortunately, I found the changes took away from the mood. I get why Poe kept the narrator as an unnamed character. As the reader, I felt like I was the narrator, even though I have actually nothing in common with the little we did know about the character. I was seeing through their eyes. The addition of a backstory and of other characters was distracting. I was especially distracted by a character added that just seemed to be there to annoy the narrator, though not by acting in any really offensive way, especially for the time. One really odd character was charming while treating people as specimens while the other just seemed to be there for the main character to say, “Stupid American.” Regarding the three main characters from both stories, the relationships amongst them was just more interesting in the original. The point Poe was trying to make was far different than the point Kingfisher was trying to make. There was just something much more creepy about the narrator being completely in acknowledged by Madeline Usher.

I both read and listened to this book. I preferred to read. The narrator wasn’t bad, necessarily, but I got much more engrossed when reading it to myself. Though not my favorite by this author, I will still keep the name on my list of authors to watch for.

When a childhood friend writes Alex Easton to inform them of her illness, Alex finds themself at the ancestral Usher home - a decrepit gothic castle that looks like it could fall over at any moment. Alex soon discovers Madeline is not sick with any normal illness; she looks like a corpse and can be found sleepwalking and hallucinating through the halls at night. With the help of a mycologist, Alex attempts to unravel the mystery of the Usher home.

My first book by T. Kingfisher and it was great! What Moves the Dead is an incredibly atmospheric horror, giving gothic, fantasy, and spooky fungal vibes. I think it was the perfect amount of just creepy enough, without being absolutely terrifying or disgusting. If you have a free afternoon on a gloomy, rainy day, definitely read this!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Unfortunately, I didn’t finish this book. Although I love Poe, I just didn’t love this retelling.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Delightful! For fans of Poe, Shirley Jackson, and classic horror. I’ve actually never read the original but I loved this retelling. This story is obviously easier to read than the 1800s language that Poe wrote in, but this story also has a super interesting narrator who we get to learn a lot more about. I enjoyed the unique perspective that the narrator brought, and the other characters were fun and interesting too. The story had just the right amount of eerie horror to get your creeped out without giving nightmares.
I will definitely be checking out other things written by T. Kingfisher!

I finished this book at around four am and man there were some parts that gave me almost an anxiety attack! A good one, though.

What Moves the Dead is a retelling of the Poe's classic The Fall of The House of Usher that seeks to give a more thorough explanation of why the Ushers are acting the way they do, drawing knowledge from mycology and adding another layer to the moldy essence of the original. Is it full of suspense? No, the reader can deduce the answer for the creepy behavior almost right from the beginning, but it kept me entertained and engaged with the character's own discovery.

It's a very good retelling, with an introduction and discussion of gender roles and identities that were not present in Poe's tale. The narrator is non-binary, and there is frequent use of non-binary pronouns that are shown to stem from an historical past of a fictionalized Gallicia. Overall, very cool indeed!

Also, the cover is to die for. Highly recommend for a summer horror reading!

Thank you Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for sending me a digital ARC of this book in return for my honest thoughts and opinions.

CHECK - a retelling of Poe's gothic classic The Fall of the House of Usher
CHECK - there's a fungus among us... I am a really fun gal after all
CHECK - nontraditional women's roles and gender exploration
CHECK - an ode to Beatrix Potter
CHECK - an author's acknowledgement to her classic and modern horror influences (Yes, Silvia Moreno-Garcia is brilliant!) and, well, horror girl power!

I just love T. Kingfisher's writing (I discovered her books browsing the local Halloween reads table at a little indie bookstore in Asheville, NC in 2019 just before the pandemic took over our lives), and What Moves the Dead definitely did not disappoint. The cool retelling set in the 1890s melds the classic Poe story of a crumbling gothic manor and it's inhabitants with an interesting take on fungal infection and what would have been medically and scientifically known at the time. The most interesting aspect, IMO, is the narrator Lieutenant Alex Easton and the Gallatian construct of gender and pronouns... something you just have to read to appreciate! Easton would make an interesting recurring character for future stories or a series should the author choose to go that route... I would love to hear more of Easton's backstory and ongoing adventures!

Thank you much to Tor Nightfire and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I now have 2 T Kingfisher books under my reading belt, and I think that's enough to make the decision that I'm just not a fan. This book was fine, though nothing too special, for me.

This was a really short read, and it honestly felt like not much was happening for the first half, which is a bit rough when it's so short. There was some really interesting stuff about pronouns, though again, it felt like the book was too short to get into them adequately.

I liked the idea of the fungus, sort of a cordyceps type thing. I am eternally fascinated by cordyceps, so I did really like that aspect of the book.

Overall, this book was fine, just not really my thing.

Tor Nightfire allowed me to read this one early, and it's only further cemented my interest in Kingfisher.

It (surprisingly) takes a certain kind of creepiness to really get under my skin, and this novella does it well. Just the descriptions of the rabbits alone (not really a spoiler - they appear early, and look at that gorgeous cover) were enough to create vivid scenes in my mind.

Kingfisher is skilled with blending horror and humor:

"They both had large, liquid eyes, the sort that are called doe-like by poets, although those poets have mostly never hunted deer, because neither of the Ushers had giant elliptical pupils and they both had perfectly serviceable whites."

"Sometimes it's hard to know if someone is insulting or just an American."

There were a couple of clunky plot transitions here... for a significant one, something happens and the narrator/protagonist just instantly questions whether the event actually happened in the way it was presented to them. They are a military person and have already seen a couple of creepy things happen around the Usher estate but I certainly didn't feel that those elements were enough to justify the instantaneous suspicions. I imagine this has something to do with this story being a novella and the need to keep things moving.

I'm not sure that it makes any sense to wish this had been longer - for a retelling of The House of Usher and already (I believe) being longer than the original, and also for nicely containing the plot - but I wonder if a longer story might have better smoothed out those transitions and also allowed for deeper character development. There was also an alternate social-gender-neutral-situation going on, which I appreciated, but it was also confusing and distracting; something else that might have been better sorted with more depth/time for it.

And yet here we are, still with four stars! It's easy to detail things that didn't work for me, while for the rest simply saying "this was fun". But it is, and a joy to read. Dark and claustrophobic, yet also witty and novel. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and will absolutely continue building my devotion to Kingfisher.

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. I requested this book because I love T.Kingfisher's writing, and then remembered about five minutes later that I don't do well with horror. I am a fully grown, sensible adult, so I made sure to read this in broad daylight with other people around, which was a good choice.
This book is not what I was expecting, in terms of classic horror. It was less about jump scares, and more about moments of sheer wrongness that will live with you after the book is over. The writing is great, there are clever moments of humor, and Alex Easton is a great character, but I will not be able to look at the rabbits in my yard the same way again.

And all three were super duper queer. What Moves the Dead is a retelling of a Edgar Allen Poe story set in a mythical European country that was used in a lot of nineteenth century literature, and has a very similar vibe to Mexican Gothic (the books were written around the same time, but separately).

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review.
This is compelling, creepy modern rendering of a classic. While I don’t have intimate familiarity with the Poe original, it’s not necessary, especially as this story takes on a life of its own…including making a surprising Beatrix Potter connection. The inclusion of the narrator, Easton’s non-binary identity is also a welcome addition, along with the incorporation of neopronouns, and I enjoy how they’re incorporated into the story as it goes on. The other characters are also given their due, such as Madeline, with Kingfisher even critiquing Poe for his focus on the fungal-based horrors over personifying her in particular.

There are not many books that scare, but this one came close! I had a few bizarre dreams the night I finished this one. Inspired by The Fall of the House of Usher with a touch of 19th century Mexican Gothic, horror enthusiasts everywhere will want to add this to their TBR!

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for a copy.

3.75 rounding up

Having never read the Edgar Allen Poe story, this tale was fresh and new to me and was written in the Victorian writing style. My brain takes a while to adapt to this, but the description and use of setting the tone at the beginning of the book were utterly captivating!
This gothic retelling/reimagining is a spooky delight and makes me think of a movie (which I cannot name, or it'll be spoilers). However, I believe this tale will leave you ready for Halloween and hunger for darker stories like this!

Definitely has the creep factor! Great great read.
Never read anything from this author before and this won't be the last can Definitely tell a good tale

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an early release of this book.

3.5 stars

I'm not familiar with the original short story, nor am I that well versed in horror, but I enjoyed this book a lot! I found the first half to be a bit boring if I'm going to be totally honest, and thought about DNFing a few times, but once I hit the 60% mark I was hooked. It's definitely creepy and has that ick factor, and I slightly regret reading the last few chapters while eating dinner, but I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes creepy nature stuff and fungi in particular.

What Moves the Dead is the first book by T. Kingfisher that I've read, and what a doozy is was! The book is a retelling of one of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous stories, The Fall of the House of Usher. The first thing that grabs your attention is the artwork on the cover. It's extremely frightening, but oddly beautiful in a deeply disturbing way. This retelling is riveting, and really drew me in. You'll never look at hares the same again. There's one thing that drove me crazy, though, that hindered my enjoyment a bit....but more on that later.

In 1890, Alex Easton, a retired soldier, gets word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is close to death. Alex rushes to the Usher home in the countryside of Ruritania, and what they find is quite disturbing. Madeline sleepwalks throughout the night and speaks in strange voices, and her appearance is almost too difficult to look upon. Her brother Roderick, who served with Alex in the war, doesn't seem to be much better. He seems to be suffering from severe nerves, and when Madeline dies, he seems to hear her voice in the night. The house is in a shambles, and there's a tarn (lake) that seems to oddly glow and pulse at times. There are strange fungal growths around. And just what the heck is wrong with the hares in the area?! Alex, with the help of Miss Potter the mycologist and James Denton the American doctor, must find out what's going on in the House of Usher, lest they are also destined to suffer the same fate.

I may have read The Fall of the House of Usher while I was in school, but I really don't remember. I did a bit of research about it so I could relate more to this book. Like Edgar Allan Poe, T. Kingfisher has a way of setting the mood and invoking the feelings of dread and fear. Some of the descriptions of the malady were quite disgusting, actually, but the words describing some of the scenes were almost poetic and drew one in, giving the hint that something really odd was going on in and around the Usher home. Alex was a great character, a "sworn soldier" that saw the horror of the death in battle, but they were shocked at the discoveries they made upon their arrival at the Usher home. I felt kinship with Alex that they had the same reaction to the horror that I did, and I'm just a lowly civilian. Alex was the narrator of the story. Supporting characters were all finely drawn, but I especially liked Angus, who was Alex's batman during the war, and Miss Potter, who studied fungus and liked to paint mushrooms. Now let's address the thing that drove me nuts. Apparently Alex is a non-binary person. There's nothing wrong with that. But do you know how many times I read the description of the story and went batty trying to figure out who "they" were? Did the author mean Alex and their horse Hob? (Who I also adored; he was quite a character.) So I finally caught on that Alex was non-binary. But no, I had to be confused even more! There was a section about Alex concerning pronouns used where Alex grew up. With words like ka, kan, ka'd, va, van, va'd, etc., I got totally confused, especially when multiples were used in one paragraph. It really threw off my comprehension and diminished the impact of the story. However, despite my confusion, this was some great storytelling and I'm looking forward to reading more books by this talented author.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely my own.

4.5/5!

Has anyone else been wanting more mushrooms in their horror since reading Mexican Gothic?? Well if you loved the vibes of that book, I think this novella might just be the horror read you need!

I had never read The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, so when I found out this novella was based on it, I quickly picked up the short story to prepare. While I don’t think it’s required to read the source material because of how unique Kingfisher’s take is on the story, I do recommend at least checking it out after if you don’t have time before.

Now on to my thoughts of What Moves the Dead…it’s brilliant! This is easily one of my favorite gothic, atmospheric, and creepy horror novellas I’ve read to date. I loved all of the characters and the narrator, Easton, is fantastic. I was intrigued from the start to know more about the Ushers and their strange estate. I adored Kingfisher’s writing style and will definitely be pulling The Hollow Places off my shelf to read soon!

A huge thank you to Tor Nightfire for my gifted copy!

The nitty-gritty: A creepy and atmospheric retelling that pays homage to the original story while adding many unique elements, What Moves the Dead induces both laughter and horror, often in the same paragraph.

T. Kingfisher proves once more what a consistently good writer and storyteller she is. Not only does she have complete command over the 176 pages of her latest novella, a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher, but she’s managed to successfully combine horror and humor in the most remarkable way, which doesn’t really surprise me because she did the same thing with The Hollow Places and The Twisted Ones. Creepy, atmospheric and extremely unsettling, What Moves the Dead is another winner for Kingfisher fans, and a great place to start if you’ve yet to try this brilliant author.

Retired Lieutenant Alex Easton receives a disturbing letter one day from an old friend, Madeline Usher, who says she is dying and asks Easton to come and visit her. Easton arrives at the Usher mansion and is shocked to see the house and grounds in a terrible state of decay. Even worse is the condition of Madeline and her twin brother Roderick, who both appear emaciated and ill. Roderick’s American friend Denton has also arrived at the mansion and is trying to determine the cause of Madeline’s decline. 

With the help of Eugenia Potter, an eccentric mycologist, and Easton’s servant Angus, Easton and Denton are determined to help their friends. But strangeness abounds in the house of Usher and the nearby lake, as the visitors begin to feel trapped by the odd events surrounding Madeline's illness.

Savvy readers may recognize some of the Gothic details from another popular novel (I won’t mention the name of the book because it’s fun to figure it out on your own). After the first sentence I knew what Kingfisher was paying tribute to, and I thought she did a brilliant job of utilizing some of the same elements but putting her own unique spin on them. She also explains in her Author's Note why she did this, and by the way, the Author's Note is definitely worth reading!

There are so many wonderfully bizarre elements in What Moves the Dead, and I don’t want to spoil anything for you so I’ll try to be vague. First of all, fungi and mushrooms play a big part in the story, and I have to say I’ve never seen them used in quite this way, even though I’ve read lots of horror stories involving fungi. And I will never look at hares the same way again ever, lol. If you think of rabbits and hares as sweet, fluffy creatures, then you might want to stay away from this book, as your image of them might be crushed forever. The author uses some well-tread Gothic elements that you’ll be familiar with, like the crumbling house of Usher with its peeling wallpaper, damp rooms and creaky floors. But she also adds some twists, like the nearby tarn (lake) that glows at night. And did I mention the hares?

The story is set in a fictional European country with its own traditions, like the use of seven different sets of pronouns. Children and inanimate objects have their own pronouns (as does God!), and when you join the Gallacian army you become “sworn” and give up your gender and thereafter use different pronouns. Easton, although retired from the military, continues to use the non-binary “ka” and “kan” pronouns.

And it wouldn’t be a T. Kingfisher story without engaging characters. Luckily we get a bunch of good ones in this story, including Easton’s servant Angus, who is simply delightful. Eugenia Potter is wonderful as well (and is the fictional aunt of someone you might recognize!) I loved the playful banter between the characters, especially with an American in the mix, which leads to lots of wryly funny jokes. Kingfisher’s prose is polished and elegant and perfectly suited for a Gothic mystery like this.

Some of the descriptions of the fungi and the hares are gross and disturbing, so do beware if you have a weak stomach. I personally loved every disgusting detail! What Moves the Dead is fairly short and can be read in one sitting. In fact, you probably won’t be able to stop once Kingfisher hooks you with her mesmerizing storytelling skills and atmospheric prose. Highly recommended.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.