This was my first T. Kingfisher novel and I understand why I keep seeing this author now. This novel was definitely a unique take on the haunted house genre for me. It had twists I didn’t expect and an interesting premise. It had convincing horror elements while still making me laugh. I’ll definitely be picking up more of this author in the future.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my digital ARC

A solid quick horror read from T. Kingfisher, with the equally balanced doses of snark and heart that I've come to expect from her work.

As always, T. Kingfisher knocks it out of the park. Kingfisher has this way of making a book incredibly funny and incredibly scary all at the same time. The characters are remarkably relatable which makes the book even scarier. Sam is just an ordinary person who is going to visit her mom. It’s so ordinary! But what’s not ordinary is the way her mother has redecorated the house, ridding it of the eclectic clutter and replacing it with boring white walls and unsettling family portraits of unlikeable relatives. And the jar of teeth. The jar of teeth is definitely not ordinary.

The longer Sam stays with her mother, the more the house feels wrong and the more Sam becomes convinced that something is trying to harm them. And she’s not wrong. But it’s so easy to brush many of the experiences off, which is the scariest part to me! Kingfisher’s skill at making the mundane horrifying is a sight to behold.

It’s such a fun reading experience to have a book be both incredibly dark and unsettling, as well as genuinely funny and relatable. I found the story to be incredibly compelling and fast paced. The mystery was well plotted and all of the characters were fantastic.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I just finished reading A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher and let me tell you, I’m wondering why I haven’t read anything by this author before!! This book was seriously amazing from start to finish. The writing was top-notch and had me laughing out loud. The pacing was spot on, keeping me hooked the whole time. And can we talk about the plot? It was funny, engaging, original, and had just the right amount of creepiness.

But let’s not forget about the characters! They were so likable and well-developed that I couldn’t help but get invested in their lives. Seriously, this book has to be one of the most entertaining reads I’ve come across this year.

By the way, if you’re curious about the story, it follows Sam Montgomery as she visits her mom in North Carolina. But things aren’t quite right when she gets there. The house has lost its cozy charm and her mom is on edge all the time. As Sam digs deeper into what’s going on, she discovers a jar of teeth hidden under some stunning rose bushes in the backyard and vultures circling above. And that’s when things really start to get interesting.

Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on this gem of a book!

**ARC Via NetGalley**

I really enjoyed this book. The writing style is so easy to get into and I was sucked in right away. The humor is top tier and I even caught myself laughing out loud a few times which I rarely do when I'm reading.
I loved the main character and found her obsession with her niche interests to be very relatable. I also loved all of the side characters and wanted to know more about each of them.

Absolutely a new favourite that I would recommend!

Kingfisher is one of a kind as are their books. So well written. They write books that I just can not put down.

When her archaeological dig is postponed Sam decides to stay with her mother. She hasn’t been home for a while and both she and her mom are looking forward to spending time together. But Sam’s brother has mentioned that “mom seems off” so she isn’t sure what to expect.

What she finds is a house that she barely recognizes, a mother who seems nervous for no apparent reason, and vultures. Lots of vultures.

A House with Good Bones is an enjoyably creepy story about suspicious roses (each chapter begins with information about a particular kind of rose), questionable ancestors, things that go bump in the night, a jar of teeth hidden in the garden….and it get weird from there. But, weird in a very good way. I don’t read very many horror books, but I found this book to be very enjoyable. I love the characters. They are strong women who care for each other and don’t back down under any circumstances. The writing is fresh, the pace is good, and the plot is unique.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author but she’s on my radar now. Netgalley provided an advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for a copy of this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

T. Kingfisher's A House with Good Bones has all the depth, creepiness, and uncanny valley sensations that seem to come so naturally to their writing. I was immediately drawn in by the characters, and the sinister suburban setting.

A woman returns to her family home after years away, to find her mother acting out of character, and the house looking as it had in the time of her less than pleasant grandmother. While she tries to see what is wrong with her mother, she starts encountering strangeness in the house, and the tension builds.

This novel is atmospheric and so enjoyable (in the way that a good scary movie draws you in and makes you jump at all the noises in your house is enjoyable). If you like creepy reads, or any of T. Kingfisher's other books - pick this one up and read it.

Main character Sam, an Entomologist, goes to live with her mother for a while in a quiet neighborhood in North Carolina. They watch British crime shows and drink a lot of boxed wine. She find her mother to be a lot different than she remembers. She's almost acting like her long passed grandmother-a cruel racist religious southern belle. Sam plans on finding why her mother has changed so much, including how she redid the interior of her home to look like when her grandmother lived there. One day, she finds her old picture with what looked like a buried hand in the photo and a jar of teeth buried under her grandmother's prized roses.

That's the whole story. It reminded me of R.L. Stine's stay out of the basement, but written for young adults. It was not scary; I would not consider it horror. The endless inner monologue drove me nuts. Imagine every page just dripping with sentences in parentheses. Sam was pretty much written how a teenager would think. Just constant flow of thoughts. It was all about drinking tons of boxed wine and I letting us know she has a PhD. but can't do things for herself as a grown woman. It also had that stereotypical, "I'm fat (her words), but the neighbor's son falls in love with me after a week" type of plot point. So again, I would put this in YA.
This was my first Kingfisher book, and I was excited because I have heard so much about this author, but if this is how she always writes, I think I can do without. Sounds harsh, but the writing style was too simplistic and the idea has been done before. It did not really have a point until the last quarter. I wouldn't even considered North Carolina "southern gothic' either. Just because they reference a quick "witch" person a few times.
I feel the climax could have been more descriptive and drawn out more, but at least it was a quick read. I want to try for some compliments, but the characters were not likable and the story fell short for me. There just was not enough details for the backstory.

At this point, I am literally ride or die for anything T Kingfisher writes and this was no exception ….although if you have a phobia of bugs, this probably isn’t the book for you! (IYKYK)🐞 🥀

A heady mix of realism and lucid dreaming, I’m honestly not quite sure what I just read, but I know that I liked it…I think 😂

Unsettling and funny - this is my favorite T. Kingfisher so far!

Sam has returned to her family home in North Carolina while on furlough. Originally looking forward to the extended stay with her mother, Sam is caught off guard when the charming, quirky home she is used to has been returned to the state it was in when her deceased grandmother was alive. Sam's mom seems off too... and there's a bunch of vultures watching the house?

This was nothing like what I expected it to be, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it after the first two chapters. However, I am SO HAPPY that I kept reading. Sam has a unique voice that grew on me as I got farther into the narrative. This is also true of the scares; it started off rather tame, but ramps to a spooky climax. I think the book did not overstay its welcome; in fact, my only critique is that I wish it had more pages. There was a lot at play in this story that I think could have used a little more page time to have more of an impact.

This was truly some weird horror and I would definitely recommend to others!

I really enjoy Kingfisher’s fairy tale type stories, but every time I try to read a horror it doesn’t go well. This one I could feel the creeping dread and the dark undertones of what’s going on, but overall I was just bored trying to read this. Just a case of a book not working for me and my personal preferences.

T. Kingfisher has become an auto-buy author for me, and A House with Good Bones did not disappoint. This modern Southern Gothic haunted house tale is both creepy and funny. Kingfisher is a master at fitting a story into novella length which fits the horror genre perfectly.

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Rating: ★★★★☆

“Strange, the powers you find sometimes, in a garden at the end of the road.”

Sam, a 30-something archaeoentomologist, returns to her childhood home in rural North Carolina because a research dig she was about to start will be delayed. Edie, her mom, inherited the place from Sam’s grandmother, who was a complicated woman with very strong opinions, to put it lightly. When Sam pulls up, there’s a black vulture on the mailbox. And things, as you’d expect, get weirder and weirder. Then they get downright dangerous.

When I heard this was a southern gothic horror I expected a grim house in a small town with a disturbing family and some hauntings. What I didn’t expect was to also be audibly laughing out loud at the humor. Yeah it’s dark humor but so effective.

Kingfisher brings that signature wit and lightheartedness but meshes it with the creepy crawly, literally! This book had me squirming but also craving a cold glass of iced tea.

The main character Sam and her mother are stand outs and very well written. Gran Mae is more complicated than she first appears which was a pleasantly dark surprise. The mystery of why is intriguing enough to keep you guessing till the very end.

This is a horror story fans of horror will enjoy but also one you can give someone that usually doesn’t read horror. T. Kingfisher is an instant read author for me going forward! If you haven’t read ‘What Moves the Dead’ i cant recommend it enough!

🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞

I am growing more familiar with the horror genre, and this book was a delightful foray into atmospheric and generational horror.

This being my first T. Kingfisher book was kind of a let down, I thought this was going to rock my world and it did not at all. I want to try more from this author this was a big miss though.

I think I thought this was going to be super scary when it was just a little creepy. This could have gone so many different places and ways and it just stopped short every time.

There was so much rambling I was so bored the whole time.

I have quickly become a big fan of T kingfisher. This is what interesting, creepy, atmospheric writing is. I loved being able to read about a fellow fat main character who is unapologetic. This was so refreshing. And it wasn't just a romance! Really loved the creepy vibes, supernatural elements and almost cozy feels.

I really enjoyed this story and the development of Sam. I felt this was a little slow to get into but the ending made it all worth it. Would recommend!

I've been on a T. Kingfisher binge the past several months and I think I am nearly caught up. The downside of this is that I know how good T. Kingfisher is now and this just did not catch me quite like the others.

But if there is one thing that Kingfisher is good at, it's writing relatable horror protagonists. A lot of horror, in all its' various formats, is guilty of falling into tropes with the main characters. The ethereally beautiful and naive young woman. The overconfident badass. The one who doesn't believe there is actually anything going on. But Kingfisher writes us into her horror. I've seen what would likely be my own reactions reflected back at me in her books multiple times. And A House with Good Bones is no exception. I liked this one, but I did not love this one the way I loved The Hollow Ones and What Moves the Dead and The Twisted Ones. No particular reason why, just not my fav of Kingfisher's.

It feels wrong to not include a T Kingfisher book on the list of good books I've read recently. This is a southern gothic horror story, which feels like this authors specialty. It involves a plot that unearths deep dark family secrets. We follow Samantha who is between jobs as she returns to her mother’s home only to discover drastic changes in her widowed mother and childhood home. Honestly this gives off such a good Halloween read vibe, theres a “Witch”, ravens, a ghost and our main character who has a good sense of humor through all the chaos. Theres such a good mixture of like creepy as hell like you’ll want to read this with the lights on but theres also a light hearted feel to it which made it a fun combo. It’s a really quick read, I recommend it if you are already a fan of this author or if you haven’t read from her yet, this is actually a great starting point in getting a feel for her stories.
Full review on YouTube