“Once there was a little girl named Nora Lee who had bad, bad dreams. The dreams were full of blood and teeth, and they frightened her very much, but I will tell you a secret: she loved them, too, because in her dreams the teeth belonged to her.”

This book was an absolute delight. Alix Harrow is obviously well read within her genre, and I loved the references she made to well-loved gothic novels.
Starling House is a gothic haunted house story with a sprinkle of magic. The setting is believable and Opal was a great protagonist, a scrappy young woman pushed to the edge by responsibility and poverty. She takes the job as a cleaner at Starling House, the creepy mansion just outside of town. But the house is full of secrets--and its last heir, Arthur Starling. As the two learn more about each other, they find they aren’t so different; two people cast aside by the town of Eden who are fighting tooth and nail to survive.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Narrator: Natalie Naudus
Rating: 5 stars
Pub date: 10/3

This cozy, enchanting, and mysterious story could not be more perfect for fall. From the moment I started this one, I was hooked.

Opal, our relatable and down-to-earth heroine, has one goal: to make sure her younger brother gets to leave the dying town of Eden, Kentucky, where they live. They’ve always been outsiders, but since their mother died, they’ve been mostly on their own. At night, Opal dreams of Starling House, an eerie manor that is the stuff of legends in town. When she stumbles upon the opportunity to become a housekeeper there, she can't help but accept and finally give in to the curiosity that borders on obsession with the house and the person who lives there.

This book masterfully combines elements of cozy horror with a dash of the supernatural. It's just spooky enough to satisfy your need for chills, yet it won't keep you up at night with nightmares. Harrow's storytelling weaves a web of mystery and magic that kept me turning pages well into the night. I also listened to this on audio, and the narrator, Natalie Naudus, did a fabulous job adding to the story’s spooky atmosphere.

The haunted house is a character all on its own, and my favorite chapters were when Opal was working there. One brilliant touch in the story is the perspective of Arthur Starling, the last heir of Starling House and supposed villain, who is actually just a person fighting a secret battle that no one knows about. His POV rounds out the story and helps to explain the town's curse and why people fear him. The romance between Opal and Arthur was sweet and lovely and made me swoon repeatedly.

This book is gothic, gritty, romantic, fantastical, and mysterious, and I absolutely loved it. I cannot wait for people to get their hands on this perfect spooky season read. If you're looking for a hauntingly beautiful tale that tugs at your heartstrings while sending shivers down your spine, Starling House is the book you've been waiting for.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Tor Books, and Macmillan Audio for my advanced reader copy and my complimentary audiobook.

Read if you like:
*gothic thrillers
*fantasy
*haunted houses
*found family
*a little bit of gore but not too much

Many thanks to my friends at @tornightfire and @macmillan.audio for the #gifted copies of this book.

“I dream sometimes of a house I’ve never seen.”

Part fairy tale, part gothic horror. This book oozes the very essence of fall and begs to be read snuggled under a cozy blanket.

It’s the kind of story that holds you spellbound. I found myself fully transported to a magical world laden with secrets and monsters that hid in plain sight.

With lush writing and lyrical prose, Harrow’s storytelling enchanted. The imagery was cinematic in detail, the atmosphere exuded gloom, and the richly developed characters (tortured, brooding, and prickly) felt like friends that I wanted to protect (though they clearly didn’t need such).

But it was the moody mansion that was the true standout in this book.

“What had begun as stone and mortar had become something more, with ribs for rafters and stone for skin. It has no heart, but it feels. It has no brain, but it dreams.”

An ever-changing labyrinth. Rotting yet alive. A haunted house that somehow felt like home. It didn’t take me long to understand why Opal came to dream of this sentient place.

And while the house held me captive, this wasn’t the dark and tortured read I had expected. Part reckoning. Part love story. With elements focused on found family and belonging, the truest monsters were made of greed and hungry for power.

Still, I found myself swooning… over the atmosphere… over the unlikely love story… over the magic.

🎧 The audiobook is expertly narrated by Natalie Naudus, a favorite. Her performance embodied the emotion within this book and amplified the masterful storytelling.

This book was absolutely incredible. It just hit the spot for me this season in that it's hauntingly eerie without being scary or gory. It's definitely a spooky season winner for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for a ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Starling House is a creepy, gothic tale about a oddball house and the inhabitants of a seemingly cursed, unlucky town. It gives off the right amount of spooky vibes to be a huge hit on your October TBR!

Things I loved:
- The House 🏠 Starling House was such a different, unique setting. I loved learning about it and it’s history through the towns tales and inhabitants’ stories.
- The Characters 👨 from the FMC (Opal), the Warden of Starling House, and all of the secondary characters that you get to know, I loved learning their histories and getting to know them.
- The Lore 🐦 Again, I LOVED learning about Starling House and the Starlings through the town and it’s inhabitants and then the Starlings themselves. I thought this was so much fun and really got the reader immersed in wanting to know more about what’s going on in the weird old mansion.

Things I Wish -
- The pacing felt a bit off. Around 35%, I was absolutely hooked and was heading towards a 5 star review but then the pace seemed to halt a bit, which threw me off. While the pace seemed to slow, there were other parts that seemed rushed (especially regarding her brother). I wish that the focus stayed on the house during these slower times but also that certain conversations/revelations were teased out a bit more.

Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you love: gothic, haunted mansions and Stranger Things

Thank you Tor Publishing Group and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I have mixed feelings about Starling House. There were several elements I enjoyed and there were some elements I did not enjoy. There will be a lot of people who enjoy this book as I think it is a great title for getting into fall.

What I liked:

- The beginning! Starling House starts off with the mysterious elements that let you sink your teeth into the narrative. We’ve got a rural town that’s cursed by a haunted house. What’s not to like? I enjoyed the way the mystery of Starling House was set up.
- Jasper, Opal’s younger brother. Jasper is the most interesting character in the book and I wish we could have explored his character more. He’s easily the most fleshed out character with the most personality. It’s a shame he didn’t get more page time.
- Opal’s love for her brother and her determination to get Jasper out of Eden. Her love for him was very endearing and reminded me of the love I have for my younger brother.

What I didn’t like:
- Starling House feels underdone. The pacing was all over the place. Especially when Opal’s first person POV was interrupted by Arthur’s third person POV. It made the book feel like a 500 page book when in fact it is just over 300 pages.
- The gothic vibes? Starling House is marketed as a contemporary gothic (some even say horror?) and that is just not what the book was giving. The themes of Starling House were surely gothic but the atmosphere is more akin to a darker fairytale. The gothic themes and the fairytale atmosphere really impacted my enjoyment of this book.
- The “romance” between Opal and Arthur. Their relationship felt so unnecessary and didn’tt have a real impact on the story at large. There is no tension between Opal and Arthur due to some spoilers events I won’t include here but just know their romance doesn’t feel earned. It feels like it was written just for the sake of saying this book had a romantic subplot, albeit not a good one.
- Opal is a boring main character. She doesn’t have much of a personality beyond being cynical.

Right now I’m feeling like this book is sitting at a 3.5/5 but my rating might change upon further reflection. I feel like there were more interesting stories that could have been told about Starling House than the story we got.

Fans of Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House and Hell Bent, meet your next must-read.

Honestly, I don't know why I sat on this one for so long. From the description alone, it has everything I want in a contemporary fantasy: Southern Gothic stylings, Children's books about portal worlds, surly narrators at the edge of society. <em>Black Birds</em> (/Stephon voice). I finally grabbed just around the time it was featured on the cover of the October Bookpage.

Prepare to be pulled in by the lush, descriptive prose, the mysterious and possibly nefarious characters, Opal's tragic backstory and opportunism; her utter disregard for (almost) everyone in her life except her brother, Jasper. I started reading this as a book, then grabbed the audiobook because I couldn't bear to put it down while driving or cooking, and then finished it late into the night in a marathon read session. ("Well, I'm at 73%, I can't stop now")

This is a fantasy that's built on common tropes yet bends it in a way that feels new. Different bits reminded me of so many of my favorites, from the aforementioned Bardugo titles to Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle to Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children to Kelly Link's Faery Handbag . And, NGL, at various points I pictured Arthur as Adam Driver. (Thanks, Ali Hazelwood!).

An new book becomes a favorite because it approaches you like an old friend. This felt familiar and fresh at the same time, and I hope it finds its niche with modern contemporary fantasy readers.

Loved this book. It’s a perfect mix of gothic fantasy and I just couldn’t put it down. Definitely a five star read for me.

Alix E. Harrow is my Soul Author. She writes stories that feel like they have been ripped from my heart and put into her beautiful prose. Her books are both disturbing and comforting, and feel like familiar fairytale stories but you can’t put your finger on who told them to you. Starling House is no different. It’s about a sentient home and the stories of the people who have resided there. I think it’s best to go into this book without too much information about plot. You’re meant to dig up the story as you read. I highly recommend this book.

Starling House is an amazing gothic fantasy, filled with mystery that keeps you turning pages. The characters were so well written, and Opal felt so, so very relatable. Her relationship with her brother is one of the most authentic things I have ever read. Absolutely love Opal and Jasper’s brother/sister dynamic.

All of the characters are very well rounded. The mysterious Starling House and the city of Eden is described with such great deal, that it felt like a movie in my mind. The action, an element I did not expect from this book, was one of my favorites! When I thought things might be slowing down, the action picked it right back up!

This book has a touch of everything- mystery, action, romance, and fantasy. Great book for the fall!

I love a book where the house is a character itself, and Starling House certainly delivers! Harrow writes a (slightly creepy) love letter to everyone who grew up longing for a home they never had, and who dived into books to try to find it. I stayed up too late for several evenings because I just couldn't put this down!

Alix E. Harrow is interested in the business of stories - the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we accept as truth, the stories we refuse to believe. Opal has heard stories about Starling House for years - and has been dreaming about it for nearly as long. When she's invited in by its current "warden," she begins to rewrite her own story.

A nicely creepy haunted house story for spooky season, with a touch (just a touch) of romance.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

Thank you @macmillan.audio & @torbooks for the review copy, I’ve loved all of Harrow’s books, and was SO excited when I got an early review ALC for this one!

This book was the *perfect* level of spooky for the start of my spooky reading season. Which is to say that it had a few creepy elements but I wasn’t actually scared.

Opal lives in a small town in Kentucky that is home to an eccentric family known as the Starlings. Decades ago, Eleanor Starling wrote a children’s book that became something of a cult sensation. I love when children’s books are part of the lore in a story. If you ever wished there was a creepier children’s book than Through the Looking Glass, this vibe is for you!

Starling House is this fantastic mix of fairytale and gothic mystery and romance and I just loved it so much. Pick it up if you like:
✨ Somewhat sentient, somewhat haunted houses
✨ Brooding, cursed male leads
✨ a dash of reckoning with corporate greed, slavery, patriarchy…

🎧 Narrator Natalie Naudus perfectly captures the tone of the book and the character’s voices. Starling House is fantastic on audio!

I wanted to love this way more than I actually did!! I have been a HUGE Alix E Harrow fan in the past and I had BIG expectations for their latest release. Unfortunately it was just an okay read for me. If you enjoy complex stories with messy family drama, haunted houses and fantastic narrators you don't want to miss this one. I am a BIG fan of Natalie Naudus but not even her narration could save this one for me. I'm not sure what exactly didn't work for me but I definitely found myself forcing to finish. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early audio and digital copies in exchange for my honest review!!

Is there a more perfect book to read as we creep our way into autumn? I'm not sure! Alix Harrow's STARLING HOUSE is firing on all cylinders, blurring Southern Gothic with a light horror/dark fantasy vibe and protagonists who had me shrieking and crying and clutching my heart for hundreds of pages. Opal is a dreamboat of a heroine, all hard edges and poor decisions and soft heart, and sadsack Arthur is exactly the sort of noble idiot you can't help but to love. There's simply so much to love in this book, as it delivers a pitch-perfect hardscrabble-girl-makes-good plot, a puzzle box of a haunted house that somehow grows more haunted and more charming as the book goes on, and a sinister overarching threat of corporate baddies, regular baddies, paranormal baddies, and the overall baddie-ness of heteropatriarchal capitalism. The plot is just SO GOOD, and then Harrow manages to weave in a love story that threw me directly back to my Everlark days (IFKYK). ughhhhh, 10/10, 20/10, will read again and again and again.

Starling House
Alix E. Harrow


Harrow’s latest light horror/fantasy is Fantastic, a Southern gothic fable like story filled with ghosts, goblins, evil doers, heroes, flawed characters and one heck of a haunted house. Opal, the star of the show is about as flawed as you get, yet she will pull at the audience’s heart strings because under the hard-nosed exterior is a vulnerable little girl who just wants to be loved and a champion for those she loves. Arthur is a close second to Opal and his fierceness to be the last warden of Starling House is heroic. There are other unforgettable characters in the book both good and bad, including the house itself. The narrative has an easy flow and a steady pace, the settings are creeptastic and the whole shebang will hook readers from page one until the riveting end.

Opal McCoy and her little brother Jasper live in Eden Kentucky, known for having extremely bad luck (which they have had personal experience with) and the haunted decrepit mansion known as Starling House. A house for which there are many stories about involving unexplained deaths, strange beasts roaming the grounds and its strange original owner, children’s author Eleanor Starling. Opal’s main objective in life is to make sure that her brother gets out of Eden, and she’ll steal, cheat, lie and use any means at her disposal to make sure that happens. She’s even enrolled him in a fancy private academy, now she just has to find a way to pay for it. Which brings her to the gates of Starling House, a house that for some unknown reason she’s dreamed of all her life, now however she’s just hoping to find work there. What she finds is, Arthur Starling, a recluse and present warden of Starling House, a lonely boy/man who offers her a job, demands that she not talk to anyone about the house or him and pays her way too much for the work she’s doing.

But lately there are even more strange forces at work putting Eden and its residents at more risk, making the house restless and leaving Opal with some important decisions to make.

Your creepy house or mine?

Opal and Arthur are both living a nightmarish existence in the small depressed town of Eden, Kentucky: She in abject poverty, surviving on junk food in a rundown motel, and he in a more literal sense, fighting the local monstrous beasts whose point of origin is somewhere beneath Starling House, the crumbly mansion where he lives alone.

Harrow’s writing is exceptional, and she creates truly wonderful, complex characters. The bones of the story are those of a familiar gothic trope, but Harrow puts her own spin on the “there’s something wrong with the house” theme.

This wasn’t quite as creepy as I hoped it would be, but it’s still solidly atmospheric. And it’s just a really good story. Sweeter and more nuanced than I expected, and also enthralling and well paced.

I think I found my favorite book of the year.

Starling House was my most anticipated book of 2023. Which is saying something, as there were so many excellent books published this year. But Harrow’s debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, is my favorite standalone novel of all time, so my expectations were sky high. Those expectations could have set me up for failure. They didn’t. While the two novels couldn’t be more different, Starling House is just as powerful and beautiful as The Ten Thousand Doors of January. It just has much sharper teeth.

Opal will do anything to take care of her little brother, Jasper. Since their mom died eleven years ago, it’s been just the two of them against the world. More specifically, it’s been the two of them against their small, backwards hometown of Eden, Kentucky. Opal lied her own childhood away so that she could become Jasper’s legal guardian. The two call a ratty motel room home, and by day Opal is scraping together everything she can from her crappy job at Tractor Supply to buy Jasper a new life at a private boarding school, far from Eden and its judgmentality. By night, she dreams. She dreams of sharp claws and sharper teeth. She dreams of the childhood book that captured her imagination, Underland, and its dark fairytales. But always, she dreams of Starling House. Starling House, the big haunted mansion that rules the nightmares and imaginations of the bigoted, small-minded townspeople. Starling House, the birthplace of monsters and the last bastion of hope against them.

While not dark academia, I would immediately recommend Starling House to anyone who loves Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House and Hell Bent. If you love Alex Stern, you’re going to absolutely adore Opal. Both have bruised hearts that they protect with bleeding knuckles. Both are scrappy, fierce and braver than they believe. Both will lie while staring you right in the eye, a crooked smirk on their lips. Both will fight tooth and nail for what they need and for those they love. But Opal isn’t the only wonderful character in this book. Arthur Sterling grabbed me by the heart and didn’t let me go. His loneliness made me ache. He tried so hard to bury his kindness behind gruffness, but he never quite succeeded. Both Opal and Arthur are broken. Beautifully so. Their brokenness is what makes them so believably multifaceted, so compelling and sympathetic. Both are terrified of wanting, of chasing anything more than their most basic of needs. But oh, how they want.

And then there’s the house! When we first meet Starling House, it is run down and surly, almost like a feral cat. But when it begins to feel loved and treasured for the first time in too long, it slowly begins to shine. I love near-sentient places, and Starling House is one of the best. It has so much personality. And it dreams. I was reminded of Mike Flanagan’s reimagining of The Haunting of Hill House, if Hill House had an artsy, lovechild of a younger sister. The mythos surrounding the house is fascinating, as is that surrounding the Starlings in all their wild variety and stalwart service. If Starling House started sending me dreams, I would be hard pressed not to pick up the sword of the Wardens of Starling House.

This book is kind of difficult to pigeonhole into a genre. It’s Gothic in texture, if not in tone. It’s lightly horror, but the descriptions of even the horrific are so lovely that it pulls the sting from the bite. It’s a mystery, for sure, with a puzzle box of a house and more hiding outside and beneath it. There is a scene that is one of the hottest, most achingly romantic scenes I’ve ever read. It made my breath hitch on multiple levels. And yet, with as romantic as portions of this book are, I wouldn’t quite call it a romance, either. It’s weighty and entrancing and completely its own beast, and I love it for being exactly what it is.

Harrow infused this story with so much depth. It’s about being who you choose to be, no matter who others say you are. It’s about not being defined by a name. It’s about what makes a home, and how four walls can’t contain it. It’s about finding the line between a want and a need, and learning to jump that division with both eyes open. It’s about standing for what you love and what you don’t, even if the world never recognizes your sacrifice. It’s about finding the courage to face your dreams after a lifetime of turning your back on them.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Harrow’s writing. In The Ten Thousand Doors of January, her prose was achingly lovely. I called her a “Wordsmith, a sorceress wielding a pen in place of a wand.” I stand by that description, though it was expressed far differently in Starling House. The prose is still effortlessly literary without an ounce of pretension. However, Harrow’s writing in Starling House has more of an edge to it, a bite that feels more modern and hungry than her debut. In other words, she found a way to retain the magic of her prose while shifting her voice to perfectly suit the story she had to tell. Harrow is a brilliantly gifted weaver of words, and is quite possibly the most talented writer of a generation, in my opinion.

(Side note: I tandem read a digital galley while listening to the audiobook, and I have to say that the audio was stellar. Natalie Naudus did a brilliant job with the narration. She portrayed both Opal and Arthur and even the supporting cast with remarkable aplomb. Listening to this while reading along was a completely immersive experience that I would highly recommend.)

I adored Starling House with every fiber of my being. To me, it’s a perfect book. Full stop. No notes. I fell in love with Opal and Arthur, with the supporting cast and with the House itself. The mythos was just as captivating as the storytelling. I loved every sentence of this, and I’m already looking forward to rereading it. If ever a book deserves a place on my favorites shelf next to The Ten Thousand Doors of January, it’s this one.

I don't think Alix Harrow is an author for me. I've tried many times and I just never vibe with her writing. It's not her, it is me.
That being said I can see this being really popular and why other people love her so much.the footnotes kind of drove me insane though. I hate footnotes in fiction books.

Alix E. Harrow has done it again.

Opal has been dreaming of the Starling House for years, but it isn't until she bleeds all over the front gate and meets the mysterious Starling boy that she decides to do something about. In a town plagued with bad luck and stories built on the misfortunes of others, the Starling stands as the greatest mystery of all. When Opal goes chasing after hopes and dreams and an author long forgotten, she'll find out that the house is more than meets the eyes.

Harrow manages to bring horror, gothic vibes, fantasy, contemporary elements, and a little love story and family bonding into one glorious book. I loved the idea of the house that grew and wasn't haunted perse but was full of magic beyond anyone's comprehension. I found that little bit of romance perfect and do not get me started on I-can-handle-this and i'll-punch-anyone-in-the-face Opal. Liar, manipulator, knife of a smirk queen.

Read if you're into semi-sentient houses, books that are fantasy but also truth, government organization being a pain, and gothic magic.