Birdie has struggled and fought to be a maid in the House of Quiet. She is on a mission to find her sister who had a mysterious procedure but never returns home. The book does not make it clear as to what the procedure does until later in the book, but the summary seems to be fairly upfront that whatever the procedure is, if it works and you survive, you will have some sort of extraordinary gift.

I think that was my biggest concern with this book. It does a very poor job of explaining what is going on or even how we get to where we are now. Even as the scenes change from one to another, there is little explanation. Birdie is also incredibly determined not to bond with the others in the house but seems to realize that if she wants to try and find her sister, she may need a bit of help. However, Birdie isn't the only one in the house who seems to have secrets, so it's a bit wild that there is at least one person Birdie already knows in this randomly isolated, bog bound house. It is a fairly spooky atmosphere and I just want to imagine everyone wanting around the house in the dimness of candle light and gloom.

Many of the other characters have some abilities such as Lake who is referred to as a liar constantly but seems to be stuck in a state between the present and the future. I don't enjoy that they keep calling her a liar when she seems to be just as frustrated as they are. One boy doesn't speak, and another girl is able to walk in other people's dreams. It's a good premise, I just felt it wasn't as well executed as I hoped. I was left with more questions than answers by the end.

The House of Quiet 
By Kiersten White 
Rating: 4.6

Birdie is looking for her sister that disappeared after going to the House of Quiet 6 years ago. When she gets a job as a maid at the House of Quiet, she uses it as her opportunity to find out what happened to her sister and or if she’s still residing at the house. The House of Quiet is where kids go for a procedure that is supposed to change their lives. But located in the middle of nowhere, the House of Quiet has little communication with the outside world and the eerie landscape keeps it that way. For Birdie, discovering the secrets of the house could unravel every mysterious rumor but upon entering the house, Birdie knows there is more to it than everyone believes. The residents have strange abilities and the dark ominous atmosphere of the house is anyone’s worst nightmare.

Dark and alluring, The House of Quiet drew me in from the first couple chapters. The concept was interesting and it took a while for me to piece the puzzles together but I enjoyed the suspense. The different perspectives revealed hidden agendas, struggles and emotions regarding the House of Quiet, the relationship between the other characters and the outside world. 

As a Gothic horror, The House of Quiet perfectly captures the essence of the genre. I really enjoyed! I would highly recommend it!

I have been a massive fan of Kiersten White's for years, with favorites like Mister Magic taking up massive space in my brain. The House of Quiet is not only exactly the kind of book I hoped for, it is so vastly different from the rest of her catalogue as to carve its own space in the dark fantasy genre.

Dark, claustrophobic, with characters whose motivations undulate like snakes, this is one of my favorite gothic reads of the year.

Birdie has one goal: find her little sister, Magpie. Magpie went through “the Procedure,” which is supposed to give children special powers—powers so dangerous most people can’t handle them. But when Magpie disappears, Birdie pulls every trick she knows until she gets herself a job as a maid at the creepy, isolated place called the House of Quiet. The House is weird. It’s in a bog, so escaping is almost impossible. Children who go there are supposed to be “treated” for their powers, but nobody really knows how they’re healed—or where they go after. Birdie expects the House to be full of kids from poor backgrounds. Instead she finds something else: wealthy kids, people with strange powers who shouldn’t have them, secrets, and danger every time she turns a corner. She quickly realizes she can’t just hunt for Magpie in stealth mode. Relationships form (some tender, some twisted), other maids are watching her, and there are forces inside the House she had not accounted for. Everything is more layered and darker than she imagined. In the end, Birdie uncovers some horrifying truths—about the Procedure, about the House’s purpose, and about what she’s willing to risk (and lose) to get her sister back. This was my first Kiersten White novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it took a bit to get into the mystery, but once I got to that point in the story it did not stop. I could not put the book down until I knew exactly what secrets the house and it’s occupants were hiding, I would definitely recommend this book and will be reading more of Kiersten’s books!

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for this ARC Copy!

This is my second book by this author, so I thought I knew what I was getting into with this book, but I was completely surprised by this story. It is very different than Lucy Undying as far as writing style and prose, but I still really enjoyed it.
Such a unique and imaginative way to tell a story, filled with unreliable narrators, and you don't always know who the narrator at all times. If you love the X Men then I think you will enjoy this book because while it is a completely different setting, it still has characters with X-Men like abilities, and the comradery that you find in the movies and comics, but with a horror twist.
There are some dark moments in this story, but I would classify it as horror lite, so if you aren't the biggest horror fan but still want something creepy and weird for spooky season then this is a perfect option.

I loved this book. It is rare that a story manages to equally balance symbolism and scares without lending more weight to one or the other. I also can't say enough good things about the slow-burn romance and the found family.

I would say that while I understood the general plot, I was confused for most of the first half of the story. However, I was Birdie, and her need was not only to find her little sister, but to figure out what the heck is actually going on in the House of Quiet. I loved the atmosphere of the House, surrounded by a peat bog that no one dares traverse, and no one really comes to visit regularly. It's isolated, and we get this POV that makes it seem like the House itself is alive, and doesn't really appreciate what's going on in its walls.

Once we got a bit further into the story, I started to get a better sense of what was going on and of the other characters we encountered inside the House. They were all endlessly intriguing with their different powers and personalities. The House and everyone involved are full of secrets, and Birdie is determined to uncover what she needs to find her sister, and I really enjoyed the ride we took to get there.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I love Kiersten White’s creeping horror and The House of Quiet was one that grabbed me as soon as it started and never let go. It has the perfect creeping horror with creepy children as the protagonists and a house where everything that can go wrong seems to be.

Birdie is a poor girl from Sootcity who has worked most her life so her sister Magpie could afford an operation that would open her mind up to some magical powers, and help her lot in life. And now she’s done everything in her power to be assigned as a maid at the House of Quiet, where she thinks Magpie may be. But life in the house is unsettling at best, with no poor children to be seen, just rich ones who seem to have had “the procedure”. And no sign of her sister. As Birdie does everything she can think of to find her sister, it becomes increasingly clear that none of the children in the house are safe … and many aren’t who they seem.

The House of Quiet definitely has class critiques imbedded into the horror - the horror of circumstance just as real as the horror in the house itself. I thought the commentary was wonderfully done, never heavy handed. And the scariest thing is what man does to man to better themselves. The house being secluded added to the creeping horror, my favorite kind! This was such a great book to start the fall / Halloween / horror season off with!!

Well paced and an interesting concept, but not my favorite from White.

I think this is the first book from this author that I haven’t thought was a five star read. There’s nothing wrong with the concept here and the book reads smoothly, but the plot is messy, a bit convoluted, and feels rushed. I still don’t fully get what “the procedure” is, but the bigger problem is that I’m not sure I care.

What goes on at the house is clearly supposed to be a microcosm or a representation of an oppressive government and governing body, but the background information on that felt very half-baked, sort of like a generic dystopian autocracy, where you know it’s bad but can’t exactly pinpoint anything specific about how it functions.

The house itself isn’t especially creepy and while I enjoyed the descriptions of its maze-like quality, there is a lot of vagueness to this aspect of the story too. The characters as individual, sympathetic people are more compelling than their “abilities” are, which was another piece of this that felt not quite fully rendered, alongside all of the business of switching everyone’s names around, which also didn’t work the way it seems to have been intended.

A tighter edit or perhaps just more time for perfecting the story probably would have helped this one a lot, because the bones of it were good or at least good enough. I can’t really blame the author, as she’s more than shown how gifted a writer and storyteller she is many times over. Just feels like a book that was rushed to publication that needed a bit more time in the proverbial oven.

I was soooo close to DNF this book around 25%. I'm grateful for the positive reviews that encouraged me to keep reading. I shouldn't have doubted Kiersten White...

This book is very confusing in the beginning. If you keep with it and make it to the end, I promise it will all make sense and the journey there was wild and worth it. I might even do a re-read knowing what I know now!

I don't want to give anything else away, like I said, the journey is the story and I think going in blind is a part of that. If you like found family, a borderline horror atmosphere, secrets and young love, I encourage you to take a chance on this book.

Gothic Supernatural Fun!

Kiersten White’s The House of Quiet is gothic mystery for all ages. Birdie, desperate to find her missing sister, sneaks into a creepy mansion in the middle of a bog (yes, terrifying and creepy bog) where the kids are all hiding secrets and have supernatural side effects being treated by even creepier staff. What she finds is part haunted boarding school, part locked-room mystery, and part “what even is going on here?” The whole vibe is drenched in shadows, secrets, and aristocratic teens who are way too pretty and privileged for anyone’s good.

This isn’t your blood-splattered, keep-the-lights-on horror story. It is way more than that, it’s more of a slow-burn gothic puzzle with layers of dread and a whole lot of juicy class tension. There are hidden passages, freaky parental characters, disturbing motives and bleak governing bodies. If you like your spooky reads with a strong heroines, eerie atmospheres, and the delicious feeling of being one step away from uncovering something terrible, this one’s ready to pull you into the bog and not let go.

Finally, if you’re looking for an emotional dystopian ending, this is the story for you! Kiersten White knows how to write some paranormal twists and that’s why I keep coming back for more!

Welcome to the House of Quiet, where mysteries hide behind each and every door. What will you find? Who knows. But, do know this that this house is that last place some of these people have to go.

Many thanks to Malmo PR and Delacorte Press for the review copy.

The House of Quiet Synopsis

Birdie’s sister has been missing for years, ever since her family saved up the high price to send her to get “the procedure.” Now, she’s finally managed to get inside the House of Quiet, where her sister supposedly got sent after the operation that should’ve unlocked special powers to pull their family out of poverty. Only, the House hides more secrets than Birdie ever expected, and finding her sister may not be as easy as she thought.

The House of Quiet Review

I didn’t fully know what to expect going into this one. Between the cover and the designation as YA Horror, I was a little worried it’d be too spooky for me. But no. The House of Quiet was precisely for me, and I absolutely loved it.

The writing is compelling, taking us between different character perspectives in close 3rd person. We don’t always know precisely whose head we’re in. We get bits and pieces that build to create the full picture and let us in on just enough to follow what’s going on while still craving more.

I loved the portrayal of the special powers. Even the useful powers came at a cost. Others weren’t fully clear until crucial moments. The idea of a procedure that unlocks special abilities, but at a cost, made for a great foundation for some of the social and class commentary in the book. It’s like X-Men, but if the X-Gene didn’t activate randomly, and I was here for it.

The characters are complex and well-drawn, with each of them having their own unique motivations. Everyone is suspicious at times, and everyone makes questionable choices, but White does a great job of showing why everyone does what it is that they do.

From start to finish, The House of Quiet is a compelling read I couldn’t put down. I absolutely devoured this one, and I think it’s a great fit for fans of X-Men and books like These Vicious Masks.

I say this with all the love in my heart, Kiersten White you write some creepy af books.

Now that that's been said this book will have you quaking in your books, it's breathtaking in it's betrayal of humanity and will have you looking over your shoulder and crossing the street to avoid those woods that only look creepy in certain light.

Birdie and Magpie, I think of all that Birdie does to try and find her sister and then I think of my own sisters, what I would do if one of them had found themselves in this kind of world and it's terrifying, soul tingling really.

And to think at one point people being experiemented on, having to live with the concequences, it was a real thing and that just makes this book so much more sinister at times.

If you're looking for the perfect fall read I can't recommend this one enough, just be prepared to want to sleep with the lights on as you're reading, and for a few days after.

Thank you to Random House Children's Books, Delacorte Press, and Netgalley for providing an advance copy of this e-book, I have voluntarily read and reviewed it and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was excited to see White was writing another YA novel, and while I enjoyed this well enough I also am not quite sure what to say about it? This is a book that will really need to find the correct audience (of which I don't think I'm the wrong audience, per say, but I'm certainly not the 100% right one either) for it to do well, and I'm honestly not sure the correct audience is big enough FOR this book to do super well. Again, that's not to say that it's bad, because it's not, but it has the feeling of a fever dream, which will almost certainly put a lot of people off of it. I don't really think I understood what was really going on with this book until at least the 50% mark (and that might be a bit generous) and even having finished it I'm not sure I FULLY understood what happened. White has created an interesting world here, I think the main problem is that it's not really explored. We get brief bits and pieces of it through the eyes of our characters, but the entirety of the story happens in one house that's off in the middle of nowhere, so for the most part that's all we see. Aside from the fact that the North and the South are...kind of fighting, and there's a procedure poor families save up to get their kids, I'm not sure I could tell you much more about the world. Is it supposed to be our world? A whole different world? Couldn't tell you. This is also billed as a fantasy, but it feels more like a sci-fi. But again, I really don't know, because there's just not enough context outside of the one place we see. They mention ghosts, but I have no idea if that's because there actually ARE ghosts in the world, or if it's just a thing some people believe in like it is in real life. I think this is also billed as a stand-alone but I feel like there's potential for a sequel here, where we could see more of the world. Now, the one thing I think White did well here was the characters. I could fully tell who Birdie was, and I understood every action she made. I also enjoyed all of the side characters, they were a fun little found family. Unfortunately because of the lack of world building and just how generally confused I was for so much of the book this isn't one that I would hand sell, although I certainly wouldn't mind putting it into the hands of a teen who wanted something a little different. I'll certainly be curious to see if this ends up getting a sequel, and I'll be interested to see what White comes up with next.

Kiersten White never seems to run out of some of the most interesting and compulsively readable ideas for novels, and The House of Quiet is no different. It’s got all of the hallmarks of a solid gothic horror: isolated location, a house that is a character all its own, a limited cast of characters, a malady to be cured or mitigated, existential crises, and a terribly claustrophobic atmosphere. What it also has is a cast full of powers worthy of comic books (which is much in line with White’s tastes): causing people to feel emotions that aren’t their own, dream walking, forms of mind-reading, clairvoyance, and more.

While I will always commend Kiersten for being fantastic at worldbuilding and atmosphere, the plot is rather thin in this book. If you’re looking for strong characters and a character-driven novel, then you’re looking at a great book for that. The House of Quiet drops a lot of questions and plot development on you early on in the book, and not every point gets an answer or gets resolved. Point in fact, the book even introduces more questions once it enters the second half that we never get answers to. I didn’t even realize it while I was reading because I cared about the characters so much. Pair great characters with fantastic atmosphere and it’s hard to find too much fault with that. 4⭐️



I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Gothic Fiction/Horror/Paranormal Fantasy/

When I picked up The House of Quiet by Kiersten White, I was immediately intrigued by the gothic setting and the strange, unsettling atmosphere. The idea of a house on a bog filled with children who each carry unusual powers pulled me in. I enjoyed the tone and the way the story created an eerie, Victorian mood. Birdie’s search for her missing sister Magpie gave the book a strong emotional hook at the start, and I wanted to keep reading to see where it would go.
As much as I admired the world that White built, I struggled with the pacing. The beginning felt confusing because so many characters were introduced at once. Each came with their own names, histories, and powers, and I often had to pause to sort out who was who. I did like the depth of the worldbuilding, but it was hard to follow in the early chapters. I found myself wanting a clearer sense of direction and a steadier flow.
When the story reached its later sections, I felt more settled and enjoyed watching the pieces fall into place. There were moments of tension and discovery that were satisfying, and I appreciated the way some secrets were revealed. At the same time, I was left wishing for more. A few of the mystery threads felt unfinished, and the ending did not deliver the payoff I was hoping for. Birdie’s quest to rescue Magpie sometimes got overshadowed by side plots and supporting characters, which made the conclusion feel less powerful than I expected.
In the end, I would call The House of Quiet an atmospheric read that succeeds more in mood than in clarity. I enjoyed the creepy setting and the sense of unease that carried through the story, but I wanted stronger pacing, more focus, and a resolution that tied everything together more completely. For me it was a solid three-star book, enjoyable but not unforgettable.

This had to have been one of the most confusing books books I have ever read. I mean I understand what happened once it got to the end but through most of the book it felt like a jumble of words put together. The concept was there but the delivery wasn't.

3.5/5 Stars
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This book was definitely interesting. Kiersten White has a remarkable way with words. I felt that her prose was beautifully written and flowed very well. I found myself latching onto her haunting and lyrical descriptions many times throughout the book.
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That being said, I don't think the story itself was as strong as the writing, and it didn't quite land for me. I struggled to connect with the characters and felt that the pacing was off. The story started off really slow, and I often found myself confused and having to reread parts because it wasn't drawing me in. The last third of the book though I felt was paced much better. I was able to easily follow along and connect to the characters more, which made it easier for me to come up with my own theories on what was going on.
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Overall I think this book highlights White's skills as a writer, but the story itself left me wanting. I think fans of more atmospheric writing will enjoy this more.
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Thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for providing me with an eARC to review.

A girl must enter into a deadly house where children with psychic abilities are kept in order to find her sister and rescue her yet the house holds many dangerous secrets and finding her sister might be impossible. This was a gothic dystopian locked room kinda mystery read. I have to say, this one just kinda fell flat for me. There were so many characters being thrown around that you never really connect to them and they feel interchangeable. The pacing of the book felt off and the actual ending was okay for me. I wish I could like this more and get more invested... but it just never clicked for me. While this isn't for me, I would say if you like stories with a cast of psychic characters and a locked house mystery, give it a try.

Release Date: September 9, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Children's Books | Delacorte Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*