Starling House
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

In Harrow's latest (after A Mirror Mended, 2022), a redheaded girl named Opal dreams of drowning and of a decrepit house. She ignores the dreams, too busy taking care of her younger brother and figuring out where they might find their next meal. When she ventures to Starling House, she meets Arthur Starling, who has been fighting a lifelong battle against what lies beneath, and who swears he will be the house's last warden. But Opal, hard edged and hungry, wants something different. Starling House is a brilliant book; Harrow's world building and writing style speak to her authorial experience and love of the story she writes. It is at once fantasy and reality, tied up in an inextricable knot that speaks truth about the things we need and the things we want, what we wish we could do to those who try to make us feel less than, and what reality calls for. This is a tale readers can get lost in, and they will still be in it long after the final page. Copyright 2023 Booklist Reviews.

In 19th-century Kentucky, E. Starling wrote a well-known fantasy called The Underland and then disappeared, leaving behind the now tumbledown Starling House, inhabited by its last moody heir, Arthur. Opal takes a job there, hoping to earn money to help her brother. But the house starts feeling like home, and soon she's teaming up with Arthur to uncover its secrets. From the Hugo Award—winning Harrow; with a 250,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2023 Library Journal

The town of Eden, KY, has its share of bad luck, and Opal has seen much of it her entire life. She will do anything to get her younger brother out of Eden and on a path to a better life. When an opportunity arises at the infamous Starling House, Opal won't let scary stories, dire warnings, or a moody heir get in her way. The house, built by a reclusive author, has intrigued Opal since her childhood. However, it seems that family secrets are not limited to the Starlings, and Opal will have to face down her own legacy that ties her to the house, the beasts of Underhill, and those who want the dark secrets for their own use. Harrow's captivating prose centers her flawed, cynical protagonists in a haunting plot of horrible actions, fog-hidden beasts, and moving connections between family, friends, and lovers. Fans of Shirley Jackson and Catriona Ward should pick this up. VERDICT Harrow's (A Mirror Mended) mash-up of twisted fairy tales and Southern gothic fiction is a haunting story of longing, lies, and generational curses.—Kristi Chadwick

Hugo Award winner Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January) does it again in this tender and triumphant haunted house story. The closest thing to a home that Opal has ever known is the motel room where she lives with her younger brother, Jasper, but she's plagued by mysterious dreams about wandering through Starling House, the most notorious building in the coal-mining town of Eden, Ky., complete with perpetually slamming doors and a light that cuts through the town's thick, rising mist. None of the townsfolk have ever seen the inside save for the unsettling and reclusive Starling family, but in Opal's dreams she knows the interior intimately. She feels called to investigate her connection to the house and the family, but along the way she'll have to determine which secrets she's ready to uncover and who and what she's willing to fight for. Harrow's prose cuts straight to the heart as she melds a story of family legacy and historical oppression with a stirring call to speak the truth. Readers will be left chewing on this tale long after the last page, and Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction's most memorable haunted houses. (Oct.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly described the protagonist as a teenager.