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Sign up todayStarling House
A Reese's Book Club Pick
Narrator
Natalie Naudus
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Length
12 hours 25 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“This has been the perfect spooky-season read, resplendent with an opinionated haunted house, exasperate heroine, and plenty of monsters, both real and supernatural. I fell in love with the characters and their struggles within small-town Americana and its ghosts of past trauma. Harrow is so talented at gripping your whole heart and whisking you away into a story. Natalie Nautus is the perfect narrator, capturing each character's verve and frustration. Start listening! ”
— Riona • Books & Books @ The Studios of Key West
Bookseller recommendation
“The heroine of this ghoulish Southern gothic is street-smart and down-on-her-luck, with a heart of gold and sharp, crooked teeth, who finds herself drawn to the doors of a sentient, shape-shifting old mansion - and the bitter, battleworn boy trapped behind its gates. Starling House is an ode to found family, the monsters that save us and plague us, and the courage to exorcise the ghosts of a town with a long, dark history that doesn’t love you back. ”
— Megan • Underground Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Come for the gothic horror romance small-town-with-a-dark-past drama... Stay for the dreaming house, its grumpy selfless warden, and the terrified brave woman fed up with everybody's bullshit. An empathetic book about a few people and their desires. Also, monsters! ”
— Nathan • Third Street Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Alix E. Harrow my love, you will always be famous to meeeeeee! I don't know where to begin - this is the infamous house book, the beautiful gothic masterpiece about the haunted, living house. It's perfect. How can I talk about this book besides to weep and throw myself to my knees, rending my hair from my scalp? Starling House will creep beneath your skin like ivy, infecting you and puppeteering you into passing it onto others. That sounds scary, and it is. Enjoy!”
— Caitlyn • Bookmarks
Bookseller recommendation
“Starling House is many things - a portrait of a Kentucky mining town, the gothic story of a haunted house, a romance between two outcasts, and my favorite book this year. Read it for the allusions to Alice in Wonderland and other myths, for the sharp-tongued rebellious Kentuckians, or for the mentions of your favorite Kentucky soda or song. I don’t care why you decide to read it - but for the love of the Commonwealth, please do. ”
— Whitney • Bolin Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This pulled me in from the start and didn't let go. Starling House is a modern Gothic fairytale with the atmosphere of a classic haunted house story combined with social commentary on life in a small, Southern town plagued with economic inequality, racism, and ecological concerns. The characters are not always likeable, but you'll root for them nonetheless as they fight to define and defend home and family. ”
— Lily • Quail Ridge Books
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
“This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting—plus, characters willing to risk everything.” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)
Starling House is a gorgeous, modern gothic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen….
Opal is a lot of things—orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier—but above all, she's determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.
All she left behind were dark rumors—and her home. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.
I should be scared, but in the dream I don’t hesitate.
Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House—and make some extra cash for her brother's escape fund—she can't resist.
But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.
In my dream, I’m home.
And now she’ll have to fight.
Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.
A Book of the Month Club Pick
An October 2023 Indie Next Pick
A LibraryReads October 2023 Hall of Fame Pick
Apple, Best Books of October
EW.com, Fall Book Must Reads 2023
Washington Post, Noteworthy Books for October
Paste Magazine, The Must-Read Fantasy Books of Fall 2023
PopSugar Best New Fantasy Books of 2023
BookPage, Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023
Observer, Must-Read Books of Fall 2023
Polygon, 12 Best New SFF for the Fall
LitHub, October’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
Bookish, October’s Most-Anticipated Books
Gizmodo, October's Huge List of New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.
Alix E. Harrow is the Hugo Award winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, and various short fiction. Her Fractured Fables series, beginning with the novella A Spindle Splintered, has been praised for its refreshing twist on familiar fairy tales. A former academic and adjunct, Harrow lives in Virginia with her husband and their two semi-feral kids.
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Reviews
"Alix E. Harrow is an exceptional, undeniable talent, and Starling House, with its gentle reassurances of the homes we make and the love we deserve, is more than satisfying. It’s pure loveliness in book form." —Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
"Gorgeous, poignant, and honest—an unforgettable read." —Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter
"As knife-edged and sharp as its protagonist...A smart, spectacular contemporary Gothic that will leave its roots in you and linger in your dreams." —Kat Howard, Alex Award-winning author of An Unkindness of Magicians
Praise for Alix E. Harrow
"Devastatingly good, a sharp, delicate nested tale of worlds within worlds, stories within stories, and the realm-cracking power of words." —Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“One of the most unique works of fiction I’ve ever read.” —Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“I couldn’t put it down.” —Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
"One for the favorites shelf... Here is a book to make you happy when you gently close it. Here you will find wonder and questions and an unceasingly gorgeous love of words which compasses even the shape a letter makes against a page." —NPR on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
"A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love." —Kirkus Reviews on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
"A breathtaking book-brilliant and raw and dark and complicated. It's also, to be blunt, uncannily relevant." —Sarah Gailey, author of Magic for Liars, on The Once and Future Witches
"This book is an amazing bit of spellcraft and resistance so needed in our times, and a reminder that secret words and ways can never be truly and properly lost, as long as there are tongues to speak them and ears to listen." —P. Djèlí Clark, author of The Black God's Drums, on The Once and Future Witches
"This is a delightful, satisfying novel, a tale of women's battle for equality, of fairy tales twisted into wonderfully witchy spells, of magics both large and small, and history re-imagined. All of it is told in Alix Harrow's exquisite language and with her vivid characterizations-a great pleasure to read." —Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches, on The Once and Future Witches
"A brilliant dazzle of a book. This story of sisters and witches, memory and power cracked open my heart and set down roots there. I devoured it in enormous gulps, and utterly loved it." —Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians, on The Once and Future Witches
"A love letter to folklore and the rebellious women of history." —Publishers Weekly, on The Once and Future Witches
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