Starling House
By (Author) Alix E Harrow
Thorndike Press
Thorndike Press
1st November 2023
Large Print Edition
United States
General
Fiction
Fantasy
Hardback
Width 145mm, Height 216mm
A gorgeously modern gothic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY--welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.
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 a 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:
1) a surprising amount of unexplained bad luck and natural disasters
2) the only known sightings of E. (Eleanor) Starling, a reclusive nineteenth-century author whose only published book, The Underland, was considered almost as shocking as the author's later mysterious disappearance.
But Starling left behind one other thing: the imposing house that bears her name. 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 knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but still can't resist a chance to see inside Starling House. So when an unexpected opportunityunexpected opportunity arises, she jumps at it. Besides, it means double the money to put towards her brother's escape fund.
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.
"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. Djl 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
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