As a longtime lover of Poe's classic "Fall of the House of Usher," I had high hopes that "What Moves the Dead" would simultaneously feel familiar and yet unique as a fresh retelling of Poe's original story. Thankfully, I loved every page.

In this novella, T. Kingfisher manages to preserve the most powerful elements of Poe's gothic horror while telling what truly felt like a new, intriguing story. Her telling of the Usher house went deeper, perhaps darker, and built incredible suspense that Poe's short story does not have simply due to its length.

Kingfisher's prose is poetic, hauntingly descriptive, and still easy-enough-to-read for the everyday reader. It's not often that I find myself satisfied with the character development in a novella (particularly in the horror genre where suspense takes center stage), but I loved Easton the protagonist and the representation they brought to the story as well as the rest of the character ensemble. It took me a few pages to adapt to the various new sets of pronouns introduced in this work (ka/kan, va/van), but I appreciated the newness they brought to the story and the challenge they presented. Trust me--you can do it. You will still be able to read and fully appreciate this story with unfamiliar pronouns.

If you're a fan of Poe, gothic horror, and retellings of classics, you will devour this title. Further, if you're among the few (and I know you're out there!) devout lovers of Poe that simply wish "Fall of the House of Usher" was longer--there isn't a story out there more perfect for you. It was unnerving reading this at night, and I'm still thinking about it. With this being my first T. Kingfisher read, I can't wait to dive into more of her work.

*Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for my advanced review copy of this title*

This one had a bit of everything scary! The war, deadly fungi, ghostly animals, and the House of Usher, already half fallen.

When Alex Easton, now retired from the soldier’s life, receives a letter from his friend, Roderick that tells him he is certain his sister, Madeline Usher, is dying of some unknown cause. Roderick himself sounds odd.

Alex arrives to find the house in shambles. Falling down around them and cold as ice. There is a doctor in residence trying to find out what is wrong with Madeline besides her catalepsy.

To Alex, both of his friends look like wraiths. Thin and pale to the point of looking ghostly. While out walking Alex meets Ms. Potter, who is illustrating and writing about fungi. The deadly ones, the edible ones, and the ones that are just interesting. She is also suspicious of the black lake full of strange algae that glow at night. The same lake that Alex finds Madeline going to each night.

Her sleepwalking is getting worse. And she seems to be confused about words, as well as her shedding. Yes, I said shedding.

The animals are also a mystery. The hares here seem to be off. The whole place seems off. But whatever you are thinking I can almost guarantee you that the ending is not what you thought!

Always a thrilling read with Kingfisher.

NetGalley/ July 12th, 2022 by Tor Nightfire

Wow. I am completely obsessed with this reimagining of the Fall of the House of Usher. It was incredibly weird and creepy and I’m all for it.

I really loved that Kingfisher took this original story and made it her own. It felt like an extension of the story rather than a simple retelling.

I like fungi a lot so it’s safe to say I love the way fungi was plays into this story. There were so many strange elements which really worked such as fascinating characters (Beatrix Potter’s aunt plays a cameo), hares and mycology.

A brilliant little novella. I will never look at fungi the same way again.

Thank you so much to Tor Nightfire for providing me with a free copy of this book to read and review in advance.

Thank you to Macmillan/Tor for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I came into this book having not read the Fall of the House of Usher, but I could tell that the vibes of the original story carried through. This book was vivid, eerie, and atmospheric, and I found it to be perfectly haunting. I absolutely loved it and will definitely be eyeballing any strange fungi I see in the coming weeks extra hard.

A very creepy and well-written adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher with a unique and memorable main character.

After Alex Easton receives a letter implying that their friend, Madeline Usher, is likely dying, they rush to the House of Usher. Once there, Alex realizes something strange is afoot. Madeline is ghostly pale, walking at night, and talking in the strangest way. Roderick, her brother, is equally unnerving, consumed by nerves and seeming guilt. Alex teams up with an American doctor and a local mycologist to uncover what is truly happening in the House of Usher before it is too late.

T. Kingfisher has such a talent for retellings, especially those with a bite of folklore, and WHAT MOVES THE DEAD is an excellent example of this. The general elements of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" are all there: a creepy house, creepier people inside it, and a strong sense of foreboding. Kingfisher leans in to each purposefully uncomfortable element and expands. Through the eyes of retired solider Alex Easton, we see a house and a family on the brink of collapse (literally and figuratively). Alex is a loyal, straight forward person, self-described as lacking a significant awareness of the supernatural, but the more unusual things they see and experience, the more obvious it is that something is very, very wrong. Even once we get a firmer understanding of what exactly is happening in the Usher house, the sense unease remains strong.

The building tension throughout this short novel is powerful and perfectly horrific. This is absolutely the kind of book in which you may start reading one quiet night and find yourself unable to look away until the last page is turned. Fans of Poe and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's MEXCIAN GOTHIC will devour this spine-chilling take on a beloved short story.

Look, a new T. Kingfisher book! She is an automatic pre-order author for me, so I've had my name on the list at my Friendly Neighborhood Bookseller for months and months. This short novel is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," and is mostly true to the facts and spirit of the story, just adding details to make it even more disturbing. I know, "The Fall of the House of Usher" was already plenty disturbing enough, and didn't really need T. Kingfisher to come along and add the uncanny mushrooms, the uncanny hare, and the not at all uncanny fictionalized aunt of Beatrix Potter to make it creepier, but here we are, and it's probably some sort of literary crime to say this is actually better than Poe's version, but here we also are. I recommend that you rent a vacation cottage somewhere especially damp, and bring this book and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic, and plenty of mushrooms for your suppers. I feel confident in guaranteeing you a memorable time.

4.00 stars
-
TW; Body Horror, Animal Cruelty, Gore, Animal Death, Death, Suicide, Fire/Fire Injury
-
T.Kingfisher does it once again, this modern retelling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" exceeded all expectations that I had. What started off as a pretty simple retelling turned into something I didn't expect at all, I love how in this adaptation we see Madeleine as a full-forced detailed character, her presence adds a lot more to the story than in the original. Having a non-binary narrator really enhanced the novel as a whole, and by doing so, really brought in the element of a modern horror story.

When Alex Easton a retired soldier receives word that their childhood friend Madeline is dying, and her brother Roderick has been consumed by the madness, they race back to the Usher house in Ruritania. This entire book gave me creepy vibes, from the fungal growth to the possessed animals who move in mysterious ways. Every page of this book kept me on my toes as I didn't know what to expect. The scenes that took place at night were the ones to creep me out the most, the eerie description of the way that she moved and the voice that came out of her mouth was spine-chilling. Alex must team up with an American doctor and British mycologist to get to the bottom of what happened in the house before it becomes too late and consumes them all.

This short novella makes for a good one-sitting read, it makes the perfect paranormal/mystery/fantasy/horror. So if you're into any of those, I highly recommend you check this one out!
-
I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

T. Kingfisher does it again! What Moves the Dead is a superb retelling of the classic Poe story, The Fall of the House of Usher. Written in the style of the late 1800s, yet while reading it comes across as fresh as today. The novel successfully evokes the creepy surroundings of the Usher ancestral home, while author crafts a sense of mounting dread as the novel goes on, making it difficult to put down. An absolutely fascinating read.

My thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

#IndigoEmployee
OH MY G O D


Gothic/Fantasy Horror retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher?

SIGN ME UP.

The atmosphere was a constant edge of your seat swirl of tension and anticipation as you try to figure out just what ails the house of Usher. The characters? *Chef's kiss* Feisty, intelligent, well rounded, and as prone to fixing mistakes as they are making them. I adored the way Alex's gender identity was explained in a way that made if very clear, but also was nuanced, didn't baby the reader, and left no room for misinterpretation.

I loved the setting, I loved the story, I loved the characters and more than a n y t h i n g I would have loved for this to be several hundred pages longer.

There's no one quite like Poe. Haunted as he was in life, it's no surprise he was so adept at tapping directly into fears in his work, no matter how dark and unusual they were. From fear of the elderly to tales of revenge to his tried-and-true staple of mourning the loss of a beautiful woman cut down in her prime, he was a master of dread and I read him so voraciously as a child it's almost a wonder I didn't consider myself a genre fan earlier in life. I was a Gothic fan before I was anything, but with that comes the knowledge that for all his talent, Poe could also tend toward the denser side, waxing poetic about things that seem unrelated to the core story for so long it's easy to forget just what he started on. With that in mind, it's always a delight to see his work given new life by new voices. T. Kingfisher may not be new on the scene, but the characters of What Moves the Dead are a breath of fresh air.

Alex Easton is a sworn soldier coming to visit their friends the Ushers following a letter from Madeline Usher indicating her own failing health. They begin the story self-assured and battle-worn but grounded in the knowledge that they are not a very fancifully imaginative person. Upon arrival at the Ushers' estate, Easton is met almost immediately with challenges to their ideas, from the house's deeply unsettled atmosphere to the building feeling that they may not truly know their friends near as well as they first thought. Both Ushers have a look of death about them, and the manor enveloping them is decaying even as it suffocates them.

I feel still somewhat new to Kingfisher's work, and yet found myself anticipating What Moves the Dead more than nearly any other book releasing this year. Getting the opportunity in 2020 to review The Hollow Places introduced me to an author who knew how to craft dread so sinister it snuck up and wrapped itself around you before you ever got the chance to know it was there. So it is with What Moves the Dead. Even knowing it is based around one of Poe's most unsettled locales, Kingfisher's ability to turn the stomach with a simple turn of phrase adds a whole other level of disturbance. Reading What Moves is an exercise in the kind of fear that starts slow only to stick in your craw and settle into your bones with the same dedication as the Usher manor's poisoned atmosphere. You can't place it, exactly, but you can't quite shake it either, and what you're left with is the discomfiting sense on which myths are built and stormy nights are passed.

When adapting a well-known and well-beloved text into something new, it is important to make one's unique impression on the story in order for it to stand on its own ground alongside its source, a sometimes-daunting task not easily managed. Yet in Kingfisher's hands "Usher" becomes a newly enriched text full of fascinating characters, some of the likes of which it strikes me as beyond Poe's scope to have even considered casting. Easton's delicate balance of unsettled and self-assured is engaging to read - there's nothing quite like newfound fear in someone discovering a version of the world they had never previously considered - and the way they are conceptualized is comfortingly novel. That is, Easton grew up in a land with a much more nuanced view of gender identity and personal identity than what we have, and the way it's handled is immediately clear enough that we understand why the people around them respond in such varied ways, bringing each of their pre-conceived ideas about sworn soldiers such as Easton to bear with the reality of Easton before them. Just enough time is spent on it to give each of the characters a unique sense of depth, but it isn't ever the sole focus. There are, after all, witch-hare legends and catalepsy to deal with.

Alongside Easton is the bold mycologist Miss Beatrix Potter, who unabashedly pursues her passion for fungus research with dreams of confronting the field of study with something so novel they have to take her seriously, gender be damned. She is the very definition of a strong support system for everyone who meets her, taking all things in stride with an air of confidence in her ability and steadfast belief in her work that Poe would never have thought to introduce - on the whole, for him, to be woman was to be doomed to death or already dead, there was no room for breaking down glass walls. She is also, pleasantly, somewhat wistfully dedicated to her paintings of the various fungi she encounters on the moors; no character of Kingfisher's is ever quite just one thing, and we as readers are all the more benefited for it.

My only complaint with What Moves the Dead is the same as Kingfisher's own in the Author's Note - much as she was left longing for more from Poe's "Usher", Moves goes by so fast it's almost as if it ended too soon. That is, it builds such a wonderfully entrancing cast and atmosphere around itself that I, quite frankly, entirely forgot it was a novella and never wanted it to end. Hares, with their disturbingly deep eyes and airs of dark quest-giving, were never firmly on my list of warm and cozy creatures, but Kingfisher's hares - gracing the exquisite cover of this Gothic journey into darkness - have landed themselves on my personal list of nightmare creatures from now to eternity.

I would like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to receive an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What Moves the Dead releases from Tor Nightfire on July 12, 2022.

I have been an avid Poe fan since I was a young teen--especially of The Raven and Fall of the House of Usher. To the point that in college I wrote multiple papers on Usher just because I wanted to argue the craziest and wildest of ideas about the story.

And here is an author who wrote a crazy story about Usher and made it into a novel! I'm a little jealous, honestly.

This has everything you could wish for. Creepy atmosphere, unhinged characters, off the wall plot twists that still make sense, and, of course, the story framework by Poe.

Kingfisher does an excellent job taking a timeless classic and weaving it into a fresh and unique take on the mysterious House of Usher and it's inhabitants. This story works so well and feels plausible in the context of the short story Poe wrote, and it's not too, too long to feel dragged out. It's the perfect length to expand on Poe's story.

For any fellow Poe fan or those who want a splash of horror and thriller, I recommend this with all the stars.

WOW! This was a fast-paced, addictive novel that pulled me ALL the way in, immediately. And, once I started reading this story, the desperate need for sleep is the only thing that made me put my Kindle down! The plot line was fresh, original and exciting and definitely kept the twists, turns and surprises coming. The characters were complex, completely polarizing and full of depth. And, not only was this a very well-written book overall, but the suspense builds at just the right pace as the mesmerizing story unfolds.

#WhatMovestheDead #NetGalley

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.

Retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher with Ruritanian soldiers who have their own gender regardless of how they were assigned at birth and a lot of fungus. Not a big Usher fan but it seemed to do what it set out to.

I really enjoyed this retelling of a Poe classic. It was unsettling in the best way and I have been telling so many people about it already in anticipation of it's release date at work. I highly recommend it and can't wait to sell it in person.

3.5 stars rounded up!

This read is outside of my normal wheelhouse, but I found it very enjoyable. As someone who is not at all into the horror genre, a co-worker actually pointed out to me that this is pulled from Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". It was still very approachable though, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on any references, which I loved.

In the first couple of chapters, I found it a bit difficult to get used to the writing style, but it feels like you can slowly sink into the writing and the characters and the next thing you know you're done the book. The further into the book you get, the more atmospheric and tense it feels.

I loved the cast of characters, with a particular fondness for Miss Potter.

Overall, a very enjoyable (and tense) read!

I just love the way T. Kingfisher tells a story! I also really enjoy the spins she puts on classic tales, and this latest is no exception. I must confess I have not read The Fall of the House of Usher, although I am familiar with the concept generally. That did not at all stop me from thoroughly enjoying this particular version of it though. It is creepy and gothic and atmospheric and there is an entire linguistic world built into it but I found both fabulous and fascinating. The short quick read but there's a lot going on and I'm definitely going back to read the original Poe tale now!

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for the ARC of this fun, spooky novella!

This is a retelling/reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" that really impressed me. I am always hesitant on reading retellings but this one was very well done. You can tell the author respects the original but adds their own twist to it, which is what I want from retellings. The original is very short (less than 30 pages and available to read for free) so I would highly recommend reading it before diving into this one.

While the original story is very bare bones and leaves the horror almost up to the reader's imagination, it leans more towards supernatural horror. This retelling takes a more "ecological" approach which is more my style for horror. I won't say too much just because I think it's best to go into this with very little hints of where it is going. There are some pretty gross scenes that have lodged themselves into my brain still, even having read it a month ago.

My only complaint was that the first half of the book moved a little slowly, while the last half really packed a punch. I think the first half could have been shortened by taking out of some of the backstory of the main character, I think it would have been just as impactful without that.

If you are looking for a vivid, ecologically driven retelling that captures the gothic aesthetic of the original Poe story, give What Moves the Dead a read on July 12th!

WOAH.
Honestly, I barely skimmed the synopsis and by the time I read this I had completely forgotten it. I mainly was interested in this very fascinating cover. So when I started this and Lt Alex Easton is walking through the woods with their horse, I *almost* looked up the synopsis again. I didn't and I was so glad about that. I had no idea what to expect and I loved every minute of this creeptastic re-telling (apparently, though I've never read it) of The Fall of the House of Usher (I know-BAD HORROR FAN).
I couldn't stop. I had to know what was going on with Maddy. And Roderick?! Same thing, or was he just having a meltdown because of his sister? Of course, Miss Potter was my favorite. (Along with Angus and Hob.) Every character was drawing me in in a specific way. Denton had me looking up medical terms and trying to guess what the actual result would be (bc, of COURSE they diagnosed Maddy with hysteria *eye roll*), Angus had me trying to guess what was up with the forest and the wildlife, Easton had me on edge they were going to get killed any second with all the poking around corners in the dark, Maddy and Roderick were apparently going mad and I had to follow their strange behavior wherever they went.
Plus, the language! I love language and this just had so much more going on with the dialogue, the narration, the history than your average book.
This was just so so so good I can't even begin to explain it. If you like horror, creepy, Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, unusual methods of death, I highly recommend.

This is a reimagining of the Fall of the House of Usher. If Kingfisher is writing a book, I'm reading. That's just my life now. I went directly from Nettle & Bone (so good!) to this. Was this my favorite of her books? No, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Whatever I read from her is so unique, and the fact that she can take a Poe story and make it her own is a testament to her writing skills. I love that she has a voice in her books, even though they are quite different from each other - you can usually see some kind of folklore element, but that's it. The things she must see in her mind - I'm not sure I envy that!