Thank you to Net Galley, the publisher, and the author for an Advanced Reading Copy of this book, A House with Good Bones by T. kingfisher was an absolute delight!
Samantha, a postdoc archaeoentomologist has her dig shut down for awhile, so she decides to return to her childhood home for an extended visit with her mom. When she gets there, the house doesn't look like it has for the past 20 years, it resembles how it was back when her Grandmother lived there. Sam's mom seems to be "off" as well, having lost a significant amount of weight, acting anxious and as if someone is watching her. Sam wonders if it is her mom grieving the loss of Gran Mae but delayed, early signs of dementia, or is it something else?
Samantha was hilarious, I really enjoyed her character. Since she works with bugs we get to hear all about them which was interesting. I appreciated that she was fat and fine with it I was impressed how medical fat phobia was casually thrown in there but handled wonderfully. There were parts of this book that made me laugh and parts that made me cringe due to the creepy things going on. The side characters were all so engaging, I liked hearing about all of the quirky people in the neighborhood. I loved how Edith used her house as as her planner and had post its everywhere, I Mr Pressley was so vivid of a character that I knew exactly who he would be in real life, Phil was fun, I loved Gail, and I even loved the vultures!
I enjoyed the symbolism and all that this book had to offer. Pick this up if you want to read a creepy tale that is full of weird and charm, that also will keep you laughing. I loved it!

T Kingfisher was a commonly back burnered author for me. They kept the tension really taught throughout the book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A House with Good Bones is a haunting southern Gothic book. Sam receives a phone call from her brother claiming that their mom seems off. Sam ends up in North Carolina and is excited for this rare extended visit with her mom since she envisions the two of them on the couch drinking wine and watching murder mystery shows to guess the who done it before the characters do. But, when she steps into the home, things are different. Everything feels sterile instead of fun and messy in the home. Her mom is now easily startled and is constantly looking over her shoulder. Sam ends up discovering a jar of teeth under some rose bushes as well as vultures circling above the garden. Sam decides to figure out what is going on in this home and what has her mom so scared.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor for an advanced copy.

I first discovered T. Kingfisher in 2022 when I read Nettle and Bone as well as what Moves the Dead. With reading those two books, I became a fan of T. Kingfisher's books. Right now, I got to say I like A House with Good Bones the most.

I struggled getting into the story, but it did not take that long that I found myself engrossed.

T. Kingfisher does well transporting you into the story and building up the mystery of what is going on and how everything will come to light.

I really would not call this a horror story, but more focused on the paranormal. Maybe it is horror for the characters and other readers, but when I think of horror, I think of something that scares you or makes you creeped out. I did not experience any of it and it could be because I cannot conjure images most of the time in my mind and when I do, it is so faint.

Anyway, back to the review.

This book does have a slow build, which is something I am noticing I like in mysteries, which if you have followed my reviews on mystery and thrillers, I often say that I am usually disappointed in them as well as them falling flat. When thrillers/ mysteries have twists, I find that they are usually predictable to me and that how the twists are executed can make or break the book. The twist is really obvious from the start, but T. Kingfisher does a great job executing it and making the story enjoyable and engaging.

T. Kingfisher has done it for me again!
These short novels over the past year have scratched a major creative itch, with each one even more original and compelling as the last.
This new addition is easily my favourite of them all. It’s witty, intelligent, and eventually, downright scary. What Moves the Dead was creepy, but never crossed the line that made me shiver. This one, did that.
Thank you for the nightmares!

I enjoyed this book overall but I thought the ending felt quite rushed. I was also a little disappointed that the grandmother's backstory was relatively vague. This story had a lot of potential but it fell a little flat for me.

I don't think I've read anything by T. Kingfisher that I haven't absolutely loved, and this is no exception. Kingfisher is just so exceptional at setting the scene - I can really feel whatever emotion she's aiming for, and it's so immersive. This is something that's sometimes lacking with similar authors, and it's always such a delight to find. It's hard to make horror appealing to everyone -- if it isn't scary or unsettling enough, big horror fans might feel ignored, but if it's too horror-y it won't be something mass audiences will like. I think this toes the line well - some of this definitely felt a bit expected, but not so much that it made the book any less interesting or worth reading.

Absolutely loved this! For my first T. Kingfisher, this book was perfect. The humor and knowledge that was put into this book alone made it exciting to read and instantly made me think, I need more from this author!!!! The pacing allowed for the ever growing sense of unsettling, which contributed to the overall menacing tone that just kept me coming back for more!

This is a story about what makes a home…. And there are vultures!

I deeply loved this book. T. Kingfisher is an auto buy author for me, so I’m not shocked that it landed for me, but it really was so, so good! The authors way of blending the whimsical with the horrifying thrills and alarms me in equal measures- I’ll never stop looking for books that can do this. This is also a book about love, and family & the capacity to be better than those who’ve come before you.

All the stars! Thank you so much @netgalley & @tornightfire for the eArc!

T. Kingfisher is an author that I had been hearing a lot about lately. I was excited when I was approved for a netgalley copy of her latest book. Many of my reader friends have said that this is a light horror or cozy horror (is that even a thing?). I think what I’m realizing is that I’m much more of a medium to intense kind of horror girly.

I appreciate a gothic horror situation which this book definitely gave me. I always like when a house feels like a character of its own. I don’t even mind a slow suspenseful buildup. This book had both. It also had some fun humor mixed in. However, I feel like the ending was so anticlimactic that it didn’t allow me to fully move this book from the “liked” to “loved” category. There were definite elements that I liked but I need it to either get a bit darker or I needed more twists and turns. When there is a lot of build up without much payoff it just leaves me feeling unsatisfied. I’m still interested in checking out Kingfisher’s older works to see if my issues are just with this book.

A House With Good Bones was a very very strange read and unfortunately not my kind of strange. It was a short book but I felt like it went on forever. I wanted to like the main character and her buggish ways but she ultimately fell flat for me as did the other characters. There was lots of bugs... and vultures... and roses and just very bizarre things going on that never truly felt like terror to me. If you're into weird plots and extremely weird endings then A House With Good Bones is definitely a read for you!

5⭐️

<b> There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house. As omens go, it doesn’t get much more obvious than that.</b>

Sam is an archeological entomologist who returns to her mother’s house when her project is put on hold. The house was originally owned by Sam’s grandmother, but Sam, her brother, and their mother moved in with Grand Mae when Sam’s father died. When Sam returns to the house, she notices that her mother has lost a lot of weight, and her usual charismatic personality has dampened. Her mother repainted the once vibrantly colored walls to dull, boring shades of beige, and returned Grand Mae’s racist painting to the wall. Sam becomes concerned about her mother’s wellbeing, and begins having strange sleep paralysis dreams and noticed weird occurrences at the house. Vultures also watch the house, as if they know something sinister is hiding just below the surface.

T. Kingfisher does not disappoint. I love the life that she is able to breathe into her characters so that they feel more like friends than just characters in a story. She masterfully weaves humor and wit into an unsettling tale. Also, as a fellow lover of bugs, I really appreciated the little details and latin names for the species, and never in my life would I have been convinced that a vulture could be adorable, but now I want my own Hermes. Another excellent read!

<b>I wanted this, very much, to not be happening. But that’s life for you. Hate it, complain about it, it’s still happening.</b>

A humorous gothic horror that did the impossible…making me rooting for vultures. I loved this books!

This was a decent light book. Heft-wise it reminded me a lot of the R. L. Stine books I grew up reading, but heavier on the romance movie side plot and with some magic thrown in. It didnt really match my expectations based on the summary - it very much was not scary - but it is good for what it is.

I'm always on the hunt for a "new to me" author that will capture my interest and loyalty quickly. T Kingfisher's reviews show that she has a HUGE dedicated crowd of fans who all give her books 5+ stars, so I figured I'd try one of her books. Well, her fan club has now increased by one. The synopsis pulled me in but the charcaters and the story kept me turning the pages long after my "one more chapter" became a race to see what would happen in the next chapter. Samantha Montgomery is one of those characters that you remember....like Kinsey Millhone with a twist. A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES is not part of a series....but it should be.

T. Kingfisher has proven once again why she’s one of my favorite authors! I had actually received an ARC of this book and somehow forgotten about it. I was THRILLED when I found this on my Kindle and flew through it in two sittings (and if I hadn’t started it after midnight, I would have finished in one sitting).

Each page is infused with Kingfisher’s trademark wit, but the book also manages to feel creepy. This is something that most authors just can’t do, but Kingfisher knocks it out of the park every single time! I was literally howling at how funny she was in this book, lol, but then I’d feel that dread in my stomach. So good!

I loved it that Sam was basically a bug archeologist! It was also cool that her neighbor kept vultures. These are the types of ‘odd’ details that always make Kingfisher’s books an excellent read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

{3.5 stars}

"Vultures are extremely sensitive to the dead. Particularly when the dead are doing things they shouldn't be."

-------------------

Sam is an entomologist that works on archeology digs. When her project is suddenly halted, she's forced to move back into her family home since her apartment has already been sublet. When she gets there, she sees that her mother has strangely re-decorated the house to restore her mother's decor. Sam begins to wonder why her grandmother, who was not the nicest, is suddenly looming so large in their lives. As strange occurrences continue to happen and childhood memories begin to loom large, Sam has to figure out just what is going on before it overwhelms them all.

The pacing on this one was a little slow for me. I wasn't sure I cared that much for Sam throughout which kept me a little distanced from the plot. The last quarter was great though, once you got to the action, it was unique, creepy and interesting. I will never look at lady bugs or roses the same again.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

Well. That was deeply disturbing. And darkly funny. And so good. Really, exactly what you expect from a T. Kingfisher book! It's a bit of Southern Gothic with a bit of suburban horror, as apparently normal family weirdness (admittedly, my idea of normal may be just as messed up as the protagonist's) is elevated to extremely WTF proportions. The first few chapters are slightly unsettling but nothing major, but as the book goes on, the dread mounts higher until you really can't put it down because you need to get to the other side. And it's so worth it.

My thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

(4.5 out of 5 stars)

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher is a Southern Gothic horror novel with paranormal elements. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at seven hours and is narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal. We follow our main character with a first-person point-of-view.

Sam Montgomery is spending some time at her mother's house while on a sabbatical from her latest archeological dig. The house seems to be haunted by her racist and abusive grandmother, not to mention there are vultures surrounding the property at all times.

Kingfisher weaves those sorts of heavy topics into the story along with her usual snark and sense of humor. The main character is a scientist, so she keeps trying to come up with logical explanations for all of the creepy things happening around her. She is an entomologist, so please note that there are many descriptions of bugs in here.

Sam is also an unapologetic fat woman, which is always lovely to see. There are casual mentions about how she deals with fatphobia in the medical industry that all rang true for me. I felt very seen in Sam, as I am also a fat woman and an "elder Millennial."

There's a lot in here about attempting to break from toxic traits that have been passed down through generations, and how to heal from the resulting generational trauma.

CW: racism, fatphobia, verbal and emotional abuse, body horror, insects

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher is a delightful book that belongs on every library shelf! I felt so lucky to get a copy for myself! I have shared on my goodreads, bookstagram, and booktok!

Coming home - Sam’s archeology dig is put on hold so she goes to her childhood home, that used to belong to her Grandmother, to pass the time.
Insects - Sam is an archeologist specializing in insects, so she is not really bothered by creepy things.
Things are weird - When she arrives at the house, her mom is acting differently, plus Sam is noticing weird pictures and items in the house.
Vultures - Not to mention that there are vultures everywhere.

T Kingfisher was on my list of authors I wanted to try and I am glad I had the opportunity to both read and listen to this book from the publisher. Despite what I mentioned about the vultures, this book actually made me like them a lot more than I thought. The book is definitely a horror story, but it is a very fast read and I will definitely be picking up more by this author.