My first T. Kingfisher and DEFINITELY not my last! This book was half horror half humour in the vein of Grady Hendrix - I was never actually scared, but I DID laugh out loud.

Sam is such a funny main character and I really loved her relationship with her mom - I immediately believed that something was off with her mom, and NEEDED to know what.

The twists were wild and I loved it all!!

I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.

Thank you to Tor Nightlife and NetGalley Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Sam Montgomery is on a break between entomological digs, and decides to spend her break visiting her mom. Her mom inherited Gran Mae’s house, and instinctually, even 20 years later, Sam still calls it her grandmother’s house.
When she arrives, her mom doesn’t look well. She’s dropped a ton of weight, she’s anxiety ridden, and worse yet, she’s remodeled the house from her eccentric taste to exactly how Gran Mae had it. Sam, a scientist first and daughter second, needs answers. She needs to get to the bottom of this. ASAP.
T Kingfisher is a genius. This is my first read of their work and holy crap I couldn’t put it down. From the worldbuilding to the monumental dread you feel while reading, I almost fear a reading slump in the near future from how fantastic this was.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💀💀💀💀/5

Creepy. Just so creepy - and then add in vultures. Hoovering near the house.
Sam's dig gets canceled - her room has been sublet out already, so off to her mother's house she goes. Originally her grandmother's house, Sam moves back in for a few weeks. To find her mother changed everything. Painted the walls, pictures on the walls - just like it was Gran Mae was alive.
Her mom also seems off - weight lose, mumbling to herself.
And the vulture, posted at the mailbox.
Sam is determined to fix her mother.
Loved the imagery. The characters were great.
Great read!

This is another spooky home run for T. Kingfisher. It has all the hallmarks of a great Southern Gothic read--creepy family history, weird neighbors, and something not quite right both inside and outside of the house. I love the vultures in this, and the use of entomology as the entryway into seeing something is very off. The characters are excellent. The main character is a scientist, it’s like a perfect fusion of Lovecraft and Southern gothic, and it’s just the right ratio of spooky to science. I love that the signature pet animal in this novel is a vulture. The whole thing with the photo is so deliciously creepy. And I love that as always, trips to a coffee shop are vital to the character’s sanity. The way the sense of foreboding increases steadily until everything goes off the rails is so well done.

It also, like all of her horror, seems like the characters do what real people faced with utter weirdness would actually do, which I always find refreshing.

Can T. Kingfisher please just write ALL the horror stories? Please?

This books is pleasantly terrifying. I'm not much of a horror reader, but I love Kingfisher's more fantasy leaning books, and this one somehow spoke to me. The only thing I was the tiniest bit disappointed in was the speed of the end. The majority of the book is ramping up, slowly adding scary detail after scary detail, until the end when, quite honestly, we slip sideways into crazy town. It totally works, but it is very much a 'you have hit the top of the roller coaster and it's just flailing wildly at high speed from here.' It resulted in my staying up just a smidgen past my bedtime, since there were only 40 pages or so to go, and it got VERY exciting. Sam is a wonderful main character and I very much enjoyed the entomology information scattered throughout. I learned things about ladybugs! And had to image search a particular kind of larva, and it was just as creepy looking as she said.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an digital ARC for review.

Turns out I can't resist a modern southern gothic/haunted house story. They are the ARC that draw me in when I usually read three chapters and abandon a book.

Great humor and only a slight creep factor, it isn't a keep the light on shiverer, but more if a light fantasy horror. (Though I suppose it depends on how you feel about ladybugs.) Loved the narrative voice (a plus size entomologist with a healthy side of skepticism) and humor throughout.

This was my first T. Kingfisher and I'm looking forward to reading more

Creepy and sarcastic in the best possible ways. I have been on a Kingfisher kick lately and this has to be the one so far! I can't think of single thing that would have made this better!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Well, my first T. Kingfisher book read and that was a doozy. As I always do with any book, I never read the synopsis besides the first couple of lines before starting a book. So I was essentially going into this book blind and had no idea what to expect. This book is classified as in the horror genre and while I wasn't scared, I was grossed out a couple of times throughout the book, particularly at the end.

Sam has moved back into her deceased grandmother's house with her Mom while waiting for her job to start up again. But her Mom seems a lot different now, as her brother Brad has pointed out to her, their Mom doesn't seem like herself. She's changed the paint colors in the house, put up different pictures, and constantly acts scared of something in the house. Changing the paint and pictures in the house wouldn't be so odd, except her Mom swears that her Mother is still in the house. Problem is, her Mom passed away years ago.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book as I've never read anything by the author before but I really enjoyed the writing style. The quips, sarcasm, and dry humor intermixed had me cracking up throughout the book and was my main enjoyment from this book. Then as I got towards the end, things started to get very, very strange. I'm not sure if that's typical of the authors writing or just this book but it was a little much for me. I do enjoy the horror genre but I almost want to say this was comedic horror which I'm fine with, the story just really threw me off at the end.

I definitely plan on reading other works by this author though, the writing style alone kept me intrigued throughout the story and I really enjoyed it.

This was such a unique and fun spin on a haunted house story. I loved Sam and her relationship with her mom. I appreciated her scientific mind trying to make sense of everything. I laughed a lot at the dialogue as well. It was a quick read and an interesting spin on gothic tale.

I’ve been on a T. Kingfisher kick lately so I was super excited to read this book - and it didn’t disappoint! I loved the slow build-up of creepiness/tension and I never wanted to put this book down. The ending was very fast-paced and satisfying overall.

Kingfisher is also just super weird (which I love) and I always end up feeling very connected to her weird interests by the end of the book. This time it was vultures, which I’ve now learned to respect and appreciate!

3.5 stars

Who says you can never go home again?

Sam Montgomery's brother called to tell her that something was off with their mother, Edith. So, Sam goes home. She is looking forward to spending time with her mother while enjoying a break from her job as an archaeoentomologist (Bugs are her thing).

Sam instantly notices that her mother is not quite herself. Her mother is guarded and anxious. She is no longer the carefree mother she knew. Soon other things begin to seem different in the house as well. Her mother has repainted the walls. They were once painted vibrant colors that gave the house life and a cool vibe, but her mother has since painted the walls the colors her Gran Mae liked while she lived there.

Then there are the ladybugs and the rose petals. By themselves they do not seem strange but trust me, they are very, very strange in this book. Plus, when vulture watch your house and only your house, be afraid because that is just creepy. How many times a day can the hairs stand up on the back of your neck? How many strange occurrences can you endure before you begin asking questions or get the heck out of there?

This was a creepy and gothic feeling book. I would have been out of there lickety-split. But not Sam or her mother. As the tension mounts and things get creepier by the second, the characters find themselves in danger.

I enjoyed how T. Kingfisher set the stage. It was both atmospheric and gothic. The characters were interesting and there was more to several of them than meets the eye. The creep vibe in this book was strong as was the writing. It had the right amount of tension and what-did-I-just-read moments. I didn't feel that this book was scary but enjoyed how creepy it was. It's strange, a little out there, yet entertaining and tense.

Fans of T. Kingfisher will enjoy this one.

“The roses say to say your prayers”

Sam visits her mother in North Carolina after her brother expresses concern over her wellbeing. She’s excited to spend some time with her to relax and take some time off work. On Sam’s arrival, things end up not being as expected. The home’s decor has changed back into what her grandmother used to have when she was alive. Her mother is on edge and seems scared as if someone is watching. To make matters worse, the neighbors’ vultures are watching the home as if they know something. The neighbor actually does know something, but can’t tell Sam what’s going on for some reason.


On top of the weird behavior her mother is exhibiting, Sam begins hearing voices in her head and experiences sleep paralysis for the first time ever. She even finds a jar of buried teeth in the garden. Sam realizes something weird is seriously going on and can no longer deny it.


T. Kingfisher maintains her signature humor and unique plots in A House With Good Bones. There’s the perfect blend of fantasy and horror that balance each other out. The atmosphere is creepy and almost suffocating, with a sense of unease throughout the story. The writing is fast paced and very easy to read.


The characters are lovable and Sam was very quirky. The mother daughter dynamic was done very well and I enjoyed that they shared everything with each other. As always, there is a lovable animal companion – Hermes the Vulture. The side characters are also charming in their own ways with witty banter.


Overall, this makes for an enjoyable read and I recommend it for any fans of Kingfisher! Make sure to be on the look out for this one on March 28, 2023. I’m already looking forward to her next novel. Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Entomophobes beware: this book will give you the heebie-jeebies. Yes, I chose that word with deliberate care: you will feel dread, you will feel disgust, but mostly you will have a feeling that seems, on the surface, to be slightly absurd and embarrassing but that will remain an indelible, whole-body revulsion nonetheless. Is it a bit silly to be afraid of—just say, for random example—ladybugs? Probably! Will feel the irrepressible urge to brush a horde of imagined little crawlers off you? Also probably! I certainly did. I have a phobia of insects, and T. Kingfisher’s newest horror novel A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher slowly but relentlessly played on that fear—much to my delight. Regularly reading horror can leave you numb to horror. Kingfisher doesn’t let that happen.

Full review to be posted to Ginger Nuts of Horror before publication date.

Well, this was not what I expected. The last maybe quarter of this book is where everything goes nuts and in a bunch of different directions. I loved it. It's a slow burn, at first. I feel like it really got started about halfway through, but I really didn't mind the lead up. It made the end that much more unexpected and crazy. It was a pretty quick read, but I can't tell if it was because it wasn't super long or because I couldn't put it down!

When Sam goes home to stay with her mother for a few weeks, things are... odd. The house has been restored to look exactly like it did when her abusive grandmother owned it, and her mom is acting strangely – behaving in ways that would have pleased the old woman, had she not died twenty years ago. She’s acting almost like she thinks she’s being watched. And she is, in a way – a flock of vultures are constantly perched nearby, staring at the house. And the more Sam digs into the reasons behind her mother’s strange behavior and the weird things happening at her house, the more unsettled she gets – until she finally unearths a truly dangerous secret.

I’ve read several books by T Kingfisher, and I have to say she’s as delightful a writer as ever, even when her books are super creepy. The characters are fantastic - Sam is a great main character, and her engaging and witty first-person narration is fun to read. The book is pretty fast-paced and I had a hard time putting it down.

Representation: fat main character

CW: fatphobia, abusive parenting, gore

Sam Montgomery never thought she would find herself back in her Grandmothers house, but after her most recent dig was postponed and a worrying call from her brother, she see's it as the perfect time to check in on her mum, and as soon as she see's her, she know's something is wrong. Sam's mum has lost weight and seems overly protective and jumpy, and add that to the decorative changes to the house and Sam is definitely worried. The more time Sam spends in the house, the more she realises there is something wrong, Vultures seem to circle it and finding a jar of teeth buried in the back garden certainly doesn't seem normal. To find out what's going on, Sam will have to go digging into her families past, learning their secrets. But with secrets come's danger, and these are secrets that are certainly better left buried.

I loved this book, so bloody much, and that was large in part to Sam, our MC. She's a character I couldn't help but bond with pretty much instantly. Her wit, scientific mind and hopelessness when it comes to the opposite sex make for a character that is easy to empathise with, and I loved all the little bits of introspection we got, whether these were to do with her uncovering the mystery of the house, or little insights we get from her about bugs thanks to her being an archaeoentomologist, someone who studies ancient bugs. She is described as fat, but has such a healthy relationship with her body, as well as her family... well most of them anyway, and I loved all of her interactions with her mother, as well as the other characters we meet along the way.

Kingfisher keeps our side cast tight knit, but that benefits us because we get a good insight into all of the characters, and they all play a part in the story some way. From Sam's mum who has gone from being vibrant to a shell of the woman she was before, to Gail, the woman Sam's Grandma used to religiously call a witch, Mr Presley the nosy, curtain twitching neighbour who has an unhealthy relationship with the government and Sam, Mr Presley's grandson and Sam's mum's gardener/handyman. They all add to the tension, drama and sometimes the hilarity of the story, and were all brilliantly brought to life.

If I had to use one word to describe this book it would be creepy, and that was a word that Leah and I threw around our discussion because it wasn't outright horror, there were no jumpy scary scenes, and even the ones filled with tension, and there were plenty, were almost watered down thanks to Kingfisher throwing in her standard dark, witty and sarcastic humour. I can't tell you how many times this book made me chuckle, even at the peak creepy moments, and this meant that I enjoyed it more because I never felt overly scared at any point. The story builds slowly, there is a lot of introspection and Sam trying to work out what the hell is happening, but you know that something is going to happen, you just don't know when, and when it does the story takes off at a break neck pace and I was glued to the pages.

What starts off as a haunted house story, transforms into sometime much much creepier, and it's only through Sam's delving into her family's past that we start to see the pieces come together. Leah and I both had a few theories as to where the story was going and we were so close, but Kingfisher managed to throw a few twists in there to keep us on our toes. We spend a lot of time building up to the big reveal, but Kingfishers writing style brings a heightened level of tension to the story that keeps you in it's grips, so between that at the random bug and vulture facts that were thrown in ( I love a story where I learn something) this was a story I seriously struggled to put down.

Leah described this as a cosy horror and she really nails it on the head (has she created a new sub-genre, who knows?), it's creepy without being overly scary, humorous even at the darkest times and filled with brilliantly written characters. I already loved Kingfishers writing, but after loving this so much I will definitely be checking out her horror backlog as well as all the fantasy's I already have on my TBR.

Kingfisher has such skill with crafting the slowly creeping in horrors that A House With Good Bones. Kingfisher's style is more spooky unsettling and I like it. A lot. There's slow spiraling mystery. Believable and relatable situations. Just GOOD writing.

CONTENT WARNING: fatphobia, blood, gore

Once again, I had a wonderful buddy read with Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog. Both of us are a little bit on the scaredy cat side of things when it comes to horror, but Kingfisher’s books seem to fall more on the side of what I’d call … cozy horror? If that’s even a thing, and if it isn’t, it is now. Let me get into why I call it that.

I’m certainly no connoisseur of horror books, but I have read a few Kingfisher novels, and really enjoyed each of them. Just like in her other books, she incorporates a wonderful mix of dry, witty, sarcastic humor and just the right amount of creepy tension to make this the kind of book that we couldn’t put down. In fact, we found ourselves rushing through the discussions so that we could get back to reading to find out what happens next.

I absolutely loved the main character, Sam. She’s fat. She’s smart and nerdy. She’s in her early 30s. She’s hilarious. And her internal banter was the kind of internal banter that I find myself engaging in. As an archaeoentomologist, she’s got a doctorate and works on archaeological digs, examining bugs to learn more about how people of the past lived. But it also gives her an almost encyclopedic knowledge of insects, and she gets excited about them. I love a nerdy character, and Kingfisher wrote a fantastic fat character. Despite growing up with plenty of fatphobic comments, she has a healthy relationship with her body, and I absolutely loved everything about Sam. Part of what I especially enjoyed was the way that she spent so much of the book trying to fit what was happening into the paradigm of scientific and logical thinking, even when there wasn’t necessarily a logical or scientific explanation possible.

The relationships in the story were wonderful. Sam and her mother, her brother, and the other people in the neighborhood were all done beautifully. There were some relationships that were healthy and supportive, others that were unhealthy and dysfunctional, but they all felt incredibly realistic. Every character who was introduced was well-developed and nearly all of them played an important role in the story, and I enjoyed getting to know each of their different quirks. I have to admit that I adored Phil and was team Phil all the way.

As for the horror, instead of being terrifying, this was more creepy than anything. That isn’t to say that I’m not going to struggle to fall asleep, because I’m pretty sure that I will, for at least a couple of nights. And I’m definitely going to avoid rosebushes for a while. But what I most enjoyed was that this was so much more than a haunted house story. While the haunted house reveal was relatively obvious, that wasn’t the twist in the story. The big reveal was so much deeper and creepier than anything I was expecting, and I joked around with Becky that I’d have to change my gasp factor to an “eek factor” because I literally kept saying, “eek” while reading. Becky and I really worked to figure things out, and no matter how hard we tried, we got close but didn’t quite realize how deep this reveal was going to run.

Overall, this is peak Kingfisher at her finest, and I loved every second of this hilarious, creeptastic story. It had me laughing out loud, and I loved the fact that it taught me a few random facts about bugs and vultures (yes, vultures). I’m not going to be the most fun person at parties if I bust out these facts, but it’s definitely a fun book if you aren’t afraid of a little creepiness, and you like to laugh. As I said, cozy horror.

This was my first T. Kingfisher book, but definitely won’t be the last. “A House with Good Bones” was equal parts quirky, comedy, and horror. The way Kingfisher writes is incredibly comfortable; like your best friend is sitting down to tell you a crazy thing that happened, only that thing is outside the world of everyday normalcy.

I really enjoyed the characters of Adam and Gail. Sam was extremely relatable, funny, quick-witted and someone I would genuinely want to be friends with.

The story is unlike any I have read before. Points a very imaginative back story. As weird as parts were, I was fully here for it. A lot of fun over all.