I don't know how the author managed to write a genuinely creepy book that also made me laugh out loud but mission accomplished. Strong, likeable characters kept me turning the pages.

I think that people who enjoy milder horror will like this but fans who have higher expectations in horror this probably isn't what you're looking for. Wasn't a bad story just took a very long time to get to the meat and then there wasn't much of it.

Yes! I loved this creepy book by Kingfisher. An unassuming MC who is just a plain Jane visiting her mom for a short visit in between jobs. Moving back home is never an easy feat, especially as a grown adult. Our MC comes home and quickly notices strange behaviors and changes that quickly escalate into horror. I loved this story for the MC, Samantha "Sam", her quirky mom , Edith, and the characters on the street, including the vultures! A fun but action packed horror book typical of Kingfisher, leaving me wanting more books like this! Great for fans of horror, fantasy, paranormal>magic all with a sense of humor.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am from the "HUGE fan of T. Kingfisher" camp but I felt a little underwhelmed by this one.

Protagonist, the brassy entomologist Sam is sent home to the deep south when her archeological dig is foiled. Upon arrival to her grandmother's-now-mother's house, she realizes her caring yet sassy mom has become somewhat jumpy and subdued. As Sam tries to keep her wits about her, can science really explain all of the strange happenings in the household that are causing her mother to become so perturbed?

Thumbs up: Sam is a lovable character, she is incredibly quick witted, fat-positive, and smart as hell. The banter between characters felt believable and the side characters felt well-rounded. Additionally, I voted on the dark garden storylines are really looking like where its at for 2023 fantasy themes and this was a chip on that bingo card .

Thumbs down: It really took awhile for this car to get going. I felt like nothing was happening for so long, I sort of forgot I was reading a creepy novel. I wish there was a bit more scare early on but certainly not a bad novel. Just a little on the slow side.

Was it a nail biter? Meh. I loved "Nettle & Bone" and was really looking forward to something more creepy. However, I felt it was stretching to try and be off-beat and lost a bit of the eeriness along the way. That being said, I wouldn't say it was a bad book by any stretch of the word, I would manage your expectations about the horror aspects. Slot it under "funny-creepy" and have a great time! However, going into it with such high expectations really let me down.

I feel I am being generous by giving this novella three stars. My first T. Kingfisher experience was with What Moves the Dead, which is phenomenal, so I immediately jumped on the chance to read an advanced reader copy of A House with Good Bones. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, I found the plot to be formulaic and entirely predictable. This, coupled with several major flaws in the writing (particularly in the dialogue), pacing, and character development (or lack thereof), makes for a story I had to force myself to finish.

While I liked the main character for her interest in insects and her snarky attitude, I found that her personality fell flat throughout most of this story – a shame, since she seems to be written with the intent of being a strong leading character. The first two-thirds of the story is a slow burn reminiscent of Gothic revival literature, but many of the omens fail to evoke a true sense of dread (at least for me). What follows is a climax and conclusion that feel rushed and sloppy, with too much information, supernatural happenings, and action to absorb and too many revelations on the characters' familial history packed into just a few pages.

This story didn't work for me, but I can see how the conversational writing style and the pacing – which both make this book read like a movie – will appeal to other readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and TOR for the digital ARC.

This is my first T Kingfisher title, although I have several of the author’s novels.
Vultures roosting on the mailbox, rose bushes in revolt, a mother possibly showing signs of dementia, a jar of teeth in the yard…how could I pass it by?
This book had me from word one. I loved Sam from the beginning. She was funny and likable and very human. The little side trips into entomology and useless facts about roses and their history was informative and not off-putting.
A hunky gardener, the tinfoil hat-wearing neighbor, another neighbor that might be a witch…it all meshed well and made for a thoroughly enjoyable read. (Although, Mom might really need to cut back on the box wine.)
My only complaint about this book, other than I wouldn’t have minded if it had gone on for another few chapters (it felt a little rushed at the climax), is that, toward the very end, it veered off into the cosmic. Not my favorite lean when it comes to a comic horror novel. What could have been an easy 4.5, for me, dropped to around a 3.5. I might go as far as a 4, just for Hermes, the one-winged vulture.
T Kingfisher…I’m looking forward to reading more from you.

In A House With Good Bones we follow Sam who’s staying with her mother while her work is on hiatus. Her mom’s been acting a bit off however, especially when the topic of Sam’s grandmother comes up. As Sam tries to figure out what’s going on with her mother things start to get stranger and stranger and things from her family’s past start to come to light.

This book was so delightfully fun, bizarre, and creepy scary. T. Kingfisher’s writing unfolds so effortlessly and was easy to fall into. The pacing was just right to get to know the characters and follow the clues and background of what was happening in the story and build tension. I love the unique protagonist and the different characters we encounter and the use of nature and the occult was really fresh and interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is probably a kind three stars from me, because even if I didn’t personally enjoy the book, I could see it being great for others. I WANTED to love it. REALLY wanted to. I dearly love other T Kingfisher books, her style and characters are always so strong. What Moves the Dead was one of my favourite reads from 2022 and Nettle and Bone is a masterpiece. But god, it just feels like she was trying so hard to be kitschy and eccentric with this one that it comes across as forced and desperate.

Our protagonist, Sam, shows up to crash with her mom for a few months as she’s between work gigs with nowhere to go. Sam and her mom, Edith, have a super strong bond, some of which comes from having survived living with Sam’s stern, judgemental Southern Belle of a grandmother, Grand Mae. From the moment she arrives Sam can tell something is off, her mom has dropped a ton of weight and seems to be walking on eggshells in the house she’s the sole occupant of. Cue Sam taking absolutely forever to figure out the truth, and then a rushed ending with the strangest deuteragonist I’ve ever seen.

Like I said, I wanted to love it, but all of the amazing, subtle character work Kingfisher usually seems to put into her stories was missing here. The protagonist was a caricature of a strong female, and everything about her was so aggressively forced upon the reader that I complained to no less than three people about how often this book brings up Sam’s passion for bugs. Oh my god, the BUGS. WE GET IT. YOU KNOW A LOT ABOUT BUGS. Also, we make sure to tick all of our boxes so the reader knows the character is progressive; pointed comments about the character being fat that seemed so strong-armed that I assumed they would lead to some important reveal (they didn’t, she’s just fat, which I LOVE but if it doesn’t add anything to the scene you probably don’t need to tell me this often), small asides to let the reader know they’re white, but they’re *progressive* white people (there were no POC characters in the story so again, we seemed to just be checking a box), Gilmore Girls levels of twee banter between mom and daughter.

Again, I really wanted to love this book as I have so much love for the author. And people are clearly enjoying it, so I’d never say it’s a bad book; it’s just far too heavy handed for the low page account for my personal tastes.

Unique southern regional family supernatural story with a humorous element that will appeal to horror readers.

The first thing Sam notices when she arrives at her mother's house is the vulture sitting on the mailbox. Instead of being spooked by it, she wonders what type of mites are breeding in the bird's feathers. She doesn't start to worry until she goes inside and realizes that her mother, a women who loves vibrant colors, has painted the walls white and rehung the portraits that they hid away in the attic after her grandmother's death. Her mother's entire personality has changed. This is the most entertaining haunted house story I've read in quite a while. I enjoyed it, especially the unique protagonist, but some of the horror elements were described in a way that felt a bit silly.

This Southern gothic book is about a woman who moves back in with her mother temporarily and finds that her mother has changed and seems to be afraid of something, acting like she did when her mother (the MC's grandmother) was still alive. That woman made their lives miserable, but she's been dead for years. The only thing truly remaining of her is all the roses in the garden which she spent so much time cultivating. As Sam finds out more about her family's past, she discovers (almost too late) what is happening to her mother and to the house.

There is a lot of creepiness in the descriptions in this book (and all the bugs!) and then ending scenes gave me chills. This is very much an atmospheric book so I recommend that you read it in the evening and when you have time to focus on it so you can more fully immerse yourself into the book. There are also some really humorous moments, and I love the author's writing style. There is not as much character development, as Sam doesn't really change much during the book, but she's a really fun character and doesn't really need a lot of change.

Well, you had me at "Southern Gothic." I love a good creepy story. As a lover of a good creepy story, I picked up on little things that I think any avid reader would. Noises, responses, reactions, things that are just a little off. Fairly standard, scary story fare and I settled in for a relaxing (*giggle*) creep out. Nothing over the top, just enough, you know? Then, the story amps up a bit and it's legitimately scary. And yes, a vulture showed up in my dreams afterward.

Sam is perfect. Realistic, concerned, but not dramatic or a pushover. She is the perfect narrator for a story that takes a little laxity on reality to deliver a truly well-turned tale.

Kingfisher is pretty masterful. Just enough creepiness to make me look over my shoulder myself, mixed with some truly funny internal and external dialogue. I'm going to have to find her other books.

2022 was my year of T. Kingfisher; I went from having read zero of her books to having read three and desperately wanting more! The kind Netgalley gods provided me with "A House with Good Bones", coming out later this spring, and I devoured it promptly, expecting it to be a horror in the vein of "The Twisted Ones".

And it wasn't! While it will likely get shelved with the horror genre (and has some verrrry creepy moments, especially toward the end), "A House with Good Bones" is more concerned with trauma, power, and what's beneath the pristine veneer of "normalcy". It's billed as a Southern Gothic, and it certainly lives up to that in its investigation of white supremacy, the occult, and obsession with standard quo.

Likely the aspect that surprised me the most was this book's humor - the main character, Sam, is hilarious! Getting into her head was a bit like hanging out with an exhausting, whip-smart friend. Sometimes you wanted less of a monologue about insects and more about what was actually happening in the scene, but I adored Sam regardless and enjoyed spending time with her as she tried to determine if her mother was mentally ill or if something more ~supernatural~ was happening within her family's old home.

I'd recommend this to anyone who wants a lighter horror that won't force them to leave the lights on. It's fun, probing, a little bit silly (the final showdown is buck WILD) and utterly unique. This book has only cemented my adoration of T. Kingfisher!!

Kingfisher is becoming one of my favorite authors. What Moves the Dead was one of my top favorite reads last year and A House With Good Bones is just as enjoyable. This story is creepy and hilarious--a tough combination to pull off. Sam is visiting her mother and notices odd behavior. The behavior gets worse, family secrets are revealed, and shit gets CRAZY. I don't think I'll ever look at a vulture or ladybug in the same way again. Or roses. I do want to say that the word "racist" must have appeared 50 times in this book. I'm white and I live in the south and Kingfisher made it seem like those two things automatically make me racist. Had the concept not been mentioned ad nauseum I could have overlooked it but so many times seemed accusatory and stunted the flow of the story. Big thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

T Kingfisher has rapidly become one of my favorite horror writers ever.

I loved this book--from the main characters, to the family dynamics explored, the weird people in the subdivision, to the all the creepy and awful things happening in the house.

It's hard to talk about this without giving away spoilers, but if you like her other books, you'll enjoy this one.

I reiterate for the thousandth time, there isn’t a book T. Kingfisher writes that I’m not inclined to love. While I didn’t find this one as terrifying as her other works (not her fault to be fair, there isn’t much out there that can beat the deer bone effigy in The Twisted Ones), it was still a wonderful read that I was more than happy to devour. I love the various ways Kingfisher explores family, legacy and horror in her works and this one was no different. Her sense of humor makes even the scariest of scenes manageable and the way she creates characters that make you feel like you’ve known them forever is magic in and of itself. I also loved the unconventional horror setting too! Gothic mansions and old houses in the middle of the woods are creepy by nature, but it takes an incredibly skilled writer to make a little suburban house that’s less than 30 years old and surrounded by lush rose gardens feel ominous and creepy. Horror in gothic settings is terrifying enough, but horror in “nice and normal” settings are something else entirely. Overall, an easy 5 stars and I cannot wait to see what Kingfisher comes up with next!
(Thank you netgalley and tor night fire for gifting me one of my most anticipated reads of 2023! Opinions are of course my own, but I am willing to give you my first born child for ARCs of any of Kingfishers future works, just saying)

This is my first book by T. Kingfisher and certainly won't be my last. Chills and thrills the whole way thru.

Haunting! I love T. Kingfisher and her way with words. She writes in an eerie, colorful way that you can help but be sucked into. This is always a treat as a reader, but especially so with the spooky vibes in Kingfisher’s stories. A House with good bones is no exception. It’s a thrilling, strange, exciting romp through the main character (Sam’s) mother’s home. Her (maybe) haunted home. Kingfisher writes wonderfully witty FMC and Sam is no exception. You will find yourself bouncing between laughing out loud and crawling beneath blankets in fear. 4 stars!

This is another great book by T. Kingfisher. It's the right level of spooky with some delightful characters. The book starts slow, gently easing you into the house. You get a hint something is wrong but you can't quite pinpoint it. Only as the week goes on and more things start happening do you realize the full extent of the problems.

When Sam’s latest archeological dig gets postponed she decides to give her mother a visit but finds the house and her mother completely changed. Very strange things seems to be happening at the house and Edith is determined to get to the roots of it.
I loved Kingfisher’s quirky writing style and how she manages to make you laugh out loud immediately after making your hair raise on end with some spine chilling incident. Definitely recommended!