Opal's hopes and dreams died with her mother. She put everything on hold to work toward a better life for her younger brother, Jasper, who is smart and deserves to attend college and mold his own future. Even if she has to work at the Starling House, said to be haunted and that strange beast roam the property it sits on. The owner is excentric, he never leaves the house and is very rarely ever seen. Opal has had dreams filled with images of the house since childhood and is drawn to its gates. This is one of the best books I've read this year.

They’ve been telling stories about Starling House and the woman who built it, Eleanor Starling, since Eleanor first came to Eden over a century and a half ago. Some of those stories are even halfway true – but it doesn’t matter because no one in Eden has ever cared about the truth if that truth made them the least bit uncomfortable.

They’ve been telling stories about Opal and her mother Jewel since the day they came to town, too. And even though her mother drowned a decade ago, they’re still telling stories about her too. But mostly, they tell stories about Opal, and most of those are halfway true, too.

One of the stories that no one tells about Opal, because she never reveals truths about herself to anyone at all if she can help it, is that she’s more haunted by Starling House than anyone else in town – because the rest of them just complain about the eyesore, and the bad luck it brings to Eden. While Opal has been dreaming that Starling House was HERS, and has been dreaming those dreams since she was a little girl whose only even somewhat permanent address has been Room 12 at the Garden of Eden Motel since her mom brought her and her little brother Jasper to Eden.

Opal never knew that her mother brought them back to the only home that Jewel had ever known. At least, not until Opal lied, cheated, and inveigled her way into a job at the broken down and dilapidated Starling House. A job that looked to rival Hercules’ task of cleaning the Augean stables.

But Opal doesn’t care. Because Starling House seems to want her there – even if the current Starling, Arthur, claims that he doesn’t. But the house is true because it needs her, and Arthur is lying because of the same damn reason.

While the vultures that have always circled Starling House see Opal’s lies and secrets as a lever they can use to finally pry their way into a place where their dreams will come true.

Someone should have been careful what they wished for, because they’re about to get it.

Escape Rating A-: Starling House sits at the confluence of the River of Dreams and the Stuff of Nightmares, at the four-way stop between the darkest of dark fantasy, outright horror, the angstiest of angsty romance and power corrupts, catty-corner to the Inn of No One Believes the Truths that Women Tell because it’s inconvenient for their wallets, their consciences or even just their privilege.

At first, it’s Opal’s story, a story that is considerably more honest from the confines of her own head than it appears to anyone on the outside, but Opal lies like she breathes – especially to herself. Sometimes she even does as good a job of convincing herself as she does everyone else, but there are always cracks in the facade in her own head. Even if she can’t admit it.

The only love and the only weakness that Opal will admit to is her younger brother Jasper. She will do anything – and everything – to get him safely out of Eden. Because he’s been the only sunlight in her world since their mother drove her car into the river and drowned. And Eden is slowly killing him. Not just his spirit, although probably that too, but literally. Jasper has asthma, they have no health insurance and sometimes not enough for groceries, and the power plant has never met an environmental regulation that they haven’t bribed someone to let them off the hook for. The air is toxic and the whole place is a cancer cluster and Jasper needs to be somewhere else – even if Opal can’t make herself go with him

But Opal also has a weakness for Starling House and the children’s classic, The Underland, that the house’s first owner wrote from within its walls. Starling House captures her dreams, and she can’t resist following those dreams in waking life.

Which is where this story catches her and drags us all down to Underland with her.

Starling House takes all the elements of a gothic romance; the dark and creepy house concealing secret rooms and family secrets, an uber angsty romance between star-crossed would-be lovers both believing they’re not worthy of redemption, adds in myths and monsters from the depths of the imagination, sets it in a hard-scrabble, hard-luck town and then takes the whole story through a metamorphosis when the truth quite literally sets everyone – or at least everyone worthy – free.

Even if more of those people than would ever have imagined at the beginning of this descent into dreams choose to take their hard-won freedom and spend it in that same hard-luck town that might just have won a freedom of its own.

So, even though the angst of the romance sometimes goes way over the top, described in overblown language of desire and denial – at least within the confines of Opal’s head – and if the monsters and the myths turn out to be relics of bad choices and just desserts, the story of Opal, and Arthur and Eleanor descending down into Underland takes the reader along for the wildest of wild rides. Often in the wake of the Wild Hunt itself.

And even if some of both Opal’s and Eleanor’s secrets become obvious to the reader very early on, the journey is still well worth taking with them.

I took this journey in audio, with Natalie Naudus as the most excellent narrator. As a narrator, she seems to specialize in heroines who think that everything is all their fault and that they have to do it all alone, and her voice made me think of her other characters, Emiko Soong in Ebony Gate, Zelda in Last Exit, and Vivian Liao in Empress of Forever. Opal is a fine addition to that illustrious company of women who stand on their own two feet but ultimately get by with a little help from their awesome, kickass friends.

I loved the author’s Fractured Fables, A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended, so I’m looking forward to her next book whenever it appears. I already have Natalie Naudus’ next narration in my TBR/TBL (To Be Read/To Be Listened) pile in The Dead Take the A Train.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this AudioARC!

I absolutely loved Starling House. I think Alix Harrow did an excellent job with the writing in this story. The atmosphere was fantastic, the characters felt well developed, and the plot was unique! It is hard to do a unique haunted house story but Alix did a fantastic job with the spin on Starling house. I found myself drawn to listening to the story whenever I could- I found it incredibly compelling! I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a haunted house story and will be picking up any future books by Alix Harrow.

The narrator: I liked this narrator and her embodiment of the characters. I think she added a depth to the characters and the dialogue that really drew the listener in. I would listen to other books read by this narrator.

DNF @ 53%

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this. All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

I was really excited about another novel from Alix E Harrow. I fell in love with her debut, and was hoping this would give me those same feelings. Unfortunately it just wasn't the story I was expecting.

This was pitched and described as a gothic fantasy. Using words like 'sinister' and 'horrors' and 'haunted'. But in reality this book is more fairytale meets monsters in a battle of good versus evil.

I think if I had gone into this book with the right expectations, this could have been something I loved. But I picked this up for a creepy Halloween vlog, and it just wasn't at all what I was looking for.

Rather than sinister & haunted small town nowhere, I got a sentient house a la Beauty and the Beast mixed with Alice in Wonderland. Topped off with a white knight battling evil.

I think if you go into this with the right expectations, this could be a really beautiful fantasy. It's less flowery than some of other Alix E Harrow books while still being atmospheric. But it's not horror in sense of traditional horror. It's horror in the mistreatment and damage done to middle America.

I think the DNF is wholly on me and my personal expectations and not a commentary on the actual quality of the story. If you've loved this authors other fairytale inspired stories, I think you will love this just as much!

Absolutely loved this. It’s so moody, and a little creepy, and just utter perfection for a fall read.

Alix Harrow will continue to be an auto-buy author for me going forward.

Thank you Netgalley for this audio edition of Starling House by Alix Harrow.

Listen, if you're going to put a haunted looking house, in a small, rundown town, housed by a lone mysterious handsome rake, I'M GOING TO READ IT. End of story, taking no questions. Plus, as many of us know, Alix E. Harrow is good news and deserves our trust.

That's exactly what this story is, and Opal, an unlikely protagonist with a rough past, slowly finds herself getting entangled with Starling House and it's history. And even more interesting is her relationship with Arthur, the home's occupant, who she can't quite figure out, but consistently returns to.

Stories like this, in my experience, can go sideways pretty easily. It's not hard to go off the rails in messy detail, or over-the-top plotting. But this strikes a beautiful balance with humor, friendships, lore, history, and romance. I enjoyed every minute of it, and I'm not one to seek stories with paranormal content.

4.5 Stars. This...once again...is not my normal genre. It was dark in it's setting and in it's characters. There were actual monsters and bloody fights. There was also Opal. She's been struggling to keep her head above water (sorry, no pun intended if you've read the book) and keep her brother on the straight and narrow path pointing directly out of Eden. Opal's hard life definitely had sharpened her attitude over the years, so she was perfect to deal with Arthur, the keeper of Starling House. Both he and Starling House are full of dark secrets. But will Opal be able to lighten things up for him and the house?

I listened to the audio version narrated by Natalie Naudus. Boy did she do a great job! I was right there with Opal and all the creepy, crawly things. Even the music at the end got me.

Thanks to Macmillan audio for the gifted copy of this audiobook. All thoughts are my own.

7.5 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2023/10/22/starling-house-by-alix-e-harrow-review/

Starling House is the type of horror story that I can get behind—at least at first. It starts out slowly, building tension and atmosphere upon the dying, coal-town of Eden, Kentucky—a place that is really creepy enough as it is. I live in Montana. And we have our fair share of lonely, dying towns. Off-the-beaten-track places where you worry about getting stuck after dark. Not (necessarily) because of the local legends—which several of them very much do have—but because any dying town is creepy enough, especially after dark. The empty, boarded up houses and businesses, built in wood and brick, and the way the wind whistles and the houses creak, growing out anything else the deserted place could offer.

Eden, Kentucky reminded me very much of this. A lovely, atmospheric horror story, one that builds and builds and builds… and then suddenly becomes a romance.

This was a bit of a surprise, to be honest. And not exactly a welcome one at that. Not because it was poorly built, or written. Not even because I’m not a huge fan of romance, especially when it seizes center stage. But because even by this point in the tale, I hadn’t warmed up to either of the main characters, especially Opal. She’s stubborn and fickle, mistrusting (even of her only family, whom she clearly loves), shallow, and self-sabotaging. It’s like a coming-of-age tale, where the protagonist is held back by their own stubborn faults, only to overcome it in the same obvious way.

Despite this, Starling House is far from bad, providing an entertaining read—through the end, despite my disappointment in the characters and the surprise romance (which I still can’t decide how I felt about)—with a lovely setting; tense, creepy atmosphere; immersive backstory. I found the tale even more immersive as an audiobook, thanks to a brilliant performance by Natalie Naudus—which I’ll address closer in a minute. A great creepy season read, or something light to read in a small, dying town, when the mist rises and the shadows pool in the empty buildings and dark corners.

<b>Audio Note:</b> I LOVED the audio narration, courtesy of Natalie Naudus. While, as previously noted, I didn’t love Opal, Naudus got REALLY into character, to the point where I found myself drawn to her despite myself. The pauses for surprise or a drawn breath, the strained anxiety when the world crumpled around her, the increased volume accompanying any rush of blood or anger—I mean, it was an incredibly well-read book!

Starling House

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is PERFECT for those who love a book with fall vibes. It’s haunted house centered with creepy monsters, but not so creepy that it will keep you up at night!

Starling House is at the edge of a small town, gated away from everyone, until Opal ends up becoming a cleaner there. She can’t seem to stay away from the creepy house or it’s reluctant warden. As those who want to get in threaten Opal, she must help save the town while caring for her younger brother.

I loved this story so much. The audio from @netgalley was so good and I highly recommend listening to it! I will definitely be adding @alix.e.harrow to my must read authors!

Starling House is the PERFECT book to add to your TBR for spooky season.
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The perfect mix of gothic fairy tale and spooky haunted house, this atmospheric read was a great fall read.
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Opal is barely squeaking by, tasked with caring for her younger brother and trying to make a better life for him, she’s finds herself working at the notorious Starling House.
Arthur Starling, the last heir, vows to be the last warden of Starling House.
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Haunted house vibes
Found family
Sinister secrets
Dare I say, a bit romantic?
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Add this to your fall tbr!

Thank you to netgalley and McMillan audio for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for my gifted copy💓

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲
𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘅 𝗘. 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄

⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖 Opal wants nothing more than to create a better life for her little brother, Jasper. But that requires he get the heck out of Eden, Kentucky. So to earn money, she takes a job working at Starling House, a gothic mansion with a dark and troubling past...for the mysterious man who lives inside.

💭 This was an enchanting blend of gothic, fantasy, romance, with mild horror elements. Horror Lite if you will. 😅 I loved The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Harrow, so I was excited to listen to her newest. While I didn't love it quite as much as January, I still really enjoyed it overall, with the relationship between Opal and her brother being my favorite part. And though this wasn't quite the spooky Halloweeny novel I thought it would be, it's still an atmospheric fall escape that I absolutely recommend, especially in audiobook format.

🎧 Narrator Natalie Naudus is always a joy to listen to, and was the main reason I requested the audio format. Wonderful performance as always!

I don’t think I can give a fair assessment of this book because it’s not my normal genre. The book started off interesting but was way too long.

Many thanks to Netgalley and to Macmillan Audio for permission to listen to, and review, this novel.

This could be just a regular boy-meets-girl story, but Alix E. Harrow expands that standard relationship to include the vast mansion of the title. Starling House has a life of its own. Most of the story unfolds in contemporary Kentucky, but the house itself, and the life that it possesses, begins in the mid-nineteenth century. Several generations of Gravelys, most of whom ended badly, developed the town’s mines in ways detrimental to both its ill-treated workers and its largely unknowing residents. The Gravelys abused and exploited their workforce of enslaved Blacks. Even the post-Civil War Emancipation Declaration failed to bring them better conditions; Kentucky was quietly excluded from the agreement. This theme of enslavement, entrapment, and racist exploitation runs throughout the book while the town’s white residents look the other way, ensuring its persistence.

The historic elements of the story revolve around its first owner, Eleanor Gravely, who herself later adopted the name Starling. Already notorious among the residents of her small Kentucky mining town, Starling gained a modicum of celebrity for her scary children’s story about the house, its strange child protagonist, Norah Lee, and a fictive—or is it?—realm called “Underland.” For Starling, as for successive generations of the house’s “wardens”, all self-christened Starlings through to the present owner, the house she built is a living, all-consuming entity. It responds to its wardens’ care, “perking up” and even preening if they give it loving attention, becoming moldy, dilapidated, and vengeful if they do not.

As the story begins, the house belongs to its youngest and most recent warden, Alex Starling. His own parents, after pleading with him to return from the school to which he had fled to avoid taking up the covenant all Starlings must agree to, were murdered in the act of “protecting” it. Devastated by guilt, Alex returns to take up the mantle. The house senses his hatred and persecutes him.

The girl in the story is 26-year-old-year-old Opal, also worn to desperation, living in a derelict motel where she has been sharing a single room and raising her brother since their mother’s sudden accident when she was 12 and the boy was a toddler. Her own heavy burden of guilt, for failing to save her mother, and for not being able to give her brother a better life, has damaged her to the soul. She shares this, and many other “secrets”, with Alex.

Harrow’s story is about the ordinary life of Opal, who feels she has done nothing and gone nowhere, and Alex, whose destiny is so entangled with Starling House that his one attempt to go elsewhere ended in soul-crushing defeat. Their relationship, with each other, with the house, with the dilemma presented by bad choices made to further good things, is the heart of this story. Central to all this is the mystery presented by the children’s book, which Opal’s mother Pearl had gifted her, and which she became obsessively attached to. This is a mystifying, thrilling, unflinching look into what another writer called “the heart of darkness.” Ultimately the young lovers help each other to accept themselves as they are, and to overcome the "curse" of Starling House.

Nadine Naudel does an excellent job giving voice to many characters of different ages and backgrounds. I can't help but wonder at the decision not to adopt a Kentucky inflection, since Opal mentions, several times, that she has a “lazy, green, Southern” voice as, reasonably, would most of the townspeople. That said, I can’t recommend this book too much. It points to a fact that we have such a hard time accepting: that some things just can’t be explained rationally. Maybe more things than we think. And it is both touching and thrilling!

Delightfully gothic tale. I really enjoyed all of the characters and the wild storytelling. The world created was exceptionally weird and wonderful.

I enjoyed this, but didn't love it. I felt like it was a bit slow for me to get into and things didn't really pick up until the 50% mark... definitely atmospheric and mysterious, but there was something lacking in the plot that really gripped me. I did enjoy the audiobook and was happy the story was Dual POV!

I've heard such good things about this author, but this one definitely wasn't for me. I don't think the narrator could have been more of a pick-me girl if she tried, and the dark, brooding, tortured love-interest had me rolling my eyes. Between that and how slow the audiobook narrator was, it was a struggle. That said, the mystery was interesting and I did enjoy the concept of the house itself. It had a good spooky feel. I'll happily be able to recommend it to others, especially those who enjoyed Harrow's other work and also seems like a good fit for people who enjoyed The Ninth House series as well.

FANTASTIC!
This book was dark. mysterious, creepy, and gritty, all the things a fall read should be. I loved that it was about ugly people who have had hard lives. Its not about shiny boring people. The narrator of the audiobook was great, but she always is great.
The way this book took something so innocent, like a children's book, and turned it into a twisting tale that was dark and moody, is unmatched.
This book is 100% worth your time.
Also, thank you for a good fantasy stand-alone!

I loved this. The pacing was on point, revealing everything at the perfect time to keep you invested. The two main characters were compelling. The world building was excellent. Deserves the hype it's getting.

This book solidified Alix E Harrow as an auto read author for me. And Natalie Naudus did a fantastic job with the narration. I could always tell when the pov changed.

This is a great kind of spooky but more gothic style story. Opal and Arthur are just trying to do their best in a tough situation and the cast of side characters are delightful.

an atmospherically haunting read~

a haunted house with a begrudging keeper, a cursed family in a old nearly forgotten town

reading this, I was picturing the Twilight movie vibes paired with the Scooby Doo movie’s protoplasm souls - clearly childhood movies played a part of my imagination

It delivered on the eerie fall vibes but felt like the story fell flat to me. I think the magic aspect, family drama, and romance angle just didn’t work cohesively in the end.