Spoiler-Free Review

If you take Ninth House but make it a gothic fantasy instead of a dark academia and add a grim fairytale sheen to it, you get Starling House.

What’s Starling House about?

Opal lands an unexpected job opportunity housekeeping for Arthur, the reclusive heir of Starling House. Even though the house is creepy (and perhaps sentient) she needs the money too much to quit. But sinister forces start converging, and Opal and Arthur will have to work together to stop them.

This was a great audiobook listen.

A darkly gothic story with nightmare creatures, a house with “ambitions of sentience,” Alix Harrow’s signature writing style, excellent audiobook narration, and heartwarming sibling relationships? And a romance between a brash, sailor-mouthed woman and a reclusive, scholarly man? Yes please to all.

Now, I just want to say, as I do with most gothic stories – this is definitely for me but maybe not for everyone. Gothic stories are slow and creeping, atmospheric and character-driven, and I eat that up. Especially if there’s a romance involved. Slow plots elsewhere don’t work for me, but in a creepy house that changes its dimensions based on its mood, it suddenly works perfectly.

The main reason this wasn’t a five-star read comes down to two things. One is that the pacing would take some odd lurches. By that I mean, we’d suddenly have some exciting action and then things would go back to their normal slow pace. This really wasn’t a huge strike against it, personally, but it was noticeable. The other thing is that, while an interesting story that I enjoyed, I think it only ever touched on deeper themes without really becoming thematically rich. This is something that could have brought it to the next level.

This is the second full-length novel from Alix Harrow that I’ve read, the other being The Once and Future Witches. In my opinion, Harrow kept a lot of what I loved about that novel (writing style, characterizations, sibling dynamics, showing ingrained inequalities in the system) but improved on the things I critiqued (pacing). That said, I’m very eager to get my hands on her upcoming novel, The Everlasting. That one is inspired by her short story The Six Deaths of the Saint (which is my favorite short story ever). I have it on good authority that it might be her best work yet.

Should you read Starling House?

If you’re an audiobook listener, I really recommend it in that format. Natalie Naudus knocked it out of the park.

I would say if you’re hoping for something with a stronger plot that moves at a steadier clip, this probably won’t be for you. However, if you enjoy atmosphere, strong writing style, and a striking image of a dead-end southern town, you’ll probably love this one.