Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

I recently found a hardcover of Starling House at half priced books, and it was a great Spring break read. It’s not sunny or beachy, it’s eerie and creepy and maddening. That’s more my style.

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Gothic Fiction

Spoiler-Free Review: The Starling House by Alix Harrow

Opal lives in room 12 of an old beat up motel in an isolated small town called Eden, Kentucky. She lives with and has legal guardianship of her brother Jasper, although the legal guardianship was not obtained through legal means. Their mother’s death has left them to fend for themselves in a town that has always looked the other way when they needed help.

The town’s economy is based around the local power plant, owned and operated by a local family that has been in Eden for over a century. The Gravely family – what a wonderful name to have in a Gothic novel – has been trying to purchase the property adjacent to their land. That land is home to Starling house, a creepy mansion overgrown with honeysuckle and a disturbing number of Starling nests. A single caretaker lives in the house, and he refuses to even speak to the Gravelys about selling.

Opal is a morally ambiguous character – her motivations are not pure and, although she does have a conscience, she doesn’t hesitate to set it aside when she is going after something she needs or doing something for someone she loves. This element is one reason I love this book so much. Protagonists are people too, and no one is perfectly moral all the time – especially when their circumstances make it difficult to get by.

Opal dreams of Starling House throughout her childhood, even though she’s never been there. She’s not the only one having these dreams, but she keeps them to herself, and so do the others. When she finally approaches the house, she sees that the house in her dreams is an exact match with Starling House. She is curious as to why this place calls to her in her dreams, and now, while she’s awake. It’s clearly creepy and everyone should stay away! She can’t. She goes to the house, and after she’s yelled at to run and leave, she keeps coming back anyway.

She finds employment at Starling House by approaching Arthur, the caretaker. The house is surrounded by rusted iron gates that cut her when she gets too close. Still, she works up the courage to go to work every day and begin to clean up the house that has been neglected for decades. She does her work and does it well, but she doesn’t mind stealing antiques whenever she can and selling them on ebay.

Soon after her employment begins, a group of “consultants” begin to demand that she give them information and pictures of the inside of Starling House, and threaten to harm her brother if she doesn’t comply. So she complies, despite the fact that she’s growing fond of Arthur, who is unexpectedly kind.

While Opal is well intentioned, trying to find a way to give her brother a better life, there are bigger forces at play here and she begins to learn how Starling House and the power plant that resides next door to it are more involved in her past and future than she ever imagined.

This book is part mystery, part ambience, part coming of age and if you enjoy any type of gothic fiction, give it a try. It would be a great read for an older teen, as there are mature themes but nothing explicit. I gave Starling House four stars.

About Starling House

Publisher’s Summary

I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen….

Opal is a lot of things—orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier—but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

All she left behind were dark rumors—and her home. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.

I should be scared, but in the dream I don’t hesitate.

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House—and make some extra cash for her brother’s escape fund—she can’t resist.

But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.

In my dream, I’m home.

And now she’ll have to fight.

Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.

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