Starling House
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. Welco
What you might want to know about Starling House
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Opal scrapes by in a Kentucky coal town with her sick younger brother, dreaming of the cursed Starling House on the edge of town. When its reclusive new heir hires her to clean it, the house starts dreaming of her.
Starling House was written by Alix E. Harrow and published in 2023. Harrow also wrote The Ten Thousand Doors of January and the Fractured Fables novellas.
Yes. Starling House is gothic fantasy about a young woman who takes a cleaning job at a strange house in rural Kentucky and uncovers its dark family history. It blends Southern gothic with literary fantasy.
Starling House is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Starling House takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Starling House is a standalone novel by Alix E. Harrow, not part of a series.
Starling House is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
