Starling House: A Reese's Book Club Pick

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK“This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting―plus, characters willing to risk everything.” ―Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)Starling House is a gorgeous, modern gothic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. 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.A Book of the Month Club PickAn October 2023 Indie Next PickA LibraryReads October 2023 Hall of Fame PickApple, Best Books of OctoberEW.com, Fall Book Must Reads 2023Washington Post, Noteworthy Books for OctoberPaste Magazine, The Must-Read Fantasy Books of Fall 2023PopSugar Best New Fantasy Books of 2023BookPage, Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023Observer, Must-Read Books of Fall 2023Polygon, 12 Best New SFF for the FallLitHub, October’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy BooksBookish, October’s Most-Anticipated BooksGizmodo, October's Huge List of New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books

Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)

"This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting―plus, characters willing to risk everything."

Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

"Alix E. Harrow is an exceptional, undeniable talent, and Starling House, with its gentle reassurances of the homes we make and the love we deserve, is more than satisfying. It’s pure loveliness in book form."

Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter

"Gorgeous, poignant, and honest―an unforgettable read."

Kat Howard, Alex Award-winning author of An Unkindness of Magicians

"As knife-edged and sharp as its protagonist...A smart, spectacular contemporary Gothic that will leave its roots in you and linger in your dreams."

Paste Magazine

“From Ten Thousand Doors of January to A Mirror Mended, Alix E. Harrow is a fantasy author who just does not miss. This magical, heartfelt haunted house tale is no different.”

Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction’s most memorable haunted houses.”

Library Journal, starred review Praise for Alix E. Harrow

"Harrow’s mash-up of twisted fairy tales and Southern gothic fiction is a haunting story of longing, lies, and generational curses."

Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"Devastatingly good, a sharp, delicate nested tale of worlds within worlds, stories within stories, and the realm-cracking power of words."

Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“One of the most unique works of fiction I’ve ever read.”

Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M, on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“I couldn’t put it down.”

NPR on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"One for the favorites shelf... Here is a book to make you happy when you gently close it. Here you will find wonder and questions and an unceasingly gorgeous love of words which compasses even the shape a letter makes against a page."

Kirkus Reviews on The Ten Thousand Doors of January

"A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love."

Sarah Gailey, author of Magic for Liars, on The Once and Future Witches

"A breathtaking book-brilliant and raw and dark and complicated. It's also, to be blunt, uncannily relevant."

P. Djèlí Clark, author of The Black God's Drums, on The Once and Future Witches

"This book is an amazing bit of spellcraft and resistance so needed in our times, and a reminder that secret words and ways can never be truly and properly lost, as long as there are tongues to speak them and ears to listen."

Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches, on The Once and Future Witches

"This is a delightful, satisfying novel, a tale of women's battle for equality, of fairy tales twisted into wonderfully witchy spells, of magics both large and small, and history re-imagined. All of it is told in Alix Harrow's exquisite language and with her vivid characterizations-a great pleasure to read."

Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians, on The Once and Future Witches

"A brilliant dazzle of a book. This story of sisters and witches, memory and power cracked open my heart and set down roots there. I devoured it in enormous gulps, and utterly loved it."

Publishers Weekly, on The Once and Future Witches

"A love letter to folklore and the rebellious women of history."

About the Author

Alix E. Harrow is the Hugo Award winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, and various short fiction. Her Fractured Fables series, beginning with the novella A Spindle Splintered, has been praised for its refreshing twist on familiar fairy tales. A former academic and adjunct, Harrow lives in Virginia with her husband and their two semi-feral kids.

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