Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

 

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

 

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

 

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

Publisher: Tor | Genre: Romantsy | Source: Purchased | Rating: 4

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland—a dark fairytale—, the book’s reclusive author, E. Starling, and Starling House. She knows that Starling House is considered off-limits and haunted but Opal’s more than pleased when the owner, the broody and mysterious Arthur Starling, offers her job.  As each day passes, Starling House offers more of its secrets to Opal as does its mysterious owner. While the house is starting to feel like home, it’s also unleashing more of its darkness on the town. As Opal and Arthur work through their budding feelings for each other, they must also fight to save their town.

I picked this up on a whim whilst strolling through my local indie bookstore. It’s not what I normally pick up. I’m usually not one to reach for fantasy, or romantasy, but I was intrigued that this one was tagged as a ‘Southern Gothic Horror Fantasy’, and while I have a few thoughts on that, I did enjoy this book.

Opal’s not had an easy life. She’s searching for answers, trying to survive, and trying to take care of her younger brother. Arthur’s pretty much cut off from the world as he’s the guardian of Starling House. They’re both lost, alone, and have the weight of the world upon them. In a way, they’re both united through their loneliness. Their friendship/relationship is something that Opal is willing to fight for even though Arthur keeps pushing her away due to his responsibility. There’s also a war that they’re gearing up to fight and they have a lot of personal wars to wage as well so there’s a lot thrust upon them.

Arthur was a bit Byronic hero mixed with the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and it worked.  I would have liked more information about certain aspects of his life; it would have given him a more fleshed-out feel. Opal was a bit hard to take. I had to remind myself several times that she was twenty-seven instead of a teenager because her actions were often childish and annoying.

While there is a romance between Arthur and Opal, I don’t feel as though there was enough development on the page. It would have been nice to see more than just the start.

Starling House is a character of its own and while there was just enough information provided, I would love to see Starling House the main character of a novella as there’s so much going on with the house itself it would make for an interesting read.

There’s so many secondary characters that had the potential to be interesting and ended up not being used to their full potential. While it didn’t draw my interest away, I feel there were a few missed opportunities.

At the heart of this story, there’s a bit of mystery and while I found it to be interesting, the conclusion was a little lackluster. I don’t feel that it was supposed to have been one of the major threads of the story (it was more just a bridge to explain why certain things were able to happen) but it would have been nice if it had been a bit more solid.

This book does start slow; the first hundred pages felt like they dragged on and were a bit repetitive. Thankfully, it does pick up and hold a nice pace all the way through. I found the footnotes to be a little odd. They didn’t add anything and they disappeared halfway through the book. I feel as though they were added just to be trendy. While this book does have amazing artwork sprinkled throughout, I feel as though they missed the opportunity to include a bit more mixed media (newspaper clippings, interviews, etc.).

I do want to say that while the story is about Opal, Arthur, and Starling House there’s also an underlying vein of social commentary regarding the impact the coal industry has on small towns.

Overall, while I did have some minor issues with this one, they weren’t enough of a problem to damper my enjoyment. I liked the combination of family secrets, found family, legends and lore, and magical realism. 

Was this the ‘Southern Gothic Horror Fantasy’ I was promised? Not really. Was it Southern? It’s set in Kentucky so it is southern. Was it ‘Southern Gothic’? In my opinion, and according to the origins of the Southern Gothic genre, no it was not. Southern Gothic is set in the Deep South and contains elements that are more macabre. Was this ‘Gothic’?  Yes, it had the right elements to be considered a modern gothic. Was it Horror? For me personally, no; I know readers have their own version of what horror is but I’m not able to name one element of horror in this book unless I would say the house itself but, for me, that would be stretching it a bit. Was it ‘Fantasy’? It’s more magical realism with a dash of fantasy.

 

I would define this book as a modern gothic with elements of magical realism. To me, Starling House ticked those boxes. Again, going back to how I was educated, ‘Southern Gothic’ contains darker elements, which I don’t feel this book had whereas ‘Modern Gothic’ adheres to the elements of the original gothic literature but set in a modern setting.