Starling House
- 347
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list
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Our view
“Starling House” is a gothic fantasy that blends a haunted mansion, a love story and a hard look at small-town poverty. Opal, trying to secure her brother’s future, takes a cleaning job at the mysterious house and is drawn into the town’s buried history. Some readers find the opening slow, and some think the human antagonist less convincing than the others. A dark fairy tale grounded in very real hardship.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Starling House is a 2023 gothic fantasy novel by American author Alix E. Harrow published by Tor Books. The novel tells a story of a young woman, Opal, who lives in a destitute region of Kentucky, attempting to find an economic means to uplift her brother from poverty and pay for his education. When she accepts the position as maid at the enigmatic Starling House, a mansion shrouded in mystery, she becomes entangled in a web of strange, supernatural and historical secrets that are linked to the town's dark past. At the same time, she resists the exploitation of the land and its people by powerful, profit-driven forces like the pointedly named Gravely Power, striving to secure her brother's future, safeguard Starling House, and assert control over her own destiny.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 373 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 72% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 5.6 | 5 | 1% |
| Hardcover | 7.8 | 368 | 99% |
Frequently asked
How long is Starling House?
It has 347 pages — shorter than 89% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
