Starling House (Alix E. Harrow)

Starling House
Alix E. Harrow
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: The small coal town of Eden, Kentucky is a bad-luck town if ever there was one. It's not just the poverty and poor living conditions from being so near the Gravely coal mines and power plants, but bad things seem to keep happening, accidents and deaths and explosions, often tied to the strange mists that rise in the night. Some think the town is cursed... and some look with suspicion on the secluded old Starling House, once the home of the late author Eleanor Starling, whose unsettling children's book The Underland still has a devoted following. It's been well over a century since Eleanor disappeared, but her reputation is still whispered in that way of small towns; if anyone cursed the good people of Eden, it must have been her and the strange string of successors who have inherited the place, culminating in the reclusive young man Arthur. None would believe the truth...
Opal and her teen brother Jasper have been stranded in Eden ever since a terrible accident sent their mother's car into the river over a decade ago. A high school dropout with a surly reputation, Opal struggles to earn enough money to at least save Jasper from this dead-end hole of a place. But she also is fascinated by Starling House, having been enthralled by The Underland since childhood. She even finds herself haunted by dreams of a sprawling mansion, a place that feels like the home she never had. But she never imagined she'd set foot in the place, until the night she has a fateful encounter with Arthur Starling himself. Beyond the threshold of Starling House is a place she recognizes too well from her dreams... and a dark secret worse than her deepest nightmares.

REVIEW: With the creepy Southern Gothic atmosphere and a gritty, hardscrabble heroine, Starling House looked like a great pick for October. Alix E. Harrow continues her streak of not disappointing me.
Opal is a young woman who should have given up years ago, fallen into drugs or alcohol or other traps - or simply given up on survival altogether. Her single mother didn't exactly provide a stable life before her untimely death, with neither child knowing who or where their fathers were, and Opal was in the car with the woman when they went off the bridge into the river. Things only got worse after that, as she dropped out of high school and learned to lie, cheat, steal, and grift to keep custody of her kid brother. Yet, while Opal isn't exactly the kindest or most mentally healthy person in Eden, adversity has made her dig in all the harder, made her all the hungrier and sharper, as she bends every fiber of her being and her pride toward getting her now-teen brother Jasper out and away to a better life - sacrificing herself and any potential for her own future or happiness in the process. Her quick temper and sarcastic tongue don't always help, but they're her defense mechanisms against a town that long ago branded her trouble, and against the parts of herself she deliberately buried because they were too broken and hurt to handle alone - and alone is the only way she knows how to handle anything. A small Southern town like Eden doesn't exactly go out of its way to help strangers, especially ones like Opal, though there are a few people who form a threadbare support net... people she doesn't learn to appreciate until it's nearly too late. Jasper, meanwhile, is becoming a teenager and pushing back against her mothering form of sisterhood; hard as she tries to shield him from the worst of small town hostility and the sacrifices she makes on his behalf, he's developing his own ideas of what his life will be, ideas that clash with her best intentions and efforts. This is yet another source of friction on the fraying ropes barely holding Opal together... and that's without the dreams and nightmares, some of which tie into the tale of The Underland and lead back, inevitably, to Eleanor Starling.
Arthur, meanwhile, has also sacrificed himself in his own way, as caretaker of Starling House and the legacy of Eleanor... and also the Warden working to protect a town that hardly deserves protection from a supernatural threat (not really a spoiler; this is a horror-fantasy, after all). He swore he'd be the last, that he'd die if need be to stop the cycle of new Wardens being "called" to Starling House to continue a fight that seemingly can never be won... until the redheaded young woman turns up and inadvertently offers blood to the wrought iron gates. Despite himself, he offers her a job as housekeeper to the sprawling estate, even knowing that he may not be able to save her from a fate like his own (especially not if she's already been called by the dreams), but he's denied himself so much, even companionship, for so long he can't help himself - plus he may need some assistance, as not only is the mist growing more malevolent and active, but enemies of an all too mortal variety - the wealthy, amoral Gravelys - are trying to steal Starling House (and its secrets) right out from under him.
As Opal and Arthur circle unspoken feelings for each other and their own agendas (both of which are facing increasing challenges as things get worse for them and for Eden), underlying secrets and the source of Eden's curse are slowly revealed, tied into festering wounds left generations ago by injustice, abuse, and trauma. The sins of the forefathers are compounded through the years, as the lack of consequences feeds into the entitlement and impunity of those who flout rules and common decency, while the habit of injustice becomes entrenched in a populace too willing to look the other way. All of this only makes the mist worse, building to a potentially catastrophic climax.
There are times when both Opal and Arthur let their emotions get in the way of intelligence and action; Opal in particular can break down and hole up in her own head and in the borrowed motel room that serves as a home. Her flexible morality (when it comes to people who aren't herself or Jasper; she will do anything, even sell herself out, if it means a chance at getting her brother out of Eden and away from their wretched existence) makes her a little tough to sympathize with as a main character, though Arthur can also be stubbornly obtuse and close-lipped. Still, they manage to grow, if unevenly, to confront the challenges placed before them. A few threads feel unresolved by the ending, though overall it's a satisfying and cathartic conclusion.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Witches of Lychford (Paul Cornell) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
Gallant (V. E. Schwab) - My Review