Title: Starling House

Author: 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.

Trying to get her and her brother through life, Opal feels the pull to Starling House in Eden, the town she lives in. She decides to give in and go and there she finds the strange, brooding Arthur and the mystery and history of Starling House starts to unravel.

I loved Opal, she was so morally grey but so relatable at the same time. Her love for her brother, Jasper, and the urge for him to succeed was so heartwarming.

Arthur made me want to cuddle him, he had given up everything to end things…until Opal.

It was creepy, dark, gothic, horror lite and full of mystery!

When the story reached its crescendo I read with rapt attention, it was so good! Would totally recommend this for an Autumn/Halloween read!