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308 pages, Hardcover
First published October 3, 2023
‘This is the first book that I set fully in, like committed to writing about Kentucky…One of the reasons that I had found that difficult to do before is because I find it to be a place of very mixed experiences that I love very, very, very much, and which has just an incredible violence and terror to it.’
‘Because I dreamed of Starling House long before I ever saw it. Because sometimes when the light slants soft through the west windows and turns the dust mots into tiny golden fireflies I like to pretend the house belongs to me, or that I belong to it.’
‘They simply told themselves a different story, one that was easier to believe because they’d heard it before: Once there was a bad woman who ruined a good man. Once there was a witch who cursed a village. Once there was an odd, ugly girl whom everyone hated, because it was safe to hate her.’
“Looking at them felt like stepping into someone else’s skull, someone who knew the same things I knew: that there were sharp teeth behind every smile, and bare bones waiting beneath the pretty skin of the world.”
Oh, and dear Opal, I have a bone to pick with you here.
“The sevens are crossed with old-fashioned lines, the area code bracketed in parentheses.”
Old-fashioned? Old-fashioned? Get off my crossed-sevens lawn, you damn kids.
Eden, Kentucky is a dying town that’s been ravaged by pollution, thanks to the Gravely Power company. The only positive thing springing from Eden has been the legacy of author E. Starling, a reclusive nineteenth century author who left behind a children’s book titled ‘The Underland’ and a sprawling mansion rumoured to be haunted. Today, the only resident of Starling House is the equally mysterious Arthur Starling, whom no one knows anything about but everyone agrees that it is best to stay away from him.
When Opal gets a job offer from Arthur to housekeep Starling House, the salary is good enough for her to fulfil her dreams of sending her intelligent younger brother Jasper away from Eden. But as she cleans up the mysterious mansion, she unearths dangerous secrets from the past and the present. Now it is up to Opal and Arthur to ensure that Starling House doesn’t result in the end of Eden.
The story comes to us in the perspectives of Opal (first person) and Arthur (third person).