Harrow is a delight to me.  Hardly a one-trick pony, she has gifted me (representative of all her readers…) a charming fractured fairy tale, a hefty treatise on women empowerment, and now this one - a horror tale, which I equally loved.

Opal and her brother live in a motel, rent-free because of a bet their long-dead mother made with the owner…or so they thought.  Like much of their lives, this was just one of many reveals they experienced after Opal met Arthur.  Opal is not a beautiful charming girl; rather a prickly, sarcastic, foul-mouthed, devious thief.  Her only goal in life is to provide a better life for her younger brother and get him out of the hellhole that is Eden, Kentucky.  To that end, Opal will do just about anything; but she never, in a million years, thought that she'd live in the broken-down, possibly haunted Starling House.  But there she is, housekeeper to Arthur Starling; cleaning years worth of detritus and filth from a House that is, in turn, grateful and sometimes vindictive.  Eventually, Opal and the House reach an accord; maybe even affection.  Arthur is actually the bigger puzzle.

Opal begins to believe that all the hard and bad luck the town has endured over generations - many, many deaths, injuries and disappearances - may be due to the Starling House.  But then she realizes it isn't that simple; neither the House nor Arthur Starling bear any ill-will towards the town…so, it must be something else.

As Opal gets closer to the truth, so does the sinister lawyer working for the hated Gravely family.  The Gravelys practically own the town although they seldom spend more than a day in the town - as if they know bad things happen to their family if they stay too long. But as Opal digs deeper into the town's history, it's apparent that the Starlings and the Gravelys have much history together. 

While Arthur sees himself as the last bastion against the evil and is determined it shall end with him and not another generation will suffer; the Gravelys see the evil as a potential profit-maker.  The last Gravely is intent on puzzling out the mystery of the house and then owning it.  What he doesn't expect is that the evil has a very personal reason to want to destroy both him and the town.

When Opal understands that, she realizes she can no longer pretend nothing matters; she has friends in the town, people who care about her and her brother.  She'll also have to admit that she cares about someone, too; Arthur.  But she can't be sure whether Arthur is a shining Knight or the gateway for the evil.

This is a magnificent mystery and horror story. Opal neither knew nor cared about her family's history; she lived only in the moment.  So we had a lot of fun watching her learn who her mother was and what she did.  We learned, when Opal did, just who Opal was and what that meant to the town and Starling House.  It was also fun learning about the House and why it was as it was and what motivated Arthur…and all the caretakers before him. 

The world-building was rich; the characters flawed and so very interesting.  The horror was not visceral, which might be tame for dedicated horror aficionados; but just right for me.  I was appropriately appalled and horrified on Opal's behalf as she put herself in harms's way.  And while the ending was a bit gentle after the conflict was resolved, it felt right.  Another hooray for Harrow; I can hardly wait to see what she'll do next.  ~~ Catherine Book

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