Review: A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Sam Montgomery pulls into her mother’s North Carolina Suburb with the knowledge that something is wrong, her brother’s forewarning that “mom seems off” lingering in her mind. When she enters the house her greatest fears are realized. The walls have been repainted, her mother’s signature flair abandoned, and deep in the recesses of the backyard buried in the dirt is a jar full of teeth. Worse, vultures fly overhead circling the property in ever-growing numbers. Her mother is fidgety, worried about something that couldn’t possibly be there, so Sam takes the couch in between her murder mystery binges and cataloging of various insects for her job. But something is entering the house in the night and whispering in Sam’s ear, shattering glasses and pulling down artwork during the daytime. The more strange occurrences she can’t explain, the more frightened her mom gets, until Sam is willing to believe the impossible and dig where she shouldn’t to set things right.

I’ve come to expect the weirdly bizarre and extraordinarily creepy from T. Kingfisher since diving deep into her backlist this previous fall. I read Nettle & Bone, The Hollow Places, and What Moves the Dead all in the span of a week and was left craving more weird stories. With that in mind, A House with Good Bones is the pinnacle of all the bizarre writing T. Kingfisher has achieved so far in her writing career. A chaotic combination of vultures, entomology, enchanted gardens, and one family’s hidden legacy with magic. Through the perspective of Sam Montgomery, an entomologist on leave, Kingfisher entangles the reader in a sinister struggle between the hidden powers below, and an unlikely pairing of people determined to stand their ground. Kingfisher establishes the plot superbly, with a sinister aura that becomes more fully grounded as we learn more about what’s going on in the house and its roots in the family history. It feels very similar to The Hollow Places, with a disquiet shrouded over the minds of all the characters each with their own fragmented understanding of the playing field, none of whom realize what’s truly at stake. Kingfisher does an excellent job untangling her strange web and placing readers directly in the path of her peculiar reality – pulling forth this world that lies above with what has been lying in wait below. It’s oddly fitting that this bizarre underbelly is uncovered by Sam, a scientist with a rational approach to every aspect of her life. Her first thought isn’t that ghosts or magic are responsible for the strange stuff occurring, but that there’s a logical explanation. Sam’s own transformation is surreal in its own way and adds so much to the developing storyline. Honestly, there’s not a thing I didn’t love about this one. T. Kingfisher crafts a suspenseful Southern Gothic horror novel draped in dread, with an underbelly that pricks sharper than any thorn. Whenever I’m yearning for the strange and otherworldly, there’s no doubt that Kingfisher will continue to deliver.

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review

Trigger warning: blood, fatphobia, racism, child abuse

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