First published February 15, 2023 (Booklist).
Kingfisher presents a Southern Gothic with a twist, swapping out an isolated mansion for an unassuming tract home in a North Carolina subdivision. When her latest dig gets canceled, Sam, a 32 year-old archaeoentomologist--she studies bugs at archaeological sites– goes to stay with her mom in the home previously occupied by her abusive grandmother an realizes that her mom is acting strangely. She has changed the decor, is acting as if she is under surveillance, and there are vultures surrounding the house. Immediately unsettled, readers will quickly fall into Sam’s conversational narration, as she injects nerdy humor, worries about her mom, and shares facts about bugs, her grandmother’s rose bushes, and more. As each day passes, things get stranger and more dangerous, the unease gives way to palpable fear, and it becomes undeniably clear that something supernatural is at work, and then, the wild and witchy action packed final act is unleashed. For fans of stories that take the haunted house trope, driven by generation trauma, and overlay other occult themes like The Good House by Due and How To Sell a Haunted House by Hendrix.Further Appeal: First, the elephant in the room, when I read this I noticed immediately that the themes and frame were eerily similar to the Hendrix title listed as a readalike in the review above. I read them within weeks of each other so it was very striking to me. Astute readers will notice, one of the titles got a star and the other didn't. Both are very good though.
I like how the book was organized by the days Sam was in the house. Sections were labeled, "The First Day," "The Second Day," and so on. It added to the overall unease of the story because it all manifested for Sam as monotony punctuated by odd occurrences. The tallying of the days was both marking the time slowly and making the reader realize just how quickly it was all spiraling. This may sound confusing, but trust me, when you read it, both feelings exist at the same time.
Sam is hilarious and super nerdy. The choice of her uber specific career and how fascinating it was to learn the things she knows about bugs was cool. It was also an important part of the book because it was her scientific bug knowledge that makes her begin to suspect that something is very wrong.
In fact, every bit of frame added here, not just Sam's job, matters. Especially the vultures. Oh my goodness, the vultures were great. But all of it. Every detail in the setting and background are important and play off. Characters too. No matter how small, they matter.
Three Words That Describe This Book: uneasy, family trauma, filled w/ interesting frame
Further Readalikes: Haunted houses colliding with family trauma are very popular now. More titles to check out include The Spite House by Johnny Compton, Mapping The Interior by Stephen Graham Jones, and The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
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