#BookReview ‘A House With Good Bones’ by T.Kingfisher

About the book…

Dark and twisted family roots threaten to strangle their home’s foundations in this chilling haunted house novel from the award-winning master of modern horror, T. Kingfisher.

Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house.
Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it’s very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won’t hear a word against Sam’s long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small southern town.

The longer Sam stays, the stranger things get. And every day, more vultures circle overhead…
Many thanks to Charlotte at Titan Books for my gifted review copy of one of my most anticipated books of the year, ‘A House With Good Bones’ by T.Kingfisher !!!

I don’t know about you, but if there is a bump in the night, my husband’s mind leaps to ‘burglar’ where my.mind automatically thinks
‘Ghost…poltergeist…vampire scratching at the window begging to be let in, all fans glowing eyes…’

In ‘A House With Good Bones’ Samantha Montgomery (a nod, perhaps, ‘Bewitched’?) finds herself unexpectedly staying in her childhood home with her other whilst an archaeological dig is paused due to finding human remains.
She notices that her mother is not OK, and whilst the reader -me-is screaming ‘IT’S A HAUNTING!’ at the page not recommended in public-she applies her scientific brain to the mysterious lack of bugs in the garden, the hordes of ladybirds which swarmed from the sink in her room, and, most disturbing of all,the presence which strokes her arms in the night and whispers in her ear…

T.Kingfisher press us with an all too rounded protagonist, a woman whose forced return to her grandmother’s house brings up unexpected memories and revetions which edit and re-colour what she believes she experienced.
The legacy handed down from mother to daughter and then granddaughter is beautifully handled. I completely related to Sam’s mum who was worried so much about everything that it tied her in knots.

The creeping sense of dread and danger is superbly detailed as T .Kingfisher tightens the plot to wrap around you like a vice.
You genuinely care what happens to her and her mum whilst rooting dor Sam to be more than friendly with the gardener and, because this is so relatable, they feel like people you could know in the real world.

Hauntings(and I am not saying specifically that it is because,you know, spoilers!) usually happen in old buildings,ones with dark and murky histories and what is so brilliant in this book is the sense that evil can lurk anywhere where people are.
And it can linger….

About the author…
T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children’s books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.
This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.
When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.
Twitter @UrsulaV @TitanBooks