A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

Synopsis: A haunting Southern Gothic from an award-winning master of suspense, A House With Good Bones explores the dark, twisted roots lurking just beneath the veneer of a perfect home and family.

“Mom seems off.”

Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.

She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.

But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.

To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.

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LBPS (Long Blog Post Short): This book was really good. I got to hand it to T. Kingfisher, she really did an excellent job with this novel. I love a good well rounded novel, everything from the characters, the plot, the little science and pop culture tidbits, and down to the vocabulary it was all a literal chefs kiss. It was absolutely delightful to sit for four hours and just enjoy every page of this book. (I have a habit of speed reading when a book pulls me into it.)

While reading this book, it reminded me a little of the one I just read and reviewed, The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates. While certain themes were similar, A House with Good Bones took a lot of the things I wasn’t thrilled about in The Haunting of Ashburn House and shined them up, and put them back out in a way that made sense. The main character Sam was actually really interesting to follow, while some of the more scientific facts and Latin animal/insect names went over my head – it was refreshing because it made me feel like I was more apart of the story, another type of connection in a way. The pacing of the plot made sense, I would say that only about the halfway mark did things really start ramping up in intensity. But never once while waiting for things to pick up was I bored. The author did an excellent job of making each piece of the story very intentional.

I personally have a strong distaste for all bugs, but while some bug moments were ‘creepy’ – it wasn’t anything I had to skip. (I am the person that can’t watch the scenes in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with the spiders, or even Lord of the Rings Return of the King when we finally see Shelob. That’s a big nope.) I will say, that at least the featured bugs weren’t spiders or cockroaches. But I’ll leave you to discover what bugs they end up being. While I can see that maybe the scientific information probably would be over some people’s heads, and may be considered boring, I thought it was really interesting. It was amazing to get a peek into the depth in knowledge there is in the field of entomology.

This book also expanded my vocabulary (I know. Nerdy. I was the kid who read the dictionary just for fun.) There were a couple words I had to look up and man it raises the bar for books I will read in the future. I mean have you ever heard the word – vociferous – used in a sentence? I haven’t, until this book.

Vociferous – /vō-sĭf′ər-əs/ – adjective – Making, given to, or marked by noisy and vehement outcry.

This book contains some generational trauma – but addresses it in a way that makes it therapeutic. I mean, who wouldn’t want to tell their overbearing, racist, body shaming grandparent to go kick rocks? Maybe it’s just me – but the story telling was outstanding, especially for something that is a supernatural horror. There’s always that deeper story to dig into of ‘why’ a place is haunted, cursed, etc. And it’s all too often cobbled together, but in this book each piece fell easily into place. While I pride myself on being able to sort out the ending, I can confidently say this book took my guesses and threw half of them out the window. Which if you can pull the wool over my eyes until the very end, you get all the kudos.

The humor was also top notch, to have a successful horror book you have to balance it with a dab of humor. It makes the dark things darker, and the ‘normal’ moments lighter and lulls you into a sense of false security before something jumps out from the shadows to stroke your hair and call you a ‘Little piggy’. (You’ll have to find out for yourself if this is a spoiler or not.)

I had just stumbled upon this book in my search for the next ‘spooky’ novel to read. I will definitely be looking to read more of this author’s work. This book get’s a less than stellar rating, only because I wish a few more things were fleshed out (no pun intended) in the end. But that’s purely personal and when people have pulled me into their world I want to know -everything- even if it’s not logical. I would say more but…. spoilers.

Thanks for sticking around for another blog post, and if this is your first one, welcome! This is my 10th book review, and I have a very long TBR list…. so look forward to new reviews at least once a week. If you enjoyed reading, please like, share, and follow the blog! You can get emails when a new review is up.

You can view and buy the book on Amazon here.

Overall Rating: 9.5/10

Re-readability Rating: 10/10