Starling House

I dream sometimes about a house I've never seen....

Opal is a lot of things--orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier--but above all, she's determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

All she left behind were dark rumors--and her home. Everyone agrees that it's best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.

I should be scared, but in the dream I don't hesitate.

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House--and make some extra cash for her brother's escape fund--she can't resist.

But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur's own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.

In my dream, I'm home.

And now she'll have to fight.

Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.

Theses book club questions are from the publisher, Macmillan. A full book club kit is available here.

Book club questions for Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

How does Opal define home at the beginning of the novel and in the closing scenes? What would it have taken for the lodgings provided by Bev to feel like a true home?

Despite the wealth gap, what do Opal and Arthur have in common, both in their life stories and in their personalities? How does the balance of power shift between them? What do they ultimately need from each other?

What is the effect of reading the novel through Opal’s first-person eyes, with footnotes written in the voice of a careful researcher? How was the tale transformed when you read it from Eleanor’s point of view in chapter 30? What is Charlotte’s role as a librarian in trying to discern and preserve the truth, despite a multitude of versions of a single story?

What were your initial theories about the creatures haunting Arthur? How did your perception of him change throughout the novel?

As you were reading about Gravely Brothers Coal & Power, what historical truths emerged about the horrors of enslavement and environmental destruction in the American South? What motivated that violence, and what tethers Eden’s residents to this place, despite it?

What tactics does Elizabeth Baine use to manipulate Opal? How are the actions of Innovative Solutions Consulting Group different from Opal’s acts of theft and deception?

How did you react to the artwork that is featured throughout the book? What do the images express that words cannot?

Discuss Opal’s scrubbing and sprucing up of Starling House as a metaphor for other types of restoration and excavation she experiences. What else is recovered besides the beauty of Starling House’s architecture? How much agency does the house itself have?

How do Jasper and Opal’s memories of their mother sustain them, and limit them? What is her legacy, both good and bad? Discuss the many types of parenting performed in the novel.

Eleanor first thought there were cracks between a world of monstrous evil and our world, but eventually came to believe that the beasts were of our own making. What is your understanding of the evil forces that humanity has encountered through history—and the ingenuity of people like Opal who have conquered them?

How does Opal navigate her dream worlds? What strengths and fears are revealed when she sleeps?

Starling House has a vast library filled with books on folklore, mythology, and history. How do those books suggest the larger history of the Underland and the communities that encountered it?

Starling House Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Starling House discussion questions