Starling House by Alix E. Harrow: A Sentimental House in a World of Mist Beasts

In this episode of Worlds Within, we explore the gothic atmosphere and living setting of Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. The house comes to you in a dream and what's beneath its foundation is beyond your wildest imagination. Perfect for fans of modern gothic, Southern settings, and stories where place is power.

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Hosted by Alyssa Curtis & Ash Christine. Theme song by Magiksolo. Recording studio provided by Garden Groove 

Until next time, keep wandering - we'll see you in the next world!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Worlds Within, where story becomes space. We're your hosts, Alyssa and Ash, and every episode we explore fictional worlds that don't just live on the page, they pull you in, build themselves around you, and let you wander through them. This is a podcast for readers who don't just love books, they live in them. We dive deep into sensory storytelling, character perspectives, and the world-building mechanics that turn fiction into a fully immersive experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

All right, folks. Welcome to episode two of our behind closed doors season. Are you ready? So ready. Okay. Lock the gate and stash your keys somewhere safe because someone is looking for them. We're stepping into Starling House by Alex E. Harrow today.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Keeping with our episode structure, we begin with a plot teaser. Our tea today is a poor girl's London fog. So we have Earl Grey tea, a little vanilla syrup, and some milk in our cups. And uh the fog and mist in this book are of great importance. So this is a nod to that aspect of the story.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, I don't have a milk frother uh or steamer to bring to the studio. So that's why it's I guess a poor girl's I guess I could have brought my little zhuzher. It's not it's not the same as like a nice London. Let me, don't get me wrong. This is delicious. Oh, this is great, but not quite like a latte, a London fog tea latte. Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Can you tell that we were both baristas at some point in our life, and so therefore are a little bit bougie.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

And you know what? It's hard to find a a coffee shop that makes a really good London fog these days. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Maybe maybe you can come over. Maybe you can come over and we'll use my my espresso fancy espresso machine.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, see, I got one without the the froth. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I'll come over. Herd and cats here, herd and cats. All right. So let's get into the synopsis. 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 19th 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.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

This is perfect for this season. It really is. Okay, so this was not on my TBR at all, which I'm shocked because it's a freaking bird in the title.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Welcome to Birds Within.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Welcome to Birds Within. But I have seen other Alex E. Harrow books pop up on lists, and maybe I just overlooked this one for whatever reason. Um, if I was like building an October TBR, this would have been on it. Like spooky season for sure. But I haven't read any of Harrow's work before, and this was honestly a really great introduction.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

So again, this one wasn't specifically on my list. Um, like it's, I mean, I like it's been adjacent to because um it's very similar to another book that or like thematically, yeah, that we're reading later. Um, and so it was like, oh, you bought this, so you might be interested in this. Um, but I also um, so we are local in Nashville and um we have a McKay's. If you are unfamiliar, it's a big used bookstore and it's giant and I love it. Um but I had like when we first started this podcast, I had gone and like just bought a bunch of cheaper books, like just to kind of get a sense of like what's what are other options that we could possibly pursue. And I had purchased, and I now that I now the name escapes me, but there was a book from Harrow that I was like, ooh, this might be good for, and it was for a different season. So um it I was interested in in that synopsis and in the like the brief like chapter that I read. So um was very excited to read this one when we brought it up because I was like, ooh, I'm excited to to give that author a try.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Nice. I think first impressions overall, I liked the book. I liked it quite a bit. Um the beginning was a little bit slow for me, I will say, but about like 30% of the way in, it picked up and I was much more interested. I liked the interjection of this is not the story of Starling House. And it reminded me of um Emily Wilde's book three Compendium of Lost Tales. And I love how that theme was bookended by the true story of Starling House. I grew to love the house itself as a character, not just what it represented and the connection to the underland. I like the idea of found family, of house versus home, I thought was a really interesting theme here and the lengths we go to for the people we love. Um, and it hints at the origin of starlings as we know them in the states, which are technically a very successful invasive species of bird that was brought here from Europe in like the 1890s because some guy was like, This land should have every bird that's mentioned in Shakespeare. So he brought European starlings to the states, um, I believe in Central Park, and then they just proliferated. Um, and they will hoard your bird feeders. Sorry. Okay, I'm waxing on birds.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

I think we just need to do like a social media series where you talk about all of your birds.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Stop it.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I'm in. Okay, your first impression. So I agree. It started a little slow. Yeah. Um, like, cause at one point I was like, I like I checked it. The downside of reading on your Kindle versus on like in a paper book is you like don't really have a concept of where you are. I mean, you don't do the percentage. No, I mean I have to look, I have to look for it. Oh. Like I did I can't race yourself. No, I don't race myself. No. Not in that such an area. Sub in other things, yes, but not.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Oh, there's only an hour left in this book. Let me see how quickly I can get it done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Okay. I also don't trust that because like it tells me I have an hour left, and then I'm like, and then I finish the whole book in an hour. And I'm like, okay, well it's based on your average.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Anyway, it was slow for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

It the first part was slow, and I kept like I would like check like where I was page-wise, and I'm like, I feel like I've read more pages than this. Yeah. And I feel like I've got a lot of I've got a lot of things being given to me, and I'm juggling them, but I don't know what to do with them. Like you're giving me pieces of a recipe, but you haven't given me the recipe yet. So I can't even start mixing things.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

It's almost like the technical challenge.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yes, it is like a technical challenge.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Oh, there's a bake-off reference for y'all.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Oh, that's a great bake-off reference. I love bake-off. But then at one point, I I was probably like 45% of the way in. And like things really started getting there. And I I even texted you, I was like, I have to stop now.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Cause you were just getting nervous about every bump in your house.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

But well, because so much was going on in the book, and I was I was home alone and I was like, I can't, I'm actually scared. I was like, I I actually need my mind is is racing. I I I kid you not, I checked my locks on my front and back door and the one on our garage door, which doesn't really do anything, no less than six times.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

What's also funny is the morning that she texted me where she was at in the book and and her feelings about it was also like one of the densest fog days we've had in Nashville in a while. So wild. And fog and mist are so central to the like this the eeriness of this book and the danger of this book. So it was like, oh, that's really um, really on brand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And then and then then the next day, I was oh yeah, I was moving my uh my work was moving offices and I get to the new office to like unload my stuff into my into my new space. And the the trees behind our office building are full of starlings because there are again invasive species. There are successful, they're very successful here in Middle Tennessee. Everywhere. And they're the worst. Uh they just started going nuts. And I was like, I texted her, I was like, I can't, I can't. They're going nuts. I'm haunted. I'm haunted.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Uh all right, let's talk about the world a little bit. The first thing is um we are in a town of Eden, Kentucky, which is a fictional town, but it is based in reality of the coal mining town of Paradise, Kentucky. Uh, this Eden does have a fantastical spin to it, but it is grounded in the story of Paradise, Kentucky. And Harrow adds in themes of and nods to stories and experiences that ring true to kind of any coal mining town in Kentucky or in Appalachia. It is a place that is so bruised and battered by greed and the consequences of coal. Uh, in Eden, our fictional town, the Graveley family owns the coal plant and pretty much everything else in this town. They are not very well liked. They stay, they come and visit maybe for a day and then they ski daddle. Um, but they are trying to buy the starling house and uh they're stopping at nothing to get it. But we've driven through towns like this in the southeast constantly.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I'm pretty sure I've driven through paradise, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Where it's just like a few stores and a stoplight, and it's it's not flourishing anymore. It's a town that is stuck because in Eden, the coal mine has closed. Um, there's a coal plant, but that is polluting the water. There's a fly ash pond that is just making people sick. Like it's this town is dying. This town is decaying, and there's nothing really that the people feel like they can do about it. I did think in Eden that the modern modern day um references or in this book were really refreshing because we've read a lot of books where the time period is maybe confusing, or it's very old. But this was like, hey, there's two dollar generals. I work at Tractor Supply, there's a waffle house that doubles as a Greyhound station. And um, there was even a reference to Little Shop of Horrors, and like the honeysuckle is just one song from one song away from being fed or something. Uh and I loved it. And that Opal here uses the internet, which is great. Like she actually does her research on the house, which is incredible. Um just the modern day references.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

They use specific dates too. Like you know exactly when this is happening. Um, because like you're you're given true dates of birth. And you know, uh, this this event happened on this date in 2007. Yep. And I'm like, oh, okay, I know where I was on that. Like, I know what I was doing on that date in 2007. I was not quite, I was not yet south of the Mason Dixon in 2007. Not at all. So not at all. Um, it is it is very rooted. And where last season I had issues with the blending of reality and uh the fantasy in like from the historical component, I'm like, oh yeah, no, I can definitely see a Waffle House and these beasts from another realm.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

My first speaking of Waffle House, when they first said, like, oh, you could go buy a Greyhound ticket at the Waffle House, I highlighted it and I was like, you can do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

I've never bought a been able to buy a Greyhound ticket.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

But this is just true for Eden. I don't think it's true for everywhere. Um, I've never bought a bus ticket at a Waffle House, but that would be pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

To be fair, I've never bought a bus ticket. So not like a Greyhound type bus ticket. Yeah, I guess not. Like a city bus ticket. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

But not a great cross country. Got it. Um, but all of this makes Eden feel really true and real and current. We're not like wandering through some unknown fictional continent or land in an unknown time period. Um, we know what this place looks like. And I really love in the in the after kind of the acknowledgments and all everything after the actual book ends. Harrow writes about Paradise, Kentucky and the story of Paradise and even weaves in like John Prine, who I've seen perform at the Ryman here uh prior to his passing, although the Ryman could be haunted, so he could still be performing there, his ghost. Um and so it was nice to have all of those real elements to this book before we get into like the fantasy of it all.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, I I like she with Alex describes the like the um, and you have it, you have it noted as well, but like the honeysuckle and the kudzu. Like kudzu? Oh yeah, like knotted, knotted kudzu on a riverbank or anywhere. Side of a highway. Yeah, like I I know exact I've driven again to your point, I've driven past that, I've seen that. I'm like, I am very much much like last episode with like New Orleans, I am feeling that because I have actual tactile real world experience that I'm like, I don't need a lot to get a big picture. Yep. But anytime you give me a lot of information, none of it takes away and I'm like, and none of it takes me out because I'm like, yep, I oh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. And there I'm like I'm wherever you wanted me.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Um kudzu also invasive, also invasive. Um so that's kind of that is where we are at. Um, but central to this story is Starling House itself. And this was my favorite character. This is a sentient and sentimental house. It, oh man, it appears behind like all of the briars and trees, and Opal is really drawn to it, but it has an iron gate with teeth, and um, they describe the driveway as like a long red lick of drive. It has limestone walls cross-hatched by honeysuckle and greenbriar, uh, the floorboards creak and wail, a petulant door slams somewhere in a distant hall. Like this house is alive, and that was so cool and fun to read.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, and it's not just personified in the way that like the wind howled. Yeah. It's it truly is has feelings. It has feelings and it like it loves Opal and it like it wants to make her happy. Because at one point, Arthur describes how he doesn't think Opal realizes that the sunshine follows her from room to room to make sure that she's cozy. And I was just like, oh, I know that's so sweet. Like it loves her, it like wants and and truly it loves all of and I don't know if I'm putting the cart before the horse, but like it loves all of its wardens because it chooses them because it is lonely and it wants to find lonely people to like be less lonely together.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

It's so good. It also moves its stairwells to like fit where Opal wants to go, but at one point like prevents her from getting to Arthur's room. Um but she even says, like, I'm lost in a clever maze of this house. It it changes its halls and everything. Um, I loved that they say, or Opal says, like, I thought it wasn't connected to like the electrical grid, and Arthur's like, it's not, like it just appeared one day.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Like the lights one day there was just light switches on it.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Right. And then plumbing, like all that just appeared, like the house manifested and created it for itself. Um the gates come into play quite a bit here. And the gates are often described uh throughout the book as it has beasts with clawed feet, scaled backs, and mouths full of teeth, and it is locked rudely with a huge padlock that you need a gate key for or to have the right blood.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Which felt comical to me. The the size that they just like that the padlock is described as. It's like this feels like like a wily coyote cartoon. Like or some just comically large. Yeah, like who needs that? Yeah. Why, why are we, why are we the way that we are?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, yeah. Um, and like you said, the the house itself chooses its warden. Um, it wants somebody to keep the house, right? But also wants to provide a home for its warden. And it chooses that person or those people before they've even seen the house, which I thought was fascinating. Um, you get it in the synopsis. Opal talks about having dreams of a house that she's never seen before, never been to before. And that rings true throughout all of the wardens who have been chosen by the house. They dream of it before they find it. And then once they do, they take care of the house, they change their name to Starling, like they become interconnected with the story.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah. I and it's again, it comes from that care of like wanting to give a home and to give like companionship to like people who are lost and alone and homeless. Um, which is just so sweet.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Um, in our story here, Opal becomes a housekeeper for Arthur and starts to take care of the house. And Arthur has kind of let the house itself fall into disrepair. He is preoccupied with um other things, which we'll talk about. But she cleans and repairs the house and forms a relationship, um, not just with the house, but with Arthur himself. And she feels a sense of duty and responsibility towards the house and everything it stands for. We learn that it had claimed her long before that, not long before she claims it. Um quote here the house seems to appreciate all of the attention, the way the walls feel like cupped palms around me, the way the doorknob fits in my hand, the absurd childish feeling that I belong there. Just that connection that she forms with this sentient and sentimental home and claims it as home for her.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah. I you love, I do, I do love. I love the because there's just there's nothing like feeling like your home, like in a in in your cozy and like that warmth that you get, and to like have gone 20-something years without feeling that, and then to like find it, that's just gotta be the best feeling.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Um another piece of this book or the world building is the stories. Uh, like we mentioned early on, we we get interjections of this is not the story of Starling House, and it is a history of from one viewpoint, which I thought was really fascinating in a way to give us more historical context, not just of Eden, but of the house itself and like the lore around it. Uh, we get bits and pieces through those viewpoints. Um, but it helps the world building for me quite a bit, and it all culminates in that ending story by E Starling herself.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

What's what I think thought was really well like was wonderful about it was one, it felt very much like the story of the blind mice and the elephant, where they're like, it's a rope because I'm because it's on the tail, and then somebody's on the it's tree because they're climbing up the legs. And like how all of them were wrong, but they were all experiencing the same thing. But also like none of the stories were necessarily wrong. They were, as you said, told from different viewpoints, and like the importance of like a story can be true and it can be incomplete, and like that there can be many true sides to the story. Um and I just think that this was so beautifully told in that manner that like we see and and also just folklore in general. Like there are so many stories that transcend like across the globe that like how many flood stories do different cultures have? So we all have the same experience, but but we've experienced it just a little bit differently. And so we've told this story a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

It's almost like a game of telephone, yeah, right, where it's changes as it continues to be passed from person to person until you get to the source. And once we get to the source of Starling House um in the underland by Eleanor, you learn how tragic the story of Starling House truly is. She, Eleanor was a young woman who was taken advantage of because of what she was given and what she possessed, which was like the heir and rights to her husband's fortune. Um and she was taken advantage of by her uncle and married him out of her consent. And the town thought ill of her, and she just felt so alone and so hurt by everything that she had experienced. And she found safety in in the world that she created uh and a vow for vengeance that drives a lot of the story forward here as we get to the more fantasy part of things. So there's this place underneath the house called Well, you enter this place through underneath the house or you enter it through the mine. But yes, okay, let's Talk about the underland and the missed beasts. I thought this was really interesting, but a little confusing. Okay. A little confusing for me. Like there is a cellar underneath Starling House that has like a chained door. Don't go in there. Can't get in there. It's blocking stuff. Don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Key doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Key doesn't exist. It's not buried under the sycamore tree. Like I thought it would be. You gotta befriend the beasts. What does that mean? What does that mean? All I kept thinking of was um, have you seen K-pop demon hunters?

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

There's a cat that they call Derpy. Like that's what that's what I picture as the beast. The Arthur, the big tiger thing. Um okay, so you can get to it under the house or you can get to it through the mineshaft, but it's actually a river that you have to drink from to go into the underland. Opal gets to the river. How does she know to drink the water? Why would you why would you do that? Well, so it's such a risk. She sees floating bodies and then she's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna drink this water. She even says, um, da da da da. She punched, I punched my fist into the river. The water splashes into my face, runs into my mouth. It tastes wrong, sweet, rich, and metal, like honey and blood. I swallow reflexively, and the river leaves an oily trail down my throat. If that happened to me, I'm not drinking more of that water.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Are you kidding me? Well, I think we see enough, like she pulls like uh she pulls the Ovid early on in the book, and like she sees the references of is there a sixth river? And she's like thinking through the rivers of the underworld. Right. And so like I think it made sense that we were getting to a river. I as like maybe as a reader, but as opal. I don't know. I don't know. I I I don't because I have so many questions. I mean, I get it. But like to I guess to me, if I'm like, oh yeah, no, if I'm thinking there's a sixth river, this has to be a river of something.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

And obviously, if Eleanor is down there, she's preserved for some level or degree. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

I hear the questioning in your voice.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

So, like, and I don't know, I guess it it's not specifically said that like when she swallows that first reflexive bit, like, does she start to feel sleepy? But like she drinks and drinks, yeah, and then she Yeah, enters a land of slumber. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Um What is it like to return to your body in this situation? We don't get that. Is Eleanor's body still there? Does it like decay into a corpse? What happens? I have so many questions about this. But the underland, we come to find out, is um a world of Eleanor, who was E Starling's creation.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Norally.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

And it is a dreamland, but also kind of like a nightmare land. It reminded me quite a bit of the upside down and stranger things. Like the house is there, but it's not quite the house. Um, and then Eleanor is dreaming or creating all of these beasts to protect her and her house that then rise with the mist on the river and become mystical, dangerous creatures. IRL in Eden.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

But no one can see them. No one can see them. They can only be impacted by them.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yes. And they particularly go after the Graveleys.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yes. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I this makes Eleanor Vecna.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

It does make Eleanor Vecna. Um I I didn't feel it was like the upside down. I felt honestly, it felt more a little bit more matrix-y.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Because like in in the scene where Eleanor and Umpal are not fighting, but like kind of going at it, and they're like moving through the house and like changing, yeah. Like it becomes that mind game. Yeah. And I thought that that was so cool. That was really well done. Um, because it becomes a battle of wills at that point.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

And I love the message of the like mind over matter that like Opal pictures her safest place in the house, and that's the next room that she walks into. It's the library with the cushy couch and everything.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yes. And it's like it starts as Eleanor's version, and then she brings it back to her version of where the like the wallpaper's peeling and there's like some cracks, and like, but she's like, but this is it. This is what it is. Like, it's not yours anymore. You've lost like it's mine now. Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

The house claimed me.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And she like takes I I thought that that whole dream bit was, I thought it was really cool. Like, questions aside, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah. I also really liked that as Opal is taking claim of the house and of the underland, right? To like cease Eleanor's Mist Beast's creation. She also is um treating Eleanor with care of like, you are safe now. There's no need for this. Like you can you can pass over now. It's all good. I promise I'll take care of the house. Like your name is on a plaque outside of these gates. Like you are not forgotten and you are honored, and just handled with such tender empathy for Eleanor, which I really appreciated in that scene too.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, she's never at no point is she like, you're the bad guy, right? I'm gonna defeat you. Right. She's like, let's heal this together.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Yeah, yeah. Uh, really loved. Um, I did like the missed beasts, but up and I mean, I liked them all throughout, but up until Opal goes to the underland to like find where Arthur is and figure out the true meaning of this of the Starling House, we see that Arthur has a sense of duty to protect Eden and slay these beasts and prevent them from escaping the gates. And we get all of these scenes. Um, the story is written or the book is written in Opal first person and then interjected with third person point of view about Arthur and like what he's experiencing and how tired he is. He has taken up the sword of this house, a truly a sword, and taken ownership and duty to protect Eden and protect the house by fighting these beasts night after night after night after night. And he is just racked with this sense of guilt and shame anytime he fails. Um, at one point, Arthur he goes away to to like boarding school or to high school and leaves his parents, who were the current wardens of the Starling House at that time and returns and they have passed because the beasts got them. And he's like, I let them down. I let the people who love me most down, and I cannot let that happen again. And so he takes up the sword, he becomes the warden of the Starling House by choice, not by birthright. Birthright. Arthur's so interesting of a character.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah. I I liked the beasts, like I liked the descriptions of the beasts. I I thought that so obviously up until the point where we actually get to the underline, I was like expecting it to be like some kind of alternate reality.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Right. And that these things were escaping through some kind of portal.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Right. And very like end of dark fever.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

They're coming through the gate of hell.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Yeah. So like that's kind of where I thought they were. And I, but I I almost like them more, knowing that they are a manifestation of the mind, because again, like mind over matter, like the idea that with the right conditions, like your mind can be dangerous, so dangerous and such an effective weapon.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah. And the way they're described in those interjections of this is not the story of Starling House, they're referenced as like, oh yeah, we heard the Starlings kept like white tigers, and somebody said, Oh no, I thought they were just like big white wolves. Like nobody quite knows what they were. Turns out they're all of those. Um, and when we put those pieces together, it's like, oh, that's what like people were sort of seeing in the mist around Starling House was really, really great. Um, there's so much good sensory immersion in this book, too. A couple of my favorite poll quotes are uh Opal is describing uh one of her coworkers at Tractor Supply. And she said, Lacey Matthews, the human equivalent of unsalted butter. That made me literally laugh out loud because I was like, what a perfect way to describe that type of person.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah, and unsalted butter has no business anywhere in my life. I don't care if the recipe calls for unsalted butter. I'm using salted butter, and you can ream me for that if you want.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

His palm felt like a fresh peeled boiled egg. Ew.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

Love. Love.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, this again, like because I think because it's set in the modern world, like we get we get some some good stuff. Uh the heir to Starling House doesn't look like a rich recluse or murderer. He looks like an underfed crow wearing a button-up that doesn't quite fit. His whole shoulders hunched against the seams, his face is all hard angles and sullen bones split by a beak of a nose, and his hair is a tattered wing, an inch shy of becoming a mullet.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

And his eyes are the starless black of caves. Which brought me back to um Court of Winter when Alara first goes into the cave, which was my portal moment, and seeing like all the glitteringness of it all, I was like, oh, here's the contrast.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

But also like going back to your bird nerd and the fact that like the beak of a nose and the wing of hair that's an inch child becoming from Emily Wilde wrapped in his little raven.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

He's the bow truckle. Um, I was watching a lot of Stranger Things at the time of reading this. And so in my mind, like as I'm trying to picture what does Arthur look like, I picture the grown-up Finn Wolfhard who plays Mike in Stranger Things, or the musical artist Somber, who have that bone structure, who have that like gawky linkiness to them, who aren't, who aren't traditionally um thought of as like beautiful, right? Like they are, they are all sharp angles at a beak of a nose and a wing of hair. Like that's who they are. And that's how I pictured Arthur throughout this book.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah. Um, and I love that both of them are described as not attractive. Right. Like, which is so like refreshing, so refreshing and so not the norm. Like you expect the heroine to be beautiful or at least like passably attractive. And like she really just crooked teeth. Right. Like what do they say?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Hold on, a freckled scarecrow of a girl.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah. Like just so again, so grounding and so real and and so appropriate to the area that they're from.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah. To bring it back to Stranger Things. This is uh Max in season five of Stranger Things for sure. Like this is Sadie Sink. Like in my mind, that's all I would picture.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Um, who I really loved. Going back to Arthur and kind of the emotional weight that his character brings to this book, uh, which really adds to the world and the immersion for me, is his guilt over his parents and then also like the role that he played in Opal's mother's death, um, or the lack of action that he took and that contributed to it. Um, he he takes up so much of this shame and guilt that he vows to be the last warden of Starling House to figure it out to fully end the beasts and like save Eden and also let himself go in the process. And I thought it was so tragically beautiful in the same way that I find Eleanor's story. If there's like he is consumed by these feelings and by the replaying of all of these events, and the only way out he can see is to be to no longer be here. And Opal's like, screw that, dude.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

No, well, and like there's like there's levels of like perseverance and determination, right? Like there, you have Opal who is just she is driven and she is determined, but in a very positive way of like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get you out of here because it's for the it's the best for you because you know you're my brother and you deserve better than this. And the positive TM, very, very eldest daughter TM. Um, but also like just driven to like I can do this in very positive words. He's like, I have to do this because I have to be the final. I have to be the last.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

That reluctance there.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

And like that resignation of I'm gonna do this as long as I have to, and then once I don't have to, I will, I will sleep, kind of deal. Yeah. And I just think that so often we don't talk about that second type of perseverance. And we get a little bit of that when like back in season one with Nettle and Bone of Mara of like, well, no one else is gonna do it. I guess I guess I have to, even though I don't think I can.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

You gotta go kill this guy.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Um, but then like here again, it is like a it's a bleaker perseverance, and I just think that that's it's it's bittersweet and sad and also like more impressive because like anybody with a can-do attitude can do it, but like to do it in spite of your attitude, I think is again really just touching.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah. But Arthur's a really good character. Yeah, he's really complex. Um, even written in the third person, make like the complexity is present. We're not getting a lot of his interior thoughts the way we are with Opal written in the first person, but he's the complexity is not lost. Speaking more about Opal, she also carries guilt with her for surviving that car crash that killed her mother. Um, and this this sense of responsibility for caring for her brother. There's a 10-year age gap, I believe, between Jasper and Opal. I will say Opal read much younger to me than 25, 26. Which makes sense. It does, like living in poverty and having to kind of grow up on your own.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Dropping out of high school. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

And often when a very traumatic event happens, a lot of your um your growth and maturity kind of pauses in that time, um, without some pretty serious trauma therapy. But uh, she lives in poverty with her younger brother at the Garden of Eden motel, um, with a a surly kind of motel owner in Bev who does look out for her. Um, and she's got that that that guilt that carries her with her. She carries with her throughout the whole story. And we get these almost like PTSD style flashbacks every time she thinks about the river or her mother or the feeling of surviving and how she didn't really wish to. She she let her mom go.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Which like that that was one thing that I was like, I don't not that I didn't, I mean I didn't like it. But she when she finally realizes that Arthur pulled her out, yeah, she had given up and she was gonna die with her mom by choice, not because she was stuck. She chose to stay. And I'm like, how is it that you went from I'm going to die with my mother to I'm gonna give up everything to protect my baby brother? And like some people say, or like some people characters in the book say, like, you could have just let him go to the state. Yeah, like there are plenty of people that would have taken him, even like in Eden, he has that friend, that family that takes in fosters, yeah, and they would have taken him probably like yeah, he could have gone anywhere. Yeah, and he probably I mean, you don't know, but he had a potential for a much more stable existence than what you gave him in a motel. Exactly. And so it's like, how do you go from I and honestly, it does boil down to she's like, I could have, but I didn't want to. Like, I wanted to keep you, I wanted, like I couldn't let you go. So it's like it's a selfish thing. But I'm like, but but you were gonna just die, and then that all would have happened to him anyway. You would have left.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

As I wrote, she's a flawed but capable character. Um I liked Opal. I liked her attitude, I liked the texture that she brought. I like the descriptions of Opal and I liked um her story arc. We always knew Opal would be very capable of taking on Starling House and confronting whatever was underneath. Um, even if she had to pick up the sword, she was like, I don't know how to fight with a sword. Like, this is modern day. This is not like medieval times where everybody could fight with the sword, right? Or like suddenly she's magical and able. Like, no, she's like, I don't know how to do this. Like, this feels really heavy and awkward in my hand, but I'll do it because I have to.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yeah. And I'll do it because I can. And that's why when she first, before she even is actually the warden, when she like saves Arthur from the one, she doesn't kill it with a sword. She stabs a key in its eye.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

I know you're alluding to my portal moment. I'm so sorry. But we could go there unless you have anything else to say about the world of Starling House.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

I mean, I have a lot to say, but go far. Also, not a lot to say. Like then don't. No, I I mean, I just think that I I will I'll just I'll wrap it up with I really, really I really, really enjoyed reading it because it felt so real. As I said in the beginning, I could not finish reading one night because I was home alone and it felt I was I was too scared. And as a person who very much believes in ghosts and grew up in a haunted house, there is a difference between a sentient house and a haunted house.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah, we learned in Phantasma what a haunted house is.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

However, there were definitely moments that felt like the sentient house was haunted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

And particularly in Arthur's tellings, right? Of like the scaled creature that he had to kill in the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah, because of freaking Eleanor.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Yeah, freaking Eleanor.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

I guess technically Eleanor is haunting the house.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

She is. So okay. I suppose the house itself becomes sentient because the wisteria that wraps around the house is growing and reaching into the river. The river that they have drunk out of to get into the underland. Like that, I loved the interconnection. Yeah of like, here's what this river can do, even though I find the river a little bit confusing. It brought the house to life. Yeah. And it is the the um the it's great. All my words have left.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

It also makes it. I think she comments at one point, she's like, I don't understand why how the wisteria is growing here. And then she's like, Oh, it's because the river's under the house.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Drinking this water.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Um, it's great. Okay. I I just want this house. I'm gonna be honest.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

But no missed beasts.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

But no missed beasts.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Okay. Let's get to our portal moments. Um, at the end of every episode, we talk about where the story felt the biggest, where we felt the most immersed, and you alluded to mine, which is when Opal first sees the beast after coming back to the house and finding Arthur fighting them. And the way the description of this beast is written, I was like, oh, that's so scary. Its body the color of mist, its eyes the color of midnight, far worse than any of my nightmares or daydreams. It's as if someone had given a child a piece of white chalk and told her to draw a wolf. And you know, like when kids try to draw something, you're like, are you sure that's a wolf? But it is horrifying in this way. And she describes like when it walks, the grass dies beneath its feet and it latches on to um to opal. And the only means of defense she has is the gate key that she stabs in its eye three times. And ladies, am I right? We carry our keys between our fingers for this reason to kill mist beasts. But it ends, like that scene ends with her saying, I am not okay. I am not okay. Like this is not a heroine that is like, and I'm stronger for it, and I'm badass, and yada. She's like, I am not doing well, y'all. Like, I'm not okay. I just found out like my true family name. I just fought an imaginary creature with a magic sword and these keys. And I am very close to acting on these very confusing feelings for Arthur. Like, I'm not okay. And I was like, Same, I also would not be in my right mind in that situation. But that scene, it's almost a scene within a scene, felt so big to me. Oh, I loved it. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 43:58

So honestly. This whole book from like the vibe standpoint, obviously, like I was like, what's on my front porch? Absolutely nothing. Or the Amazon delivery person. Like everything's fine, right? But so I I definitely felt this book a lot. Um I will say, and I think you you know this. Um, so when I was younger, I also almost drowned. And um uh several times actually. Probably shouldn't have let me in your water. Um, but then we moved to the beach. And like I I don't know if you remember, but when I first lived there, like I couldn't go in the water. Like once the water hit like my belly button or my breastbone, yeah, I couldn't go any deeper because I would start to hyperventilate. Because the idea of the water getting that close, I could feel it crushing my chest. I could feel the the air like sucking out of my body, and it was terrifying. And so that obviously I did not have to overcome this for like any mystical or like life-changing reason. I just you're crowboy. I just did it because I lived at the beach, and you know, now I'm not gonna talk about how many years later, I can I can go in the water and I can like I can go under for a little bit and it's fine. Um, and I've learned to swim. So thank goodness. You can learn even later in life, guys.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

So thanks for telling us what's your portal moment?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Oh, yeah. Sorry. So my portal moment, um, whenever she talks about the the trauma of like being in the car when it goes under the water, and then like the the classic PTSD, and she talks about like the feeling of that panic when she's in the water. And so then specific like all of those were like a little harrowing, but when she goes into the water to go to the mineshaft and she's like she squashes the panic and she like breaks through it. I very much understand how that feels from the like again, I didn't have to do it for any save the world, like save the world reason. But the the idea of like breaking through your fears in that way, and again, I think that goes into the the theme that I've kind of picked up through all of this is the mind over matter that like at some point you can break through those traumas and like it's scary, but you do it and then like you're better for it, and like you still like she still feels the panic. Yeah, it's not an easy as simple as like I'm good, right? It's okay. I have to and I'm going to, and like I can feel both things at the same time. And I just uh kind of again going back to last episode where we talked about like OCD and how that manifests and how that's treated. I thought that this particular aspect of trauma was was really well handled.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

So at that point, I believe it is written either the river or the water wrapped around me as if it was waiting for me.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

And it it's such a haunting way to describe um that sensation. But then also like like you you've said, confronting that fear, like it's as if this was waiting for me.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Yeah, because there's the it's waiting for me to take me down.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

There's the it's waiting for me to come back or to push me through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah. All right. I think that's a wrap on this episode of Worlds Within. Um, before we go, let's give Starling House our immersion rating on a scale of one to ten portals. I'm gonna let you go first.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

So I'm gonna go with an eight. Um, because again, I felt it, obviously. But like to your point, there were a lot of moments where I like one, there were a lot of moments that I had to like suspend some things. But also the thing that I when we didn't even talk about this, but there are many footnotes.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

And they're great, they give such great context to the story, and again, they give that very clear delineating sense of time. But where I really enjoyed last season, Emily Wilde's, it was hey, I have this footnote and I've amended it in the like within the chapter, but at the end of the entry. This was I have to click into it, read it, and then click back out of it. And that took me out because I it like I had to do more to get it. And then I was like, okay, now I have to go back and read, like, all right, so you're this is what you're telling me about what was just said. Okay, now I have to reread what was just said and then keep going.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

So that made it a little bit jarring for me.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Yeah, I totally get that. And all the footnotes were compiled at the end of the book, as opposed to Emily Wilde, where they were at the end of every chapter where they were um included within the the body of the text. Um, I'm gonna go with a seven. Okay. Seven out of ten. I appreciated being grounded in a real but fictional town. I liked the sprinkling in of the fantastical, whimsy, almost horror of it. Um, I think I left with a lot of questions that I wish were explained. And I know that that is probably not a realistic ask. Um, but just felt like I wanted a little bit more from this book than than what I was given. And as far as the immersion, um I don't know that I was as fully immersed as you were in the haunted or sentient house of it all. I really loved it. I loved the house as a character, um, but found myself wanting, like I said, just wanting more, a little bit more from this. So I'm gonna stick with a seven.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

I still think that's a a very it's a high rating. It's a high rating. And I think it's not quicksilver. Y'all, we had we had opinions on quicksilver. Or maybe you don't, but maybe you should. Maybe yeah. Maybe you should. Um, well, thank you for joining us between the winking windows and shifting stairs of Starling House. What stays with you from this story? The Underland, The Beasts in the Mist, or Starling House itself and the feeling of what makes a house a home. Up next, we are sitting on the porch with The Witches of Honeysuckle House by Liz Parker. Until then, close the windows, draw the curtains, and follow us on Instagram and TikTok and let us know where you feel the story became space. Bye. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of Worlds Within, where story becomes space. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at World Within Pod for more episodes, sensory guides to your favorite books, and more.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Bye!