Starlings - by Amanda Linsmeier

About the Book

When seventeen-year-old Kit visits her father's hometown for the first time following his death, she not only discovers that her family is strangely revered among the locals, but that she also has an important role in the town's future.

Book Synopsis

In the wake of her father's death, a teen girl discovers a side of her family she didn't know existed, and is pulled into a dark--and ancient--bargain she is next in line to fulfill. A dark YA fantasy debut perfect for fans of House of Hollow and Small Favors.

Kit's father always told her he had no family, but his sudden death revealed the truth. Now Kit has a grandmother she never knew she had--Agatha Starling--and an invitation to visit her father's hometown, Rosemont.

And Rosemont is picture perfect: the famed eternal roses bloom all year, downtown is straight out of the 1950s . . . there's even a cute guy to show Kit around.

The longer Kit's there, though, the stranger it all feels. The Starling family is revered, but there's something off about how the Starling women seem to be at the center of the all the town's important history. And as welcoming as the locals are, Kit can't shake the feeling that they're hiding something from her.

Agatha is so happy to finally meet her only granddaughter, and the town is truly charming, but Kit can't help wondering, if everything is so great in Rosemont, why did her father leave? And why does it seem like he never wanted her to find it?

Review Quotes

"Like the town of Rosemont itself, outwardly lush and beautiful but steeped in sinister secrets, Linsmeier's Starlings is a deliciously dark fantasy that I devoured in a single day." --Amy Goldsmith, author of Those We Drown

"If you ever wished Stars Hollow had more things that went bump in the night, Starlings is for you! Linsmeier's haunting mystery held me captive, eager to learn all of Rosemont's dark secrets." --Erin A. Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows

"Linsmeier uses a delicate emotional palette to depict her plot, beginning with the subdued gloom and grief surrounding Kit and her mother. The suspense gradually grows to the nail-biting climax, and character development is so nuanced that the reader, like Kit, can't trust anyone. Fans of folk horror will be entranced by this suspenseful novel." --Booklist

"A foreboding, flower-filled, feminist horror story." --Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Amanda Linsmeier has been a book nerd for as long as she can remember, and it was that great love of reading that led her to write her own stories. She lives in a small blue house surrounded by trees and cornfields, with her husband, their three wonderfully wild children, and, somehow, five pets.