T. Kingfisher has a knack for taking the most innocent of things (rabbits, tree branches bumping windows, a still & quiet room) and making them horrifying. After reading A House With Good Bones, I may never look at roses the same way again. But let me start from the beginning.
Sam is archaeoentomologist, a researcher who studies insect remains at archaeological digs. She had been set to go on a six month dig when it was postponed at the last minute. But her room has already been sublet, and she has no idea when the dig might be back on, so her best option is to stay with her mother for a while, until the situation resolves. Sam’s brother had warned her that something was off with their mom Edith, but nothing could have prepared Sam for the reality of the situation: her mother has lost a scary amount of weight, she’s strangely nervous and jumpy, the once-colorful home has been painted all white, and there is Confederate art up on the walls (and her mother is NOT one to tolerate Lost Cause B.S.). Not to mention all the vultures hanging around, or the mysterious lack of bugs in the garden.
As the visit goes on, Sam notices that the strangeness seems to center around her deceased grandmother, Gran Mae. Edith won’t hear a bad word about her, and yet Sam keeps finding out more odd information about the woman she thought she knew. A childhood mishap may not have been an accident, Sam’s great-grandfather was not the Southern gentleman Gran Mae always intimated he was, and there is something very wrong in the background of Sam’s graduation photo.
T. Kingfisher does an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension and strange occurrences over the course of the book. There are hints and teases that pay off quite dramatically during the climax, and the climax itself – whew. Combine generational trauma with, like, The Hills Have Eyes, and I think that gives you an idea. A House With Good Bones is moving, scary, interesting (so much to learn about bugs, roses, and vultures!), and funny all at the same time. T. Kingfisher has, once again knocked it out of the park.