“Vultures are extremely sensitive to the dead. Particularly when the dead are doing things they shouldn't be.”
Sam is an archaeoentomologist (studying insect remains at archaeological sites), and when her dig is put on hold she moves back in with her mother in a small town in North Carolina. Sam's brother has already told her that 'mom seems off' and Sam has to agree. Instead of the bright colours she remembers, the house is painted in shades of beige: her mother seems cowed: and there are vultures perching on the roof and on the mailbox. Also, the garden is devoid of insects, which is not right and not natural.
Things start to get weirder, and Sam is torn between her scientific mindset (gosh, ladybirds do swarm sometimes) and a sense that something is badly wrong in the house. Could it be haunted by her grandmother, Gran Mae, a fearsome and tyrranical figure from Sam's youth? Is handsome handyman Phil surreptitiously using pesticides? And does hippie, witchy neighbour Gail know more than she's saying?
As usual with T Kingfisher, it is not that simple. This was a short novel with some truly nasty elements (Aleister Crowley is namechecked) and some surfacing childhood memories (yes, Gran Mae did prick Sam's hand with a thorny rose stem so that the roses could 'taste' her): it also depicts an old woman overcome by bitterness and rage after a lifetime of neglect and fear, and the ways in which she's shaped and warped her descendants. A House with Good Bones is frequently very funny, in between the horrors and Sam's defiantly cheery narrative: not as chilling as The Hollow Places, but still unsettling.
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