An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller
A Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist
A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee
A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher
*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
Also by T. Kingfisher
What Feasts at Night
A House with Good Bones
Nettle & Bone
Thornhedge
A Sorceress Comes to Call
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller
A Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist
A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee
A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher
*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
Also by T. Kingfisher
What Feasts at Night
A House with Good Bones
Nettle & Bone
Thornhedge
A Sorceress Comes to Call
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Reviews-
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January 17, 2022
Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kingfisher (The Hollow Places) returns to the horror genre with this powerful, fast-paced retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” As a child, Alex Easton, who uses the pronouns ka and kan, befriended twins Roderick and Madeline Usher and went on to serve with Roderick in the recent war. Now Madeline writes to tell Alex that she’s ill and Roderick believes she is dying, and Alex must come at once to their family home in remote Ruravia. There, Alex finds a moldering mansion full of fungal rot and strangeness and two Ushers who are terribly, irreversibly changed. Alex must unravel the dark secret that is consuming the house of Usher—before it consumes Alex as well. Kingfisher adds wonderful dimension and tangibility to the classic Poe story, filling it in with standout character work and scenic descriptions that linger on the palate, while fleshing out the original plot with elements as plausible as they are chilling. It’s thoroughly creepy and utterly enjoyable. -
February 1, 2022
When retired soldier Alex Easton learns their childhood friend Madeleine Usher is dying, they rush to the ancestral Usher home in Ruritania. There they encounter weird fungus, possessed wildlife, a sleepwalking Madeleine, and her nerve-wrecked brother. Working out what has happened requires the help of a British mycologist and an American doctor. A reimaging of Poe's classic; with a 100,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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July 29, 2022
Edgar Allen Poe's short story, ""The Fall of the House of Usher,"" gets new life in a modern retelling. Narrator Easton gets a letter from old friend Maddy Usher and heads to their ancestral home for a wellness check. But, as they say, "this place breeds nightmares," and a host of frights are around every corner. From zombie-like rabbits to a landscape laced with fungus, the environment of the Usher mansion collects terror at all turns. Kingfisher (The Hollow Places, 2020) ratchets up the original story with an interesting cast of associates that help Easton try to make some sense of this dismal, suffocating place. While trying to encourage the Ushers to regain their health, Easton discovers that there may well be an explanation for the lurid illness that seems to haunt them. Kingfisher's neatly built world of otherworldly dread rampant with disease will lure fans of classics like Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, as well as those who like modern environmental terror like Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation (2014) and English folk horror movies like In The Earth (2021). An infectious new spin on classic Gothic horror.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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June 1, 2022
A lone, tired man on horseback encounters a mushroom that resembles the severed muscles of dying soldiers as he approaches a decaying manor house, the home of his dear friends, Madeline and Roderick Usher. He has traveled quickly at the behest of Madeline, who is near death. As he reaches for the intriguing mushroom, a traveling mycologist stops him, for this mushroom is not only rare, but also releases a foul odor. So begins Kingfisher's (Nettle & Bone) retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," filling in much of what was left unsaid in the original story with intensely unsettling, claustrophobic fungal details. Told exclusively from the perspective of narrator Alex Easton, Kingfisher's story moves forward briskly, ratcheting up the dread with every sentence. Readers will be rapt as the tension builds to near bursting levels and the true meaning of the title comes into full, skin-crawling view. VERDICT Retold Gothic classics and fungus-themed horror are both having a moment, and Kingfisher's well-paced, immersive novella will satisfy those seeking read-alikes for Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic. Also suggest Moreno-Garcia and Orrin Grey's excellent anthology Fungi and the nature field horror of Jeff VanderMeer.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- Publishers Weekly "Thoroughly creepy and utterly enjoyable."
- Erin A. Craig, NYT bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows "Creepy, claustrophobic, and completely entertaining, What Moves the Dead left me delightfully repulsed. I adored this book!"
- Brom, author of Slewfoot "T. Kingfisher spins biting wit, charm and terror into a tale that will make your skin crawl. Poe would be proud!"
- Andy Davidson, author of The Boatman's Daughter "Dissects the heart of Poe's most famous tale and finds a wholly new mythology beating inside it. ...Pure fun."
- Jordan Shiveley, author of Hot Singles In Your Area "What Moves the Dead is a must-read, period."
- Lucy A. Snyder, author of Sister, Maiden, Monster "A gothic delight!"
- Premee Mohamed, author of Beneath the Rising "Perfectly hair-raising in all the right ways."
