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.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. Book # 1 in the Sworn Soldier series. Kindle published by Tor Nightfire, 2022. Audiobook published by MacMillan Audio, 2022. Narrated by Avi Roque. Runtime of 5 hours and 11 minutes. Novella, 159 pages. Netgalley ARC.
*Thank you Netgalley for giving me an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’ll be 100% honest with you, I don’t really enjoy re-telling / re-imagining stories. And I wasn’t too sure about that being done to Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher… but – again, 100% honest here- when I first laid eyes on that epic cover art, I just HAD to read this one. Just extraordinary work! The art made me feel so curious about the plot of the book.
What Moves the Dead starts off a little slow moving. It gradually builds to an extremely creepy ending. Defiantly a slow burner. Don’t know if the slow build worked well with such a short book? I was left wanting more at the end. Like, it felt like too much building and the finale just felt too short.
Do love the eerie tone running throughout the book. All the creepy hares are a BIG plus! The twist about what is really going on is pretty great, gross and dreadful! I loved it! :D I wanted more spooky fungi fun!!
What Moves the Dead handles the retelling well, giving the House of Usher a fresh coat of paint. The book is maybe a little too short, but the spooky atmosphere and creepy -crawly plot leave you feeling satisfied and disturbed.
Creature From The Book Lagoon 