Can't-Wait Wednesday: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson, & Lilith by Nikki Marmery

    

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released! This meme is based off of Jill @ Breaking the Spine's Waiting on Wednesday meme.

This week's upcoming book spotlights are:

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Publication: October 3rd, 2023
Tor Books
Hardcover. 320 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it."

I've already finished an ARC of this and I loved it! I'm really looking forward to seeing the final edition of this, plus I think there may be a couple special editions coming out that I'm excited to see.

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
Publication: October 3rd, 2023
Tor Nightfire
Hardcover. 336 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Knock Knock, Open Wide weaves horror and Celtic myth into a terrifying, heartbreaking supernatural tale of fractured family bonds, the secrets we carry, and the veiled forces that guide Irish life.

Driving home late one night, Etain Larkin finds a corpse on a pitch-black country road deep in the Irish countryside. She takes the corpse to a remote farmhouse. So begins a night of unspeakable horror that will take her to the very brink of sanity.

She will never speak of it again.

Two decades later, Betty Fitzpatrick, newly arrived at college in Dublin, has already fallen in love with the drama society, and the beautiful but troubled Ashling Mallen. As their relationship blossoms, Ashling goes to great lengths to keep Betty away from her family, especially her alcoholic mother, Etain.

As their relationship blossoms, Betty learns her lover's terrifying family history, and Ashling's secret obsession. Ashling has become convinced that the horrors inflicted on her family are connected to a seemingly innocent children's TV show. Everyone in Ireland watched this show in their youth, but Ash soon discovers that no one remembers it quite the same way. And only Ashling seems to remember its a small black goat puppet who lives in a box and only comes out if you don’t behave. They say he’s never come out.

Almost never.

When the door between the known and unknown opens, it can never close again."

This sounds delightfully creepy, and I'm particularly intrigued by the incorporation of Celtic myth elements. Tor Nightfire always brings the wildest horror, so I'm excited to give it a read!

Lilith by Nikki Marmery
Publication: October 17th, 2023
Alcove Press
Paperback. 336 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Before Eve, there was Lilith.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses—and is banished forever from Paradise.

Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah—God’s wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven—is missing. Lilith has a she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world, and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Lilith’s quest for justice drives her throughout history, from the ziggurats of Ancient Sumer, to the court of Israel’s Queen Jezebel, and to the side of a radical preacher in Roman Judea. Noah’s wife, Norea, Jezebel and Mary Magdalene all play their part in Lilith’s enlightenment. In the modern age, as she observes the catastrophic consequences of a world built on inequality, Lilith finally understands what must be done to correct the wrong done to women—and all humankind—at the beginning of time.

Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine."

I've read a lot of myth-inspired stories, but rarely (if ever?) have I come across something Adam and Eve related or really set during this time period, so I'm super curious about this one!