What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

The follow-up to T. Kingfisher’s bestselling gothic novella, "What Moves the Dead ".

Retired soldier Alex Easton returns in a horrifying new adventure.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.

A spooky dark forest with a questionable house and locals that don’t like the people staying at the house is exactly what this book needed. The fact that the narrator is Alex and they are in their home country again just makes it all better! And that is only the first little bit of the book! The people Alex has around them and the investigation really made me enjoy this book and experience. I can’t believe I almost didn’t read this duology.

I loved this book and I think it is a great sequel to the first one, although it does not surpass it. I love Easton as a character and Miss Potter, and loved to see them both return. The new characters introduced were also great, The Widow especially. The way the story was told was good and made it really suspenseful. The vibes were also immaculate. The superstitious things that the Widow was going I enjoyed thoroughly. It was definitely less creepy than the first book, but fungi will do that to you.

3.5 - Slow start but really picked up by the end. Alex has some pretty rotten luck. I didn't think the first book needed a sequel, but it was nice to get more depth from these characters. Overall enjoyed it and would recommend to T. Kingfisher fans.

T. Kingfisher is one of my favorite authors and I'm always looking for the latest or have a few things from her backlist. What Feasts at Night is a quite good follow up to What Moves the Dead, which is a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.

In “Feasts” Alex Easton returns home to Gallacia to find the family's hunting lodge in disrepair and the caretaker no more. The feel is very true to older horror tales, like Dracula, where the “peasants” know the score and the score is Restless Spirits and folk magic/remedies and generally not monkeying around with things best left unmonkeyed around with. This is the book for when you want to crawl into bed at the end of the day and feel safe and warm while things are not all right on the page.

If I could ask the author anything, it would be why the animal skeletons? I'm not just talking about this book, but a very recurring element of Kingfisher's stories. Often the bones are, um, alive? The author clearly loves animals and so pets have a great chance in these books, but sometimes the pet is a bone dog. You understand.

In this case, it's not a dog, and the instance is really disturbing, although for you pet people, I'll say it's okay.

This series will always have a place on my shelves because this style of story takes me make to teen me. A story for the thick anthologies of old horror I used to borrow from the library. In the case of What Moves the Dead, my not insignificant fascination with Poe.