Keeper of Enchanted Rooms, by Charlie N. Holmberg

Somebody else has written a book about a sentient house! I tend to enjoy sentient houses; it’s the side effects of being both a storyteller and a homemaker, I suppose. You tend to tell stories about what occupies a great deal of your time.

Anyway, this is a lovely book. Merritt Fernsby has inherited a house; a house that is both alive and malicious. Naturally this causes some problems, so the local authority on enchanted dwellings sends out their best employee, Miss Hulda Larkin, to settle the house down and hopefully convince Merritt to maintain the house. Enchanted dwellings are becoming rare as magic slowly fades out of the world. But disenchanting the house proves more complicated than Hulda expected, and dark parts of both Hulda and Merritt’s pasts cause problems and danger.

Holmberg sets her fantasy world in the industrial revolution era, which is refreshingly unique in a genre that leans heavily on the medieval period. In some of her previous books her characters have been slightly wooden, but this one is full of likeable, realistic people….. And have I mentioned there’s a sentient house? What more do you need to know?