Katherine Harbour's Blog

Hello all,
According to Google, I am a public figure.

That's weird and I don't like it. But because of it I don't feel comfortable posting reviews at this time, since my fellow writers are my colleagues. I'll continue to make lists here of the books I want to read and occasionally ramble on about something else. Maybe.
For now, you can find me @katharbour77 on Instagram where I post what I'm reading, things I'm doing, and what I'm writing:) I'll also be happy to answer any questions, so feel free to DM me:)


The Dark Fable
My new book The Dark Fable, published by Bloomsbury, is out now! It's a dark YA fantasy about a desperate girl invited to join a chaotic crew of international thieves with supernatural powers.

Call Down the Hawk

10 Reasons Why I Worship This Book

1)It's a sequel to The Raven Boys
2)Ronan Lynch
3)Hennessy, a young Black woman from the UK, who is also a Dreamer, is a fascinating character
4)The horseshoe crabs with cow teeth scene
5)An uncanny horror in the world of dreams called The Lace
6)The potential romance between Hennessy's dream clone Jordan and Declan, Ronan's older brother
7)The story borders on horror
8)Ronan and his boyfriend, Adam
9)A secret organization of assassins
10)The entire lore of the dreamworld

Not Good for Maidens

10 Reasons Why I Worship this Book

1)It's inspired by the Christina Rossetti poem 'Goblin Market.'
2)The story takes place in 2 different timelines: the present and 1980s in England.
3)Seventeen-year-old Lou is an inquisitive and clever protagonist attempting to rescue her best friend.
4)It's a contemporary fantasy, with Goblin Market set in a liminal place known by Lou's family and some of the people in town.
5)Goblin Market is beautiful and horrifying.
6)The goblins are beautiful and horrifying.
7)Lou's aunt, in the eighties' timeline, falls in love with a goblin girl.
8)Lou's is a family of witches
9)Like if Labyrinth was a horror movie
10)The support and love and stress between the women of this family with all their secrets.

The Only Good Indians

10 Reasons Why I Worship This Book

1)The female elk spirit
2)The 4 charismatic Blackfeet nation men who are the main characters
3)The deaths are gruesome, but tragic and meaningful
4)The uncanny element is topnotch
5)The daughter who plays basketball
6)The monster has a backstory
7)An unexpected warrior
8)It's a revenge story
9)The writing hits just the right notes of terror
10)Indigenous folklore

Under the Pendulum Sun

10 Reasons I Worship This Book

1)The Fae are terrifying and weird
2)The setting is an alternate Victorian world, where faeryland is the New Continent
3)Catherine is a Bronte-esque young woman who arrives in Arcadia (Faeryland) to find her missionary brother, Laon
4)An intriguing theme of faith and its pitfalls
5)A Gothic house called Gethsemane
6)A gnome who has converted to Christianity, a woman who is a soulless changeling, and the mysterious Salamander
7) The Fae queen may have biblical origins
8)Gorgeous and lyrical writing
9)A forbidden romance
10)Catherine is a genteel young woman with courage and a secret

A Book of Spirits and Thieves
10 Reasons I really liked this book

1)It gave me The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe vibes
2)The Hatchers seem to be an ordinary family..until otherworldly connections are revealed
3)The parallel narrative between teenage Crys, who is delving into her family's secrets, and a boy named Maddok, who is trying to survive in a feudal world
4)Farrell, the son of a wealthy family with connections to a secret society of vigilantes. Farrell decides to follow a dark path.
5)A mysterious book
6)The stakes are high when a sibling falls into a magical coma--but it also sends her into that other world with Maddok
7)That whole enemies-to-lovers thing between Crys and Farrell
8)The real world and the feudal world are somehow connected
9)Did I mention secret societies?
10)It made me anticipate the sequel!

The Witches of Bone Hill

10 Reasons Why I Loved this Book

1) Cordelia and Eustace, the two women who are the MCs, are sisters
2) The Victorian mansion they inherit is a gorgeous character in and of itself
3) Botanical witchcraft
4) Scary Scandinavian death magic
5) An eccentric, chaotic family
6) Hauntings
7) Ancestral drama
8) A fox familiar
9) Gordon, the sexy, mysterious groundskeeper
10) A terrifying climax

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
10 Reasons Why I Liked this Book

1) Witchcraft in 1600s Massachusetts
2) Dual stories in different timelines
3) Sam the steeplejack
4) A dash of dark academia, as Connie, the young woman who is the MC, is finishing her thesis at Harvard
5) Magic
6) Historical detail
7) The smolder between Connie and Sam
8) Ancestral connection
9) The New England setting
10) An intriguing mystery

She Is a Haunting
The haunting takes place in contemporary Vietnam, in a house that is being remodeled by teenage Jade's difficult father. Jade and her little sister are on a conditional visit and Jade soon learns, after a number of uncanny events (insect creepiness, disturbing apparitions) that the beautiful house is haunted. The best ghost stories have vulnerable and smart leads, and a sense of cloying dread, and this book satisfies all of it.
The house's horrifying history is revealed as Jade struggles with her father, her past, and an evolving relationship with Florence, the beautiful and mischievous girl helping with the remodel.
I loved the atmosphere and the family dynamic, the blossoming romance. The haunting is fantastically weird, culminating in Jade's fierce determination to keep those she loves safe at any cost.

Vita Nostra
A dark academia in the weirdest sense, set in a strange little town in Russia, at the Institution of Special Technologies.
Sasha is a teenage girl when she encounters a strange man who tells her to perform certain eccentric tasks or her loved ones will suffer. Each time she finishes, she vomits gold coins that eventually get her into the Institution.
Once there, Sasha and other students undergo a rigorous and bizarre series of lessons. The teachers are strict. Sasha makes friends with the son of the man who began all of this.
Sasha must navigate the usual college travails of growing up, exams, and relationships, as the Institution's tests change her in strange and terrifying ways.
For fans of dark academia and the New Mutants.