House, Body, Bird
By Bernie Jean Schiebeling
Birdie Goodbain, last of the House’s daughters, thought only the dolls were watching…
Raised in her family’s dollhouse museum, Birdie grew up surrounded by models of perfect daughters that she could never be, haunted by a father who refused to accept her and a mother who wouldn’t protect her. Birdie fled and didn’t look back.
A home, a girlfriend, a job—a summons to the House she left behind.
After ten years, Birdie returns to her mother’s welcoming arms, but something has changed in the centuries-old family home. Strange dogs hide in the foundations, her bedroom door locks on its own, her father won’t leave the basement—and something new and terrible lurks behind her mother’s eyes. She knows that she should leave, but eyes far older than the dolls’ have been watching her.
The House allowed Birdie to escape once. It refuses to let her shame the family again.
Praise for House, Body, Bird
House, Body, Bird is a gorgeous Gothic jewel of a book, and one which understands keenly that a house can be haunted by more than just ghosts. Its blistering insights into the quiet horrors of a poisonous family are at least as upsetting as the darkness that lurks behind the House’s immaculate façade. You will follow Birdie down into the basement, and you’ll love it.
-Waverly SM, author, editor and 2019 Lambda Literary fellow
House, Body, Bird is a fascinating fractal of hauntings and houses. Schiebeling gives us a claustrophobic generational cycle of women made small by the needs of the family; but also the welcome reminder that even the heaviest weights can be rolled aside when we trust the hands holding the lever.
—Aimee Ogden
HOUSE, BODY, BIRD turns up the creepy dollhouse dial to 11, and then goes to some unexpected places. I read it during a house repair and I haven’t quite recovered yet. Truly a fabulous debut title! Thoughtful, engaging, both cheerfully gory and cheerfully queer—this novella gives us a glimpse into the future of horror, and I’m here for it.
—Bogi Takács, Hugo and Lambda award winning author, editor and critic
When Birdie grudgingly returns to help her parents in the house she grew up in—a dollhouse museum where even her own room was an exhibit—it’s not a homecoming. It’s a trap. As Birdie struggles to escape that toxic place and its suffocating memories, this slim volume asks big questions: How do you build a home within a house, a family, your own body? Disorienting and frightening, but ultimately heartening, House, Body, Bird is a book like nothing I’ve ever read before. Highly recommended.
—Laura Blackwell, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author
Book Info
Author name: Bernie Jean Schiebeling
Full title: House, Body, Bird
Price:
- $ 13.99 Print
- $ 8.99 ebook
Publisher/Imprint: Psychopomp
Format: print/ebook
Pub date: February 2026
Page count: 150
ISBN: 979-8-89116-021-7
Genre: Fantasy
Distribution arrangements: Psychopomp
Contact: press@psychopomp.com
Cover design by Christine M. Scott clevercrow.com
Cover illustration by: John G. Reinhart
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244799253-house-body-bird
About Bernie Jean Schiebeling
Bernie Jean Schiebeling (she/they) is a queer author living in the southeastern US who writes about finding moments of comfort in deeply uncomfortable situations. Her short fiction has appeared in venues including Analog, The Deadlands, and Reckoning, and she is also the script editor for the independent podcast Gastronaut. When they aren’t writing, they enjoy sewing plush frogs and baking messy desserts with their husband. This is their first book-length project.