GENRE

Fantasy, Horror

DESCRIPTION

An intoxicating, haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. In reality, Guinevere’s childhood isn’t the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and her older brother are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the lichen-clotted woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.

Now an adult coasting on her mother’s name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family’s legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she’s spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s creative genius?

Wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, The Children whispers to you from the hallway outside your bedroom, lights flickering as you turn the pages of a book that didn’t seem so scary a moment ago. It’s a story for anyone who’s ever revisited an old favorite and found it cast in a darker light, the line separating magic and memory blurring as the gap widens between the authors we imagined and the people they turn out to be.

OPENING LINE

Rain lashed the windows.

MY THOUGHTS

Wow, Melissa Albert really writes the most delicious dark fairytales!

This adult novel is fantasy with horror vibes. It alternates between two timelines, one of which is in the 1990s when Guin, her brother Ennis, and their parents lived at the Farmhouse in a rural area of Vermont. Their mother, Edith Sharpe, writes five books in a bestselling children’s fantasy series, using her own children’s names and likenesses as the main characters (without their consent, mind you). The home becomes a sort of bohemian commune where other artists of all stripes and talent levels show up and stay for indefinite lengths of time. Meanwhile, the children are left to their own devices (read as: neglected). There was supposed to be a sixth and final book in the Ninth City series, but a tragedy at the Farmhouse leaves the children orphans, and Edith never writes it.

The creeping dread just beneath the surface in this part of the story is masterful. Because there is something wrong with the Farmhouse. There are all the strange carvings, the poem etched into the wall, the stifling and uneasy room their mother writes in; and while none of the adults in their lives seem to pay the children much attention, it feels like they’re always being watched by…something.

The second timeline is current day, when adult Guin has taken on the mantle of mascot for the Ninth City series, and hasn’t spoken to her brother in years. Ennis has avoided and successfully evaded her ever since the night their parents died. But now it seems he is extending an invitation to Guin to come see his newest art instillation, titled Mother. Will it be a reunion or a reckoning? Will it reveal with any more clarity the events of the night of the fire?

Oh, this was such a fun read (as long as you appreciate talented writing giving you the heebie jeebies)! I confess I didn’t 100% understand all of the particulars revealed at the end, which was a bit unsatisfying, but the vibes were ON POINT and I am so excited to keep reading whatever Albert decides to write.

Goodreads