The Children

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK

"Enchantingly sinister. . . a Gothic thriller, with a frisson of magic." --Jennifer Harlan, The New York Times Book Review

"An extraordinary book. It's a page-turner, full of mystery, but that's the least of it. The language is dusted with magic. The Children reminded me of Ray Bradbury at his best." --Stephen King

The 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, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother's world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother's readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild 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, simply, 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 fantasy world?

The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It's for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.

National Bestseller
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick
New York Times Editors' Choice
Book of the Month Club Pick
Indie Next Pick
LibraryReads Top 10 Pick
Recommended by the New York Times - TIME - Los Angeles Times - People - New York Magazine - the Chicago Tribune - Forbes - Cosmopolitan - Oprah Daily - New York Post - Goodreads - Literary Hub - Good Housekeeping - Buzzfeed - Red - Page Six - Book Riot - AARP - Woman's World - Publishers Weekly - The Millions - She Reads . . . and more!

"Not since Donna Tartt's The Secret History have I loved a book filled with such magic and mystery. . . This is a layered, haunting adult fairy tale. . . I loved this book, you will love it, you will buy it, you will read it so fast." - Jenna Bush Hager

"An extraordinary book. It's a page-turner, full of mystery, but that's the least of it. The language is dusted with magic. The Children reminded me of Ray Bradbury at his best." - Stephen King

"Enchantingly sinister. . . a Gothic thriller, with a frisson of magic . . . bewitching, the Farmhouse pulling everyone under its spell as hauntingly as any dwelling Shirley Jackson ever dreamed up." - Jennifer Harlan, the New York Times Book Review

"The mysteries embedded in the novel--creative, familial, and supernatural--exert a powerful draw." - The New Yorker

"Albert spins a captivating tale exploring what it means for a mother to make art -- and at whose expense." - New York Magazine

"Melissa Albert, the popular young-adult author, flips over a speculative-fiction log to locate a squirming legacy of neglect. "The Children" (June 2), her first adult novel, follows the offspring of a famous fantasy writer as the secrets of their late mother shape their futures." - Chicago Tribune

"This deliciously creepy novel is an exhilarating mix of fairy-tale magic and generational trauma." - People

"Read this with a chill down your spine - it's like The Haunting of Hill House tinged with an eerie fairytale." - USA Today

"This sensuously written adult debut by a bestselling YA author layers gothic horror over a taught family drama that forces us to confront the line between artistic inspiration and human exploitation." - Oprah Daily, Best Books of Summer

"Melissa Albert's The Children isn't just something you read. It's something you breathe. It whispers at the nape of your neck, tugs at a hangnail. And what a thrill it is to be haunted by something like this." - Chicago Review of Books

"I don't know how, but Melissa Albert has taken my most private nightmares and desires and published them as a dark fairy tale. The Children is a poison apple of a book: glossy, sweet, and absolutely terrifying. I don't think I'll ever get it out of my bloodstream." - Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Everlasting

"Evocative, arresting, genre-defying, and sublime. The Children altered my emotional state and haunted my every thought. Melissa Albert's adult debut is not to be missed, particularly by those who love complex family dynamics, doors that lead to both fantasy and horror, and stories that are not what they seem." - Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

"Haunting, dreamlike, and emotionally fearless, The Children is a reckoning. A book about memory, legacy, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. The Children proves once again that Melissa Albert is one of the most singular voices writing today. Simply put: I loved it." - Shea Ernshaw, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A History of Wild Places

"The Children is lush, gothic and deliciously written. A transportive story about fractious family relations, fame, talent and the frailty of memory, the world-building is so vivid I can smell the fustiness of their farmhouse and the acrid tang of blood. It's giving art monster and ambition and sibling rivalry and the long shadow of a toxic, mythical mother, which is obviously right up my alley. Utterly gripping, it's exactly my type of beach read." - Mary H.K. Choi, New York Times bestselling author of Emergency Contact and Pool House

"I might end up using all the adjectives to describe this sharp, lyrical, nuanced riff on family dysfunction and the costs of devoting oneself to art. The Children is a joyously grim, open-eyed, adult fairy tale with the messiest of morals (and I mean that as the highest possible praise), and I had so much damned fun reading it." - Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

"[A] sheer pleasure. . . contemporary fantasy could certainly do with more sophisticated, updated takes on the genre like this one." - The Sunday Times (UK)

"A pacy, modern-day narrative. . . every step is richly and enjoyably plotted, carefully laying the ground for a payoff that asks clear-eyed and uncomfortable questions about the true nature of artistic inspiration." - Spectator

"The Children is a masterclass in the uncanny as Albert explores the potential wonder and terror that can be found in the borders between fantasy and reality. . . a triumph. Albert's prose is sensuous and textural, creating the impression of a childhood that is both dreadful and enchanting. She writes with lyrical attentiveness to the physicality of her setting." - The Bookseller (UK)

"Melissa Albert has done it again with this eerily beautiful adult debut. Twisty and strange in all the best ways, and rendered in Albert's characteristic dreamlike prose, The Children is exactly the grown-up fairytale I've been looking for. I loved Guin and her complicated relationships, as well as the deft interweaving of memories, stories, and reality--and the many places where they blur." - Heather Fawcett, New York Times bestselling author of the Emily Wilde Series

"Profound, beguiling, and terrifying, Melissa Albert's first novel for adults is dangerous witchcraft of the highest order--an insidious and masterfully cast spell of a book about the stories we tell ourselves and each other, childhood's end, and the way that the sharp edges of creative lives draw so much blood. The Children is gorgeous and dreadful, I devoured it." - Mona Awad, bestselling author of Bunny

"Eerie and assured . . . The fantastical material complements the fairy tale quality of the pastoral Vermont setting . . . Even more intriguingly, Albert explores the potentially destructive role of art on its makers, subjects, and consumers. It's a sensuous delight." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[The Children] explores grief, legacy, and the complicated inheritance of art, asking what it means to belong to a story that has shaped countless lives. Using glimpses of the past intermingled with the present-day narrative, Albert, in her adult debut, creates a haunting, dream-like story that pulls readers through open doorways and past dark rooms into the glittering Ninth City. For fans of Alix E. Harrow, Erin Morgenstern, and Naomi Novik." - Booklist (starred review)

"Full of ornate prose, Albert's speculative-fiction crossover spans fantasy, gothic, supernatural horror, and mystery. Focusing on an eccentric family, a complicated legacy, and the forces behind their art and challenging lives, Albert creates strong characters with defined personalities and heartbreaking experiences. . . Albert's adult debut is an atmospheric gothic fantasy that sees an eccentric set of siblings reframing their troubled childhoods, the legacy of their mother's book series, and their present lives. A great addition to every collection." - Library Journal (starred review)

"Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth, and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a good book. It's a captivating debut." - The New York Times Book Review (Notable Children's Book) on The Hazel Wood

"An original and imaginative fairy tale: thrilling, fascinating, and poignant in equal measure." - Entertainment Weekly (Best YA Book of the Year) on The Hazel Wood

"A darkly brilliant story of literary obsession, fairy-tale malignancy, and the measures a mother will take to spare her child." - The Wall Street Journal (Best Children's Book of the Year) on The Hazel Wood

"A charming, mysterious fable that unpacks what it means to be a story and whether we are all simply the stories we hear and tell." - Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series on The Night Country

"Lush and deliciously sinister fairytales to be consumed as greedily as Turkish delight or any fairy fruit. I loved these." - Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble, on Tales from the Hinterland

"Every line reads like an incantation, and the result is a book pulsing with magic, one that holds the reader firmly under its spell." - V. E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, on Our Crooked Hearts

"Albert's fast-paced storytelling is both thrilling and accessible." - School Library Journal (starred review) on Our Crooked Hearts

"Melissa Albert writes the kind of horror that doesn't just make you check under your bed―it makes you check your own reflection in the mirror. A black-veined, spectral howl of a novel, The Bad Ones cements Albert as the contemporary queen of suburban fantasy." - Ava Reid, author of A Study in Drowning

"Melissa Albert weaves a tight mystery that takes on a different shape each time you turn it over in your hands. It's an eerie ode to girlhood, suburban legends and that one corner of the room you never want to visit in the dark." - NPR on The Bad Ones