The Children: A Read with Jenna Pick

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.

New York Times and indie bestselling author of YA books The Bad Ones, Our Crooked Hearts, and the Hazel Wood series. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and included in the New York Times list of Notable Children’s Books. The Children is her first adult novel.

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 • Harper's Bazaar • 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

"This novel has it all: a big messy scandal-ridden family, lots of sibling and parent drama, the high tension of today’s ‘you can’t trust anyone not to be recording you’ world, and a tortured protagonist who knows there was a lot more to her childhood than she was told but is terrified to discover how bad it was. Oh – and there’s also Ennis, who has been dodging his sister for years and really owes her a sit-down conversation that, when it finally happens, goes waaaaaay off the rails. The Children is the very definition of suspense; give yourself the weekend to read and enjoy the hell out of this one, folks. I couldn’t put it down." - Locus

“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

“A dark fairy tale that’s exquisitely written and intensely spooky.” - Riley Sager, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unknown

“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