Title: The Children
Author: Melissa Albert
Publisher: Bramble
Publication date: June 2, 2026
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Source: Library
Rating:
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.
The Children is a creepy, haunting tale that drew me in practically from page 1 and never let me go. I found myself immersed in this story about the children of a bestselling author — whose childhood was anything but the ideal dream portrayed to the public.
Edith Sharpe writes the children’s fantasy series, The Ninth City, at the family’s rural Vermont home, an isolated place known as the Farmhouse, surrounded by forests and orchards, miles from anywhere. As Edith’s fame grows, so too does the never-ending streams of stars and artists and wannabes who gravitate into Edith’s orbit. Edith’s children, however, never asked for or agreed to the fame that they’re forced into by their mother, who gives her main characters her children’s names. The world thinks they know Ennis and Guinevere Sharpe, the brave, clever brother and sister who star in the series. Only Ennis and Guin know the truth about their childhood — one in which they essentially grew up wild and untended, cared for only by one another while their parents indulged in a life of creative frenzies, dissipated parties, and a general lack of interest about their children’s wellbeing.
As adults, Guin and Ennis have been estranged for twenty years, ever since the horrific night of a fire that destroyed their world and thrust them into very different lives. Now in her early 30s, Guin has been living off her mother’s legacy, in terms of both her inheritance and being part of the publicity machine that keeps Edith Sharpe on the bestseller list year after year. While promoting her own memoir — a whitewashed, ghost-written, surface-level and sunny depiction that bears little resemblance to the truth — Guin learns that Ennis will be opening a new art installation entitled “Mother”, and is immediately consumed by the need to reconnect with him… and to find out whether he’s finally decided to break his silence on Edith Sharpe after all these years.
As Guin goes off the rails, ruining her carefully constructed publicity tour through unpredictable and ill-advised interviews, she’s thrust back into childhood memories she’s worked so hard to ignore or deny.
The story unfolds through modern-day chapters, in which adult Guin spins out of control in her search for meaning and for Ennis, woven among chapters going back to the siblings’ childhood, from arriving at the Farmhouse when Guin was five years old to the final disaster when she was eleven. There’s a certain beauty to some elements of their early years, as they run wild, unhindered in their exploration of the forests, with no rules and little to no guidance about their daily lives. They’re supposedly home-schooled, but they’re not. They’re fed… when someone remembers, or when they fend for themselves. Their father, a gifted actor who was forced out of the spotlight due to scandal, is a shining, glorious creature… until he’s not; until something, somehow causes him to lose bits and pieces of himself and fade into a failed has-been.
And then there’s Edith, a woman who’s never been predictable, married young to an older man, and an uninvolved mother even at the best of times. But something happens at the Farmhouse. Guin loves the house, except for the sinister 3rd floor room where Edith writes. And Edith writes in frenzied bursts, clacking away on her typewriter with no interruptions allowed.
The sense of menace is pervasive throughout The Children. We may not know exactly why, but we know from the start that very bad things have happened. At the same time, we know that the Ninth City books were life-changing for their millions of fans, and that Guin and Ennis are seen as heroes, standing in for Edith and the world she created even as they attempt to live their own lives. The neglect that Guin and Ennis live through is disturbing in and of itself, but add to that the sense that something other is going on, something very much not right, and the chills ratchet up higher and higher.
While I had guesses about the mysteries of The Children, I never did quite manage to figure it all out, and I’d guess that most readers end up in the same boat. The revelations near the end of the book are mind-blowing, yet tie the entire story together in a way that makes a frightening sort of sense. I simply couldn’t put the book down; each chapter is stunning in its own way. I cringed quite a bit over adult Guin’s choices and actions, but there’s no denying that she follows a path that seem practically foreordained. The childhood chapters are more deeply disturbing and impactful, but the entire book works so well together that it’s impossible to point out any moments where the story lags or loses focus.
I’d say that my only complaint about The Children has more to do with my reading experience than with the book itself. I tore through the final third or so in such a mad dash to get to the end that I’m afraid that I may not have absorbed it all as deeply as I might have if I’d taken my time. I can definitely see going back for a reread to savor it more slowly and pick up the themes and hints I might have missed along the way the first time through.
The Children is one of this summer’s biggest, buzziest books… and it’s well worth giving in to the hype and giving it a chance! Creepy, scary, disturbing, and compelling, this story will stick with you long after the final pages.
Want to know more? Check out these great reviews:
Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy
Krysta at Pages Unbound
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