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The Children
Brief Description
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK Not since Donna Tartt’s The Secret History have I loved a book filled with such magic and mystery as I have Melissa Albert’s The Children JENNA BUSH HAGER A page-turner full of mystery . . . The language is...
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The Children
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From the publishers who brought you Piranesi and Circe comes a singular novel about the intergenerational cost of making and consuming art
From the publishers who brought you Piranesi and Circe comes a singular novel about the intergenerational cost of making and consuming art
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Description
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK
Not since Donna Tartt’s The Secret History have I loved a book filled with such magic and mystery as I have Melissa Albert’s The Children JENNA BUSH HAGER
A page-turner full of mystery . . . The language is dusted with magic STEPHEN KING
A joyously grim, open-eyed, adult fairy tale with the messiest of morals PAUL TREMBLAY
An insidious and masterfully cast spell of a book . . . Gorgeous and dreadful, I devoured it MONA AWAD
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Their childhood was yours. They want it back . . .
Guinevere’s late mother, Edith Sharpe, needs little introduction. Bestselling author of the unendingly successful Ninth City series, her books brought so much joy and inspired the imagination of countless children the world over. Guin’s childhood with her mother, brother Ennis and her actor father was a blissful, bohemian affair, filled with continuous laughter and surrounded by artistic types in their Vermont barnhouse. At least, this is the story Guin presents as she prepares for the press tour for her upcoming memoir about life in the Sharpe family.
Now estranged from her brother and her parents long dead after a devastating fire, strange events threaten the veneer of serenity and familial harmony Guin is keen to project. Ennis, now a notorious artist with a troubled past, announces a new installation – his first since a disastrous last show one year prior – simply entitled Mother. And Guin can’t help but worry that the truth behind their idyllic childhood is about to blow her world apart.
Told in alternating narratives between 1990s Vermont and present-day New York, The Children is a twisting narrative of family secrets and long-held resentments, which asks whether we can ever really exorcise the ghosts of a childhood forsaken in favour of a parent’s artistic vision.
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A poison apple of a book: glossy, sweet, and absolutely terrifying ALIX E. HARROW
Twisty and strange in all the best ways HEATHER FAWCETT
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781037201011
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 04 June 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Bloomsbury Circus
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 40.0mm
Width: 148.0mm
Height: 238.0mm
Weight: 630g
Pages: 416
About the Author
Melissa Albert is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of 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. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. The Children is her first novel for adults.
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