Recommended by the New York Times • 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 • 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

“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

“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

“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