From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?

Maybe this job isn’t such a gift after all. Morning House has a horrific secret that’s been buried for decades, and now the person who brought her here is missing.

All it takes is one clue to set off a catastrophic chain of events. One small detail, just like a spark, could burn it all down—if someone doesn’t bury Marlowe first.

Death at Morning House
Maureen Johnson
6 August 2024

It opens with the worst first date ever and I couldn’t put it down.

I absolutely loved Marlowe’s voice throughout Death at Morning House. She is self aware, awkward, and hilarious. Her descriptions of her co-workers is great, albeit sometimes insulting.

He had the widest mouth I’d ever seen outside of a muppet.

The first act moves a little slow but Marlowe’s humor does some heavy lifting to keep it all moving. In these early chapters, I was more interested in the history of Morning House than I was in Marlowe’s experience with being exiled there for the summer. Much of what she goes through is very slice-of-life.

It’s a summer job, she does summer job things.

The only modern day death to occur, within the first act, happens before the story even starts and does affect the relationships between the characters.

Then someone goes missing (trying not to spoil things here) and everyone runs around looking for them. Eventually they conclude they are no longer on the island and assume an accident happened, echoing an accident happening in the past.

We watch a murder get planned in the past and then spring forward as a massive storm moves toward the island to trap Marlowe and her coworkers just in time for her to realize that the missing person had been murdered.

I was pushed out a little when Marlowe comes to realize that a murder took place. She does so off the smallest of evidences, which could have easily been washed away or from came from anything else.

The third act is action packed, people get drugged, there’s climbing out tall wet windows, and things heat up, but the the reveal of the murderer’s identity felt very Scooby-Doo.

How could it not? There are only a few other characters on the island and they didn’t all get equal screen time. There wasn’t really a lot of room to have us follow smoking guns for each character simply because of the tightness of the setting.

The ending wraps everything up nicely, the murder(s), the consequences, and the effect of everything on all of the relationships.

I highly recommend Death at Morning House for everyone looking for an end of the summer read.