Things are not going well for Marlowe, and it only gets worse when she accidentally burns down a house while on a date with her dream girl. A change of scenery is in order, and soon she finds herself moving away to take a summer job giving tours at the historic Morning House. There are quite a few mysteries to unravel, both in the past and present. Why was the Morning House left abandoned and what happened to the family that used to live there? Who's job did Marlowe take over and why was she brought to this island?

If you're a fan of the Truly Devious series (which why wouldn't you be? those books are great) then you will love this standalone novel. Marlowe is a great narrator and her snarky tone brings a lot of humor to an otherwise dour and creepy story. It was hard to put this one down and I loved that there were multiple mysteries to solve along the way.

Death at Morning House started off a bit slow for me. Told in a duel time line format the mystery of the Ralston family curse and the current life experiences of Marlow, who has taken a job as a tour guide on Ralston Island after a very embarrassing first date with the girl of her dreams goes awry.

Upon arriving Marlow soon realizes that she is in an outsider in a group of teens who have grown up together. All struggling with a shared experience. They all seem to be left to their own devices as the Professor who is doing research on the island has made it clear that she is not a babysitter. Marlow tries to make friends with the group but finds herself drawn to Riki who has a rebel air about her. Marlow doesn’t know who to trust when she hears people sneaking around in the dark, the other teens are hot and cold towards her and then professor goes missing.

I enjoyed this book. It’s geared towards teens more than adults, but I feel anyone with a love of mysteries would enjoy it. I did not get an overly anxty teen vibe from the story. I was a bit disappointed as I was intrigued by the story line thinking it would be more of a ghost story or a haunted mansion rather than a look into the past and present double mystery sort of thing. The story started slow but once the pieces started to fall into place with both timelines it was a struggle to put down.

This was a fun, fast-paced murder mystery (that also had its funny moments, Marueen Johnson knows how to combine the perfect amount of humor with mystery). Similar to her Stevie Bell series, Death at Morning House is split into two time periods, each with its respective mystery. Marlowe was a really fun main character and I loved all of the queer representation in this book!

Maureen never fails. She has a way of keeping you on the edge of your seat! This book did just that. I couldn’t put it down.

Marlowe Wexler takes a job offer after an unfortunate encounter with a candle ruins her relationship with her dream girl.

Morning House is an eerie tourist attraction that was once home to the unfortunate Ralston family. Here, Marlowe meets a cast of unique characters and becomes a part of her own mystery.

Told in dual timeline, Death at Morning House is a quick-paced and entertaining read that covers mysteries past and present. Johnson has such a unique voice and I found myself laughing while also on the edge of my seat.

My favorite portion was the Ralstons. The twists were well-done and once the book was finished, I was hungry for more!

Definitely recommend!

This was decent. I will say I’m a huge fan of Maureen Johnson’s Stevie Bell books so I had super high expectations for this one. I love the way Maureen writes mystery thrillers. For some reason Death at Morning House just fell a bit flat for me. I liked how it started with a brief summary of the dark history of Morning House and the tragedies that plagued the Ralston family. The dual timelines were done well and I never felt like it was too jarring or took me out of the story when it would switch. After an unfortunate date goes awry Marlowe joins a group of local teens at Morning House to be a tour guides for the summer. The characters were fun and quirky. I liked Marlowe. She’s a shy, good hearted queer character who also has a photographic memory that comes in real handy with connecting pieces of the mystery together. I do think the mystery felt less of a mystery and more of a kind of tell us type story. It didn’t feel so much like the Stevie books where we had to piece the puzzle together. We are sort of just shown events as the story goes on so the ending felt a bit underwhelming. I did like the mystery but I think personally I just wanted more. But overall it was a cute coming of age story with some sapphic summer romance vibes. I think it’ll be great for fans of stories with quirky YA characters that have a lot of heart but that are also looking for something with a bit of a darker background mystery.

Haunted house books are some of my absolute favorites, so I loved the premise of house sitting a creepy mansion from the 1920s! Abandoned short after it was built and chock full of a history of mysterious deaths, Morning House has been burying a secret for decades. The synopsis almost made this seem like horror so I went into this thinking it would be a horror, in the same vein as a haunted house book, but it actually is a mystery thriller, not unlike the Truly Devious books that Maureen Johnson is known for. It’s actually super similar in feel to Truly Devious. I personally prefer horror, but I love a good murder mystery too! If done right, a thriller can be just as creepy and gripping as horror, and this one was well executed!

The Morning House itself is fascinating and a place that I’d want to visit if it were real. It’s technically a two story playhouse, the same size as a large family home, built for the children of a wealthy doctor with a weird obsession with swimming. Two of the children mysteriously die not long after the Morning House is built, which is the core of the mystery. The rest of the family members start to die one by one, by seemingly natural circumstances, but the fact that it was practically everyone in the immediate family one after another was just….odd. The situation behind the deaths of the first 2 were suspicious and you sense from the get go that someone was probably behind them, but everyone else’s were just strokes of bad luck that I couldn’t see how a person could be behind. Things like drunk driving or heart attacks or not knowing they were walking on a frozen pond and accidentally falling through the ice. If I didn’t know Maureen’s style, I would’ve considered the explanation being supernatural and some kind of family curse, but I’ve read enough of Maureen’s books to know that the evil in her books are strictly human. So I really couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for something so odd. The whole time I was like, with the rest of the family, if this all ends up just being a coincidence, it’s a hell of a coincidence. You do find out all the answers in the end, though.

The book has flashbacks to the 1930’s, to the POVs of the children before their deaths and what their lives were like, which I thought was a great touch. It just makes it even creepier reading the flashbacks, knowing that you’re in the heads of characters that will die young. It switches back and forth to the present time, it turns out the house is open to the public for one summer, and there’s a whole group of teens who are living there for the summer, acting as guides.

There’s also something comforting about reading YA as an adult, almost like it’s nostalgic of when times were simpler. Diving into a YA book and getting into the head of a younger character is always fun because it reminds me of my youth lol. This is super similar in tone to Truly Devious, with mysterious family conspiracies surrounding a seemingly cursed family. If you liked Truly Devious, you’ll like this one.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

I really just need to go a full (consecutive) month without a teenage podcaster solving a cold case. We nearly made it.

Maureen Johnson is an autobuy author for me. Her works are all fast-paced and easy to read through. I love the mystery element. This was another great read- quick and easy. Would have loved more of a twist / a more interesting ending, but overall, good summer read.

**Thank you so much to HarperTeen for giving me an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review! The thoughts below are entirely my own.**

I really enjoyed reading this book! The twists and mystery kept me hooked from start to finish. I had to force myself to put it down at night so I would go to bed.

The writing style was really great! All of the characters felt unique, and they read like actual teenagers, which was awesome. I also liked how the book switched between present-day and the past. It connected all of the storylines really well.

The mystery was amazing! I did not see the twists coming at all. My only problems with the book were the cursing/drug use and the relationships. This was a really fun read, though, and I would recommend reading it if you like YA mysteries!

While this was an interesting story, I had a challenging time connecting to Marlowe. I really enjoyed the alternating time lines and the story in the 1930s was fun and enjoyable. Unfortunately this story fell a bit flat for me and was a bit slow on the pick up. I didn’t see the final twist coming though, and thought it had a good ending.

Ok, look. Without giving anything away, the whole fire thing is a bit of a stretch but Marlowe is so charming that you just kinda let it slide. The way her voice is written is relatable and funny and you’re totally down to go solve some murders with her.

At first, I thought I was diving into a more supernatural sort of murder-y book, and the start of this seemed to sort of kind of mildly gesture that way, but don’t be confused. It’s a good ol’ fashioned who-dun-it. And a pretty well written, entertaining one at that. The book time jumps between the original family who lived in the house and their host of issues, and present day. Sometimes those sorts of books just don’t flow well, but this one works it out just fine.

This is a fun one to kick back and wander through on a day off while you ignore your phone and, really, the outside world. A… lighthearted murder book, if you will? That sounds weird. But even with all the deaths and problematic people of the past, this one is not heavy reading. And that’s nice sometimes.

What a great book. I was instantly taken by Marlowe's sarcastic, dry humor from the start. The way her mind worked was just sheer joy to read. Every chapter ended up being one of those "just one more chapter" moments. The mystery was fast-paced and dawn out perfectly.

After a series of unfortunate events, Marlowe finds herself accepting a job on an island for the Summer. Her new gig as a tour guide at Morning House turns out to be more than she bargained for. Maureen Johnson has a way of spinning a good murder mystery that just sucks me in everytime. I really enjoyed the jumps in time from past to present. It kept me hooked the whole way through. The mystery surrounding the deaths of the family who once lived in Morning House and the group of teenagers on the hunt for a killer in both the past and the present. This was a fun YA mystery that had me guessing til the last page.
Thank you #maureenjohnson and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

I'm reviewing this book with the assumption that this, no matter the look of the cover and timing, is NOT the next Truly, Devious book. So let's start there.

This book is about Marlowe not Stevie, so if you were hoping this was the next TD book, or in that world, it is not.

Spoiler marker from here because it is a mystery. <spoiler>

I was so excited to get this book. I'm not gonna lie, I also thought I was getting our next Stevie book and was ready to find out what mystery and what personal chaos we'd be getting. But, when I saw it was a different story, I was equally excited bc the idea of Maureen Johnson starting a new series in the same type of space before we're done with the TD books so there's no loss of mystery reading was equally exciting.

Unfortunately, and I might be in the minority, this isn't in the same realm as those books. Even with spoilers I'm going to keep this pretty narrow - but I'M ABOUT TO SPOIL THIS BOOK YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So, first off, Marlowe is a really passive heroine in a lot of ways. Things definitely happen TO her. And, while I'm all for that (I don't understand the people who scream about it) it does not work for me here.

Marlowe is not a detective. She's not actively trying to learn things or figure out the mystery that is literally handed to her day one. She is just kind of hanging out, letting all the other teens do their thing, just doing day-by-day. Later, much, much later - like when she finally is like "oh, I should figure this out" later - she's like "way back when I was little I used to solve logic problems" ... maybe tell us that way back at the beginning, and also act like you see the logic problem and are solving it. It's far too late in the game for me when she does start actively detecting.

I did love that Marlowe wasn't fickle. Just bc things took a bad turn with her girlfriend, doesn't mean she was over her. And I love how that played out ❤️
The past mystery isn't really a deep mystery like the other Johnson mysteries. It's pretty much right there for you to figure out. The red herring is obviously bright red.

But, I did love that we're getting dual timelines and dual stories again. I don't know how she does it, but she makes it look effortless. I love the setting and ideas and even the murder in the present day. The fallout is definitely fallout.

I love that the past story (while, she hands you everything pretty early so it's obvious who WOULD do this and why and also). The setting, the ideas, the twisted patriarchy, things that were unfortunately very vitally looked at at that time and were part of the two wars the story sits between.

I found the teens in the past actually more compelling. And wished the present day story had more of that vibe.

There was one final twist that, because I'd kind of given up thinking at the 60% mark bc it felt like "well, we know how this is going to play out" I completely missed but absolutely makes sense - the letter at the end is just... heartbreaking and genius.

I'm rating this a 3.5 and rounding up for author love. Not my fav. Most of her mysteries are 5s for me, but sometimes a 4 it is.

Now, we wait for the next TD book or the next... Marlowe? book! I'd grab either of them up in a heartbeat.

</spoiler>

Thanks to Maureen Johnson and HarperCollins for this digital ARC. Another great story from Maureen Johnson. Marlowe solves the mystery of Morning House while trying to recover from her own personal drama. Great mystery/thriller.

4.5

This book doesn’t come out for like a month and a half so I’m going to keep this review brief.

I did really love this book but the only thing that keeps it from being a 5 is that I felt like the main character Marlowe needed more agency and determination in solving the mystery to warrant being the sole narrator.

The mysteries themselves were very engaging and I always enjoy Maureen Johnson’s employment of dual narrative. I think it is very effective here in a way that’s different from the Truly Devious series. The plot itself is very strong and compelling and I found this book to be very compulsively readable the entire way through. The solution was also very intriguing if slightly predictable. I also like the way Maureen Johnson kind of gets around Marlowe not being a through and through detective like Stevie is in the way the secrets of the past come to light at the end.

Marlowe as a first-person narrator is great. The prose is effervescent and fun to read. Maureen Johnson hones her writing with each book, but I also love how I can always tell it’s one of her books. Her style is so specific in a way that I greatly enjoy. The characters in both timelines are also very interesting but there are a lot of them. It gets easier to differentiate as the story progresses, but just know you have to pay attention to the introductions in the early chapters of both narratives.

The setting was also very interesting and a good location to showcase Johnson’s skills as a writer and storyteller.

Overall, this was a great book. It’s a perfect summer read with two great mysteries, funny and endearing and messy characters, amazing prose, and a setting that always boasts surprises.

This was a great time. Our protagonist Marlowe Wexler might be a new favorite character of mine. With her witty inner thoughts and humor, I found myself intrigued and rooting for her at every turn.
We have 2 main timelines where we are trying to piece together what happened and I found myself equally intrigued with both. The mystery of what happened in 1932 was interspersed expertly with the developments of present day. It was great to think I had it figured out only to realize that the revelations were still unfolding.

Thank you to the publisher for the free copy in exchange for my honest review.

I LOVE Maureen Johnson and I was delighted to get access to her new one-off mystery on Netgalley. It was everything I wanted and more. My only complaint is that it ENDED. I absolutely flew through this book and was glued to every page. There are queer characters, a beautiful yet spooky old mansion, edibles, friend group drama, a petrichor scented candle, and so many more juicy details. The setting is unique and gives elevated-summer-camp-counselor vibes. I did not see the plot twists coming, but everything made perfect sense and fell together neatly in the end. I love when an author gets away with organically getting rid of adult characters and leaving us with a bunch of teenagers thrown together. The cover is beautiful and I will be purchasing this when it comes out, and maybe even giving it a re-read.

I think this is a good book just not the book for me. The mystery didn’t grab me and in the end I skipped a large portion of the book because I lost interest.