To me, everything Maureen Johnson writes is perfect. I was so excited when she announced a standalone book! I adored her Truly Devious series, and I am always a big fan of standalones. She did not disappoint!

3.5 stars

This book is broken into three different times lines: past, Benjamin’s and the present. I found I really enjoyed the past and Benjamin’s small part. They were very intriguing and I really like the characters. However, the present was very slow and the characters were pretty unlikeable.

This book took a while to get going, so it felt like I was trudging through it, but once the mystery took off, I had a hard time putting it down!

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

I enjoyed this a lot! The mystery was very interesting and the characters were too. I liked how it was not only a mystery, it was also kind of a horror and a thriller.

3.75/5 Student Marlowe Wexler finally gets a date with her crush, only for a candle mishap to burn down the house she is supposed to be watching. Now in need of a new summer job, Marlowe ends up on an island at a 1920s mansion called Morning House giving tours. The only problem is that the person who brought her there suddenly disappears, things aren’t adding up, and the house has a history of deaths.

I love a good creepy haunted mansion setting, and this one provided a great atmosphere for this story. I enjoyed the cast of characters on the island, as well as Marlowe’s inner dialogue, which I found very relatable. The layering of the mansion’s original family’s story throughout was well done and helped keep me interested in the book’s progression. It dragged a bit in the middle for me, but overall I enjoyed it.

Thank you to Maureen Johnson, HarperCollins, and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

I have always adored Maureen Johnson's writing so this book was something I knew I was going to love: the mystery and the dual timelines. I wish Clara was around for another book :( If you've loved Maureen Johnson's other books, you will enjoy this one. I'm so happy I read it and can't wait to see what the author will do with this new world she built.

Death at the Morning House by Maureen Johnson is a thrilling YA mystery that will keep readers guessing until the very end. The story follows Marlowe, a teen who lands a summer job as a tour guide at Morning House, a historic island estate with a tragic past. When Dr. Benson, the historian overseeing the tours, goes missing, Marlowe and her fellow teen guides find themselves caught up in a century-old mystery.

Johnson expertly weaves together two timelines – the present-day investigation and the events leading up to the deaths of two Ralston siblings decades ago. The characters are well-developed and relatable, and the setting, with its eerie mansion and the island's isolated atmosphere, adds to the suspense. The twists and turns in the plot are expertly executed, making for a thrilling and satisfying read.

Two timelines and a fast-paced mystery with great characters that will have you flipping pages as fast as you can read them. Maureen Johnson does it again with this stand-alone novel where a young girl discovers a mystery at Morning House where she is working as a tour guide for the summer.

My deep and abiding first love in this book was our lead character, Marlowe. She is a queer teenage girl who normally and that normally wouldn’t necessarily draw me in. Teenage girls are tough for me.

But, Marlowe is hilarious. She is smart and sensitive but she is so so funny. I loved every single minute of this book because the present timeline is completely in her voice and she just was exactly who I wanted to be spending my time with.

I also fell in love with the story in the 1932 timeline of this creepy family with their six adopted kids and then the very very interesting story of the youngest kid, four-year-old Max. I was fascinated by the day-to-day life of this very strange family from the beginning.

And the house and the island where this book takes place are equally fascinating. We have pristine waters to swim in, we have a beautiful house to explore and dank basements to find creepy things in. Every setting was delicious.

Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson was published August 6th 2024 by HarperTeen.
Maureen Johnson is the author of the truly devious series which I absolutely loved! This one was no different I loved every second of this book!

YA mystery book for the win again! Marlowe was the best character. I absolutely adored her! This book was about old history of the Ralston Family and reading about how one of the children, Max was found dead by drowning and not soon after, his sister Clara jumps off a balcony and soon dies after. Now why did they do this?
What caused this to happen?
Then the story is told in the future with Marlowe Wexler who is sent to this island where the Ralston's used to live and help give tours of the house. Strange things start to happen at the house, someone goes missing and Marlowe is determined to find out what is going on and figure out what happened in the past to maybe have caused these problems and a missing person.

I highly recommend if you love a good YA !!

Death at Morning House is a delightful YA mystery with a quirky and lovable heroine, Marlowe Wexler. Her mix of photographic memory and endearing clumsiness makes her stand out from other detective leads, offering a fresh twist on the genre. The story's blend of past and present mysteries set in a haunted mansion keeps the suspense gripping, and the setting is perfectly eerie. While it echoes some elements of the Truly Devious series, Marlowe's charm and the book's fast-paced plot give it a unique spin. Overall, it’s a fun, smart read that makes me excited to see what Marlowe gets up to next. If you’re into clever mysteries with a touch of character, this one’s a winner!

The truly devious series drew me to this newest release. And like that series, this one had a wide range of eclectic characters, an old mystery tying into a modern one, and a unique setting. I did feel as though the story took a little too long to get into the mystery in the present day, but I did still enjoy it and would recommend the book

This book was kind of a miss for me. After discovering (and devouring) the Truly Devious series, I had pretty high expectations. Death at Morning House is similar in the fact that it has a dual timeline, takes place in an old mansion, and a mysterious, strange love interest. I actually really enjoyed the timeline that featured the Ralston family. Their story was unique and fascinating, as well as well-developed. However, the present day storyline is where the book fell flat to me. I felt that Marlowe, Akilah, and the supporting cast of characters were half-baked compared to the Ralston's. I mean. I honestly couldn't tell you the names of the people Marlowe stayed in the mansion with, besides a vague description of their personality traits. I also, unfortunately, found the 'twist' toward the end of the book to be rather unsurprising and formulaic. Let me be clear. This was not a bad book by any means, and I will happily recommend it to my friends. It has an engaging plot and mystery to keep you entertained. I just probably won't go out of my way to pick up a copy, which I'm very sad about. And on a positive note, Death at Morning House has better representation than Truly Devious does, which was great to see.

Death at Morning House is an unputdownable mystery from one of my favorite YA authors, Maureen Johnson! In this standalone novel, we meet accidental firebug Marlowe Wexler, spend the summer with her at the enigmatic Morning House on Ralston Island, and uncover mysteries from the past and the present. I flew through this one in just a couple of days, which is a rarity for me—especially when the book is nearly 400 pages long!

If you've read Truly, Devious and the other Stevie Bell mysteries, you will recognize Johnson's signature dual-timeline storytelling that weaves together two whodunnits, separated by time but bound by space. This structure sucks me in every time! And while it definitely works for the story of Morning House, its uncanny echoes of Stevie Bell and Ellingham Academy are pretty loud. Maybe too loud?

I do love that this book is a standalone and that both the present-day and 1932 mysteries of Morning House are wrapped up in one volume! The characters and the setting are charming, and if Johnson decides to give us a sequel, I would happily return to Clement Bay for more hijinks. However, I am content with this story (series or no series) and can't wait to share it with other readers!

Full review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5984935020

I really like Maureen Johnson's writing style. I'm a huge fan of her Truly Devious series, so I was really looking forward to this book. I was not disappointed.

While I was not quite as surprised by the solution to this mystery as I have been at some of her other books, it was a thoroughly engrossing story. It's told in dual-timelnes, as she seems to be very fond of. I did kind of expect that. What I did not expect was for this book to touch on eugenics along with murder. That was an interesting addition. And she doesn't do it overtly - it sort of creeps up on you as you go through the story.

The characters in this book were very different; I don't feel like I got to know the side characters very well, but that's just the difference between being with them for one book as opposed to five.

Johnson writes queer characters very skillfully; if that's something you care about, you can go into this book with confidence.

Maureen Johnson can do no wrong by my estimation so it's no surprise that I LOVED Death at Morning House. In the dog days of summer the creaky murder-mystery, brings the reader along on sweltering summer days to find out not only what happened at Morning House, a remote estate on the St. Lawrence River, in the 1930s, but also current day.
Marlowe has found herself in a bit of a sticky situation and lucks into a chance to spend the summer working at Morning House, a place she's never heard of. She soon finds out that the family that owned the estate left under tragic conditions in the 30s and a new owner is set to transform it into a corporate retreat, not before it is allowed to open to the public for the first time in history, for one summer. When Marlowe gets to Morning House, she realizes the adjacent small town has experienced its own share of tragedy.
Wondering at how the two timeliness together is one of the best parts of Death at Morning House. With Johnson's signature character building and atmospheric mystery, Death at Morning House was the perfect read on the cusp of fall.

I loved this thriller. I love that it was told in multiple back and forth timelines. Will recommend!

A fun mystery with back and forth from the past to the present that will leave readers on the edge of their seats.

Marlowe Wexler has had one thing after another go wrong and after a horrible first date where she almost burns down a house. She then sets off for a new summer job at Morning House. Morning House is a mansion built on an island back in the 1920s but was quickly abandoned after the death of several family members. The house is being opened for one summer for fans of the story of what happened in the house. Shortly after Marlowe arrives, another mystery starts to unravel, and Marlowe finds herself at the center of this mystery and the danger included.

Death at Morning House is another great mystery by Maureen Johnson. I have enjoyed all of the books by Johnson, but I can’t give this one as high of a rating for one personal picky reason. I am not a fan of books that have LGTBQ type themes that are marketed to kids or in the YA section. Write that in adult books all you want, but when it is marketed to kids, I am not so much a fan. The story itself was really good and I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it along with the back and forth between the past and present. Johnson is very good at the sleuthing type genre and I knew that would make this story really good, which it did, I wasn’t sure how it was all going to turn out until the very end. I love it when writers are able to make a story twisty like that and keep me guessing. I do think fans of mysteries will enjoy this one for sure.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.

I always like how Maureen’s books tie together the past and present, connecting similarities between the two mysteries. There’s always purposeful misdirection that doesn’t feel forced, having me think I know what happened without actually giving the story away. At times it seemed a bit repetitive but I liked how we got the thought process of Marlowe solving the case.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperTeen for the ARC of Death at Morning House!

Death at Morning House, is about Marlowe, who is having the worst summer of her life after accidentally setting a family friends, house on fire. After hiding out for a while she is presented the opportunity to be a tour guide of a large home in upstate New York. Taking the position thinking this is a good way to leave behind her old life, and escape her mistake, she steps into an even hotter situation.

I really enjoyed the duel timeline exploring both the current day and past mystery taking place at Morning house. It was well paced and the characters felt fully flushed out with unique, and individual personalities.

This is for fans who enjoyed Good Girl Guide to Murder and Maureen Johnson’s previous works!

I've loved Maureen Johnson's books in the past. She's great for a YA mystery where you can just shut your brain off for a few hours and escape into a mystery. I struggled with this one because of the past story that gave the Morning House it's mystery. Reading thing about small children drowning - especially a four year old when I have one - is just tough for me so it just wasn't a good match. But if you've liked her other books or want a YA mystery I'd say go for it!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.