The Children - Melissa Albert

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.