Death at Morning House

By: Maureen Johnson

Narrated by: Katherine Littrell

An instant New York Times and Indie bestseller!

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.

* Chicago Public Library Best Teen Fiction 2024 * Horn Book Fanfare 2024 Booklist * Children's Book Council Favorites Award List 2025 * Edgar Award Nominee *

Fun read that will keep you guessing…

I buddy read this with a friend and we both enjoyed it. See I read the Truely, Devious series, Maureen Johnson has been a favorite of mine.

not a suitable narrator

the voice acting is very childish and immature. also the narrator's accent is very distracting and pulls the listener out of the story frequently.

Fun!

I love the way Maureen Johnson weaves a contemporary mystery with a historical one. I didn’t love these characters quite as much as the Stevie series, but still really enjoyed it. Would recommend.

Great Stand Alone Novel

Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious Series is one of my absolute favorites; I recommend the original trilogy to any and everyone. This didn’t quite live up, but was still a really great story. I love the dual storytelling, and she gave us another fun and quirky main character.

Duel Timeline as only M. Johnson could do

I wasn't sure what it would be like following a different crew of teens than Johnson's Truly Devious group, as I have loved most all their stories. As normal Johnson churns out two mysterious in one story- one from the past and one in present. This main character, Marlowe, is quickly, charming, and fun to tag alongside. If I am being honest, this book felt a bit more grounded because Marlowe is a basic teen in an old mansion- riddled by the ghostly stories from the house's past - while Stevie and co. lead the luxurious life of solving mysteries in a private school on a snowed-in mountain, with a continuous fictitious feeling life as a whole. Marlowe is not only more palatable at times, but the rest of the group feels like your average teens in comparison to the Devious group. This location and setting was great, along with the mystery concept itself.
I feel like both ends of this is solvable, but the clues are not as straight forward, the reader and our main character must surmise a lot of suspicious "could be" or around about thoughts to channel or churn out what possibly went down. I genuinely do wish there were more clues or tangible facts to follow, so as the reader I feel like I could confidently solve instead of coming to an ending I had great guesses, but not much concrete fact to work off of.
All in all, I do think this is my favorite mystery this year, possibly even beating out the Reappearance of Rachel Price. It's hard to say if we will get a follow up to this book, but I believe if Johnson wishes to write a sequel she will have a very willing readers.

I'm going to split ratings by timeline to give a better depiction of how I felt:

Old Timeline:
Concept 5/5
Setting 4.5/5
Characters 3.5/5
Mystery Itself 4/5
Clues 4/5
Solvability 4/5
Fear Factor 2/5
Plot 4/5
Coherence 4/5
Romance \
Audio Reader 4/5



New Timeline:
Concept 3/5
Setting 4.5/5
Characters 4/5
Mystery Itself 3/5
Clues 2.5/5
Solvability 3/5
Fear Factor 1/5 oddly even if characters were in danger..it just didn't feel believable
Plot 3/5
Coherence 4/5
Romance 3.5/5


Audio Reader 4.5/5
Overall Rating of Book as a Whole: 4/5 (i'm giving grace on lack of clues or solvability because I honestly had a lot of fun reading)

Verdict: Never leave a candle unattended.