Marlowe comes to Morning House after an unfortunate accident with a candle, leaving behind her girlfriend to run tours for the Summer. She arrives on the island to find a group of local friends who were embroiled in yet another mystery, the death of their friend. As Marlowe gets to know Morning House and its dark history, she comes to find out that there's a lot more to everything than meets the eye.

I have never read anything by Maureen Johnson, but I was really intrigued by the blurb for this novel and very excited to get the opportunity to read the ARC. I found that I love her wit and humor. It made her characters likeable and real. I loved the switching between timelines, past and present. To me, this gives a fun twist to the story as you are trying to figure out what is going on in both timelines. And you don't want to stop reading so you can figure out what's going to happen next!

I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more into Maureen's Truly Devious series and any future novels.

I will admit the cover drew me in first off. But the story is amazing. When I put it down, I had to pick it back up. I had know what was on the next page. Get this book, y'all.

4⭐️

After a disastrous date ends in accidentally burning down a house, Marlowe Wexler assumes her life is over as she knows it. The fire wasn't her fault and the adults didn't really blame her, but Marlowe blamed herself. After isolating herself, she's offered a job at Morning House, a historic house built in the 20s and abandoned not long after. Morning House was once the home of the Ralston family and was plagued with tragedy. When her new boss goes missing, Marlowe worries that Morning House might not be done with tragedy.

I really enjoyed this. I loved all of the characters and how they all were flawed in their own way. They felt like authentic teenagers and not just younger adults. Marlowe was such a chaotically relatable person as she tried to work out her first relationship. I really appreciated how well Marlowe and the local kids worked together in the end. I think it's normal to be suspicious of a new comer joining the group, especially when the initial group was as close as they were, but it was also nice that they eventually realize that 'sides' was not important.

The POV of the Ralston family was absolutely fascinating to me and I think I would have almost preferred for the entire story to be told in that time line rather than the alternating that we actually got. The way the father raised those children felt almost militant and very cultish. This lead to them being so much more mysterious. The fact that even one of those kids ended up some what well adjusted is amazing and is a great view of how much your childhood can mess you up.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperTeen for providing this ARC to me!

This book is all of the great things about Maureen Johnson. A good mystery with slow revealing details. I loved the feeling of the atmosphere in the book. It was like you could tell something was off but you just didn't know what. Slowly getting to know the other members that worked at the house was also really great. I love a slow to reveal mystery!

Rounded up from 4.5! Marlowe is a wonderfully awkward, lovable main character that is thrust into the middle of some major friend group drama during her summer job in a death mansion. Obviously, chaos ensues and the bodies and fires start to stack up. Death at Morning House wonderfully filled the Stevie/Truly Devious mystery sized hole in my heart. This book had many similarities to the Truly Devious series - takes place in an old mansion with secret tunnels, mysteries of the past are layered with new mysteries, teenagers with little to no adult supervision, police that don’t seem to so much of anything, etc. However, it was clearly its own story and had all the twists and turns one would hope for. I also thought Johnson did an excellent job of weaving in LGBTQ characters in an authentic way that accurately reflects the world of teenagers in 2024. There were a couple parts that I wish were better developed or described, hence the half star off, but I read most of it in one sitting, which is the highest praise I can give a book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Do you ever hype a book up in your mind so much that you are worried you will be disappointed when you actually sit down and read it? I am a HUGE Truly Devious fan and could hardly wait to dive into DEATH AT MORNING HOUSE because I am such a big Maureen Johnson fangirl. I am happy to say that DAMH lived up to the hype in my mind and more! I loved the dual timelines and the mystery was so much fun to unpack. I appreciated how the mystery involved first half of twentieth-century weirdness and ickiness like eugenics, the Kellog diet, and more. I also appreciated how hilarious the book was at times. My husband often woke up in the middle of the night to me chuckling at Johnson's witty writing. This book is definitely a favorite of the year for me!

Immense thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for the ARC. You all deserve a hot bottom.

Fantastic dual time line, both intriguing and well written. Great fully developed characters, Perfect setting with wonderful descriptions of the house. Loved the LGBTQ storylines. The plots were interesting and I had no idea of either ending which made it more fun, as I can usually guess. In other words a perfect read. It’s a YA book that can easily be adult fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC of Maureen Johnson’s Death at Morning House!

I have read the Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson and loved it so I knew I was also going to enjoy Death at Morning House.

This book was really well done. Johnson writes books that are easy to digest, interesting, and also incredibly witty. No seriously, this book made me laugh!! In my experience with Johnson’s characters, I expected them to be loveable and easy to root for. This was no different. I felt like Marlowe and I were twin flames and not just because we both love moose tracks ice cream.

Overall, Maureen Johnson’s mix of comedy, thrill, and a dash of romance made for an incredible book, one that I would highly recommend. (4.75 stars!)

This would have been a solid 4 or 4.5 stars were it not for the over the top LGBTQ agenda. It’s unfortunate because otherwise Maureen Johnson writes compelling and suspenseful YA mysteries. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Told in alternating timelines, this one has an idyllic setting with a fun group of characters. I liked how in each timeline there were mystery elements to keep the reader engaged. Though I found myself more drawn to the past, and the Ralstons, and how bizarrely the children were being raised.

This one was a lot of fun and I especially appreciated that it was a standalone with no cliffhanger.

What a fun romp in a strange and interesting location! I really enjoyed this book and the interweaving of the old and new timelines together to color the background of the mystery of the present day. It felt like a high stakes mystery without too much stress that a thriller can cause. I had a hard time putting it down and was working hard to see how things ended.

Marlowe Wexler gets a job as a tour guide at Morning House an abandoned mansion built in the 1920’s that saw many strange deaths. Dr. Henson who hired her up and disappears and Marlowe suspects foul play.
This was a great read with many interesting characters. Thanks NetGalley and Harper Collin’s Children’s Books for this eARC that will be released August 6, 2024!

As a longtime Maureen Johnson reader, I love her Truly Devious books and am glad to see her branching out into some standalone mysteries as well. I really enjoy her distinct voice, balance of silly and quirky with serious, and talent for mysteries and puzzles. Death at Morning House continues this trend, with Marlowe Wexler starting her summer by accidentally burning down a house on a first date and taking a job at an old mansion, long-abandoned since tragic deaths there and opening to the public for the first time. Marlowe learns the story of the Ralston family and realizes she's stumbled into a fraught friend group also working there and reeling from the death of their friend. Marlowe's story alternates with flashbacks to the Ralston family in the days before the infamous deaths, which people still speculate about in the present day.

This was overall a solid read, with a fun setting (both summery and ominous), good pacing, and enough twists and turns and cliffhangers. I do think the mystery was a little less exciting, and the characters and dynamics at the center of both the past and present mysteries lacking a bit of depth. Perhaps because they aren't directly connected, the interesting 1932 story doesn't get fully explored, and the present-day mystery doesn't feel fully fleshed out. I enjoyed Marlowe as a main character, but similarly thought she wasn't fully developed; Johnson's protagonist Stevie, who leads the Truly Devious books, and her friends feel so distinct in comparison.

I really enjoyed Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson. I love the Truly Devious series, and was very excited when I saw that she had a new book coming out. I liked Marlowe, and though she wasn’t my favorite Maureen Johnson character, I thought she was very well-developed. The premise of this book was great, and I had high expectations after reading about it, and the novel definitely lived up to those expectations. My one complaint (if it can be called that) is that I was much more invested in the part of the book that took place in 1932 than I was in the present-day portion. I wanted to know more about each of the siblings. However, I definitely didn’t dislike the present-day parts. They just weren’t quite as exciting to me as the past. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would give it 4.5 stars.

I was super disappointed with this story sadly. It started off well then took a nose dive off a cliff. It was so slow and boring, and nothing to make you care for the characters. So many characters thrown at you from the past and present it was a bit to get used to. Even when you do finally figure out what happened it just felt so blah. The only part that was interesting was what happened in the past but even then it could have been done and better as a short story. This just wasn’t for me and felt very YA, nothing wrong with that but I feel like YA should be split into 2 subcategories, like pre-teen/young teen YA and more mature YA, this seems pretty-teen YA to me. I guess I went into this story expecting a whole lot more and just felt let down.

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for sending me an ARC of Death at Morning House in exchange for review.

4 ⭐️

As a 33 year old lady I loved this. I also would have loved this as a 13 year old. Some darkness covering family trauma and murder but in a very easy and light digestible way. Firstly, I love that our FMC is gay. It seems I am deep in the LGBT umbrella for book reading and I’m super good with that.

Marlowe is a likable and realistic feeling girl. Her inner monologue was very relatable bc girls make me nervous too they’re so pretty. She’s also prone to jumping to conclusions which again, relatable.

This was just great vibes. It’s early summer just like in the book and this group of friends, one mysterious older woman, and one stranger trying to escape their very recent past all have to work at this island mansion house (previously owned by a family who suffered a great and well known tragedy) giving tours while trying to figure out what happened to their recently deceased friend.

The pacing is solid the whole way through and I found myself excited to read each night to see what was uncovered how Marlowe was gonna become friends with this group (or maybe more?????) and face her past decisions (accidents).

It concluded in a very satisfying wrap up that stayed true to the story especially for a bunch of teens and was overall very enjoyable.

Thank you for letting me read this!

This was kind of a bummer because I have majorly mixed feelings depending on which timeline we talk about. I absolutely loved the timeline taking place in the past while I was cringing at the timeline in the present day. I couldn’t stand Marlowe as a character. The humor was not it for me and there was a lot of telling instead of showing. On the other hand, I like the older timeline and the characters. The writing was much more polished and mature which made it more fluid to read. I wish the entire book had been written in this style.

Sadly I just didn’t care about what was happening by the end of the book because of how annoyed I was by Marlowe.

This book takes a long time to set up. We were over halfway through before anything got REALLY started happening. With that being said, if you enjoy the main character then it’s not such a hardship to go along with it. I liked Marlowe sometimes and other times I found her inner monologue to be slightly painful. Overall, the story was intriguing, but twists were not necessarily the most surprising. I wouldn’t say this is as good as Truly Devious, but it’s a solid YA mystery/thriller.

Note: I received a free copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperCollins for accepting my request for an ACR of this book!
She was a mermaid. She was looking for a pearl at the bottom of the lagoon. That was what she would tell herself.
4.75/5
Honestly, Maureen Johnson has done it again! The book had me in an iron grip. The dual timelines made it so that I never stopped asking questions, and there were times when I would talk aloud trying to figure out what could happen. I loved the characters, especially the Ralston’s. Marlowe, I must admit, was a refreshing new character from Johnson, different from Stevie but not unwelcomed as her presence brought a fun new perspective to the ya mystery genre. My only question left is if we will see more of her (and Akilah). The only reason why I didn’t give this book a five out of five rating was because I wanted to know what happened to some characters at the end, even though I believe it isn’t exactly difficult to piece it together without it being spelled out.

Maureen Johnson? More like Maureen Hooked-Me-From-Page-Oneson! Seriously, folks, this was my first rodeo with this author, and let's just say she's earned a VIP spot on my bookshelf. "Death at the Morning House" was a wild ride, the kind of YA mystery that makes you forget about real life and just devour those pages.

Fresh off another summer read, I was all in on the sunny vibes, but this one added a delicious dash of spooky. The story unfolds through multiple perspectives, which, I'll admit, took a minute to get rolling. But hold onto your hats, because once those gears start turning, it's a full-on sprint to the finish line!

The ending? Chef's kiss. It was like all the puzzle pieces clicking into place, connecting past and present, and tying a neat little bow on the whole shebang. If you're craving a mystery that'll keep you guessing and leave you wanting more, "Death at the Morning House" is your jam.