The Children

 The Children

Reviewed By  Grasshopper2       June 4, 2026

 

Author  Melissa Albert

Distributor:      Amazon
ISBN:                 1037201043, 9781037201042
Publisher:         Bloomsbury Publishing, Imprint Bloomsbury Circus.
Release Date:   4 June 2026  

   Website:   https://www.amazon.com/Children-Novel-Melissa-Albert/dp/0063487438

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Melissa Albert has written an extraordinary, imaginative and complex story in The Children. Her descriptions are beautiful and rich, adding so much to the passion and heart of this tale. She veers from the saga of the main character’s childhood to the world of adult reality in which Guin and her brother, inseparable as children, are now bitter enemies.

Guinevere and Ennis have an amazing childhood. Their father is a Welsh actor who has come to live in the country with the young wife who wished to write in peace. He has given up his career to help her fulfill her dream.

The children have a huge amount of freedom to roam the woods and surrounds and to share experiences with each other. Their mother is seldom seen except for one evening when she comes down the stairs and in a faint voice says, “I have cut my finger off.” The children are sent to try and find the missing finger but to no avail.

As adults, Guin and Ennis have moved apart and lead separate lives. Their mother did produce a series of books which were immensely popular called the Ninth City Series, with the children in the book based on her children. Guin has been pressed by an editor to write a memoir of their childhood; desperate for money she does so but the fantasy world is never far away.

The complex relationship between the siblings unfolds gradually allowing the reader to tie ends together and to understand the reasons for their enmity. But it is Guin, who takes the step which blurs fantasy and reality. What will come to the surface to confront both the siblings will be both powerful and undeniable.

Fiction, General, Mystery