Caffeinated Reviewer | The Children by Melissa Albert
25th Jun
I was looking for an atmospheric listen, and with its full cast of narrators, The Children by Melissa Albert promised a dark tale of legacy, memory, and magic. I am pleased to say it did not disappoint.
The Children
by Melissa Albert
Narrator: Rebecca Lowman, Saskia Maarleveld, Kristen Sieh, Leslie Aleman, Iggy Costello
Length: 14 hours and 43 minutes
Genres: Fantasy
Source: Publisher
Purchase*: Amazon | Audible | Libro.fm *affiliate
Rating: 
Narration: 5 cups Speed: 1.3x
With a full cast recording and stunning sound design, this audio edition will immerse the listener in the novel’s atmospheric world.
The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.
Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.
In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere’s childhood isn’t the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.
Now an adult coasting on her mother’s name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family’s legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she’s spent the last twenty years running What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s fantasy world?
The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It’s for anyone who’s ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.
As we listen, we meet Guinevere Sharpe, whose memories of her childhood are overshadowed by tragedy and the never-ending popularity of the Ninth City books written by her mother. Guinevere and her brother Ennis bear the same names as the fictional children who visited the Ninth City.
The author shares both past and the present with Guinevere. We see her childhood from Italy to the isolated Vermont farmhouse where they grew up in the early 1990s as their mother wrote and their father painted. Edith Sharpe’s series was never completed after a tragic event. As an adult, Guinevere is promoting a ghostwritten memoir about her childhood when her estranged brother, Ennis, announces an art installation titled, simply, Mother. With it, Guinevere’s carefully created facade cracks, and with it come memories she’s buried.
 Narrated by Rebecca Lowman, Saskia Maarleveld, Kristen Sieh, Leslie Aleman, and Iggy Costello, the author pulled me into this atmospheric tale, and I found myself drawn to the farmhouse and its strange quirks and ominous vibes. From the outside, their lives look idyllic, but the walls tell a different story. I highly recommend listening, as I believe the narrators themselves enhanced the overall story.
The story is a book within a book, a dark, genre-bending fairy tale that moves between life at the farmhouse and Guinevere’s current situation. The story unfolds slowly as the foreboding builds, and we see the carefully guarded walls Guinevere has built around herself. There was darkness, and a sense of supernatural madness that held me captive. The Farmhouse itself is a living, breathing character. Edith Share isn’t likable through Guinevere’s eyes, but the world adores her. The children’s father is charismatic but suffers from highs and lows.
The Children delivered a dark, eerie look at childhood, art, dysfunctional families,and fame that I found gripping.
About Melissa Albert
New York Times and indie bestselling author of YA books The Bad Ones, Our Crooked Hearts, and the Hazel Wood series. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and included in the New York Times list of Notable Children’s Books. The Children is her first adult novel.
About Kristen Sieh
KRISTEN SIEH is a stage, television, and voice-over performer. She was a member of the original cast of the Tony® Award-winning Broadway musical The Band’s Visit, and a founding member of the Brooklyn-based theater company The TEAM, writing and performing half a dozen new plays in the U.S. and abroad.
About Rebecca Lowman
Rebecca Lowman is an American actress, writer, and audio-book narrator who has established herself as a versatile performer across television, film, and audio media. Originally from Springfield, Illinois, Lowman pursued formal training in the performing arts, earning her Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University. Her educational foundation provided the technical skills and artistic depth that would later define her multifaceted career in entertainment.
About Saskia Maarleveld
SASKIA MAARLEVELD is an AudioFile magazine Earphones Award–winning narrator living in New York City. Working full-time in the voice-over world, Saskia has recorded over 160 audiobooks. She switches seamlessly between accents and can often be heard speaking in British, Australian, New Zealand, and various European accents, in addition to her own American accent.
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About Kimberly
Kimberly is a coffee loving book addict who reads and listens to fictional stories in all genres. Whovian, Ravenclaw, Howler and proud Nonna. She owns and manages Caffeinated PR. The coffee is always on and she is ready to chat.
