Death at Morning House

"Maureen Johnson delivers a new mystery with new characters. After accidentally setting fire to a family friend's cabin, Marlowe jumps at the opportunity to leave town for the summer. She is filling in a last-minute hole as a tour guide at historic Morning House. (She discovers later the voice she replaced died by falling off a cliff. Each of the other teens working at Marlow House were in a tight friend group with the deceased Chris.) Like Truly Devious, there is an old mystery to solve. How did 2 of the 7 children summering at Morning House in the late 1930s die on the same day? Maureen Johnson alternates between Marlowe's first person, present account and 3rd person flashbacks. I was surprised by the who-did-it's in both the present and past cases. Marlowe's relationship with the girl at home bothered me. It felt immature and over the top. (In my defense I haven't been a teenager with a crush in a very long time. ) I was also extremely bothered by a scene in the book when Marlowe feels a door to see where the fire is. She feels the door and then opens it. The reason for feeling a door is to tell if the doorknob is going to be hot. A hot door means the metal doorknob is going to be hot and burn you! But she was able to open the door a crack without burning her hand. Finally, I felt the supporting characters could have been developed better. That bring said, I will read the next book (because Marlowe has more mysteries to solve.). "

"Sigh. I really expected this to be better than Truly Devious. And I really enjoyed it until page 230 or so, before it all fell apart. It’s clear that the author doesn’t know how to write a proper mystery- she doesn’t actually start anything exciting until too late into the book, and then only gives one or two clues before the answer is revealed. And half of this mystery involved just so much stupid teenage drama that I didn’t care for- NOT the cool weird house murder I was expecting. And the romance was stupid, it just got thrown out the window in just 2 pages. Plus, the writing was overall clunky, Marlowe’s voice was fun but I didn’t like the random metaphors and how she spoke to the readers, it was cringe. The only things I liked was one or two decent twists, and the chapters in the past were wayyy better (but barely mattered to the story, so what was the point?) I couldn’t really DNF since I wanted to know what happened, but this was just a slog. This went from being 4 stars, and could’ve been 3 stars, but then lost one star because I just wanted the book to be over, and I give 3 stars if I at least was engaged. I’ve never rated a book this low, and I gave the author another chance after Truly Devious was such a mixed bag, but now I think I’m officially done reading her stuff unless I’m really interested in it, because she writes too many disappointments for me. "