First published 2024
Marlowe Wexler accidentally sets a date on fire. Literal firefighters show up. Akilah, the girl she's loved for years, will never see her again. Her house-sitting jobs disappear. The universe responds by dropping a new opportunity in her lap: tour guide at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and left empty ever since. The work seems simple enough. She talks about stained glass windows and strange food and Prohibition era details. No fire hazards. Plenty of boredom potential. Then she learns about the deaths that happened there. As Marlowe digs deeper into the mansion's secrets, she realizes the past might repeat itself. She must solve the mystery before someone else dies. The job that started as summer work becomes a race against time on an isolated island where history casts long shadows.
Genres: suspense, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-detective, found-family, race-against-time
Setting: Morning House, Island
Period: 1920s, Contemporary
384 pages · Hardcover · HarperCollins