Reviews with content warning for Blood - Death at Morning House

This book is like a love letter to the people who disliked truly devious! This book took all the criticisms I had for that series and fixed them, which is fucking great!

1. The characters were interesting and didn’t get ridiculous amounts of uneventful scenes that didn’t further the plot.
2. The plot was the main focus of the story ALONG WITH THE CHARACTERS!!
3. The plot and the murder mystery was overall really interesting!
4. Even though in both the past and the present there were a lot of characters they felt distinct enough where I could differentiate them(I really struggled with this in the past portion of the truly devious books!)
5. The book is really atmospheric and I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the morning house!

I really don’t have a lot of qualms with this book although I do wish that the divide from the past in comparison to the present could have been a little more distinct in way of writing(or I guess for me in way of narration because I read the audiobook).

Overall I think this is just a really solid book thats worth reading if you like murder mysteries! (PS: don’t go into this expecting like an actual thriller cause thats not it! I was not for a single moment in suspense or fear)

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vicwaltz's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

** thnx to netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review**

3.5 Stars

This one is an interesting one. I really, really like Johnson's Truly Devious books and this has a lot of the same elements - parallel stories of past and present mysteries, but the two don't intertwine as neatly as the parallel plots in TD do.

Death at Morning House follows Marlowe as she integrates herself into an existing friend group for the summer (after blowing up her own life). Since it's the same genre, and the same approach and the same vibe of brat pack investigates mystery, it's impossible not to compare this to Truly Devious but Marlowe is <i>not</i> Stevie Bell, which makes the mystery a little less fun to read. She's not super interested in the past mystery about the Ralston family deaths and her interest in the drama surrounding her new friends(?) is self-interest motivated rather than "omg mystery" motivated. These are both normal and relatable - Marlowe is very much a believable teen - but it is a bit different to read a mystery from the POV of a character who isn't obsessed with solving the mystery (very different from Stevie).

The characters have Johnson’s typical style - fun and quirky and very teen. I wish she’d spent a bit more time showing their relationships instead of having various characters tell Marlowe about who loves who and why, but it works given the context of the story.

The mysteries are both pretty straightforward. None of the twists are super twisty (though I also read too many thrillers so they might be more twisty if you’re not always looking for the answer), but they’re still satisfying.

My one big thought is that I think Johnson is trying to comment on eugenics with her past story which is a fascinating choice but she dances around saying the big things. I know it’s YA and not a thinkpiece, but there was definitely room for the modern teens to talk about it. I think Johnson was trying to imply things but I don’t know that she successfully drove the message home. I kept waiting for the big “well yeah, that’s what happens when you’re ___” line, but it never came.

Cw: death, teen death (past), eugenics & racial purity discussions, wild dieting

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