The Children

「一本非凡的作品。它引人入勝，充滿謎團，但這僅是它最微不足道的優點。其語言如灑上了魔法一般。《The Children》讓我想起了巔峰時期的雷·布萊伯利（Ray Bradbury）。」——史蒂芬·金

《紐約時報》暢銷作家梅麗莎·艾爾伯特扣人心弦的新作。書中，一位傳奇作家的成年子女與母親疏遠多年，他們曾被寫入亡母備受推崇的奇幻系列作中，如今必須面對如藤蔓般蔓延的遺產、記憶與魔法。

關妮薇·夏普（Guinevere Sharpe）擁有兩種童年。 在其中一個童年，她與哥哥恩尼斯（Ennis）生活在佛蒙特州偏遠農舍的森林陰影下；在另一個童年，他們活在母親世界聞名的《第九城》系列書頁中，那裡的魔法冒險讓他們家喻戶曉。現實中，關妮薇的童年並非母親讀者所想像的那種著魔般的田園詩：她與恩尼斯像半野生的孩子般長大，不修邊幅、營養不良，每天逃進他們視為遊樂場的荒野森林。隨著伊迪絲·夏普的書籍聲名大噪，農村童年的威脅轉變為名望帶來的升級險境——直到火光沖天的那一夜，讓伊迪絲的系列作就此殘缺，而她的孩子們成為唯二的倖存者。

如今，關妮薇已成年，靠著母親的名聲度日，正為一本代筆的傳記進行宣傳。此時，與她疏遠、長期屏棄家族遺產的藝術家哥哥恩尼斯，宣布即將舉辦一場簡稱為《母親》的裝置藝術展。隨著與他上一場展覽有關的死亡傳聞四起，關妮薇童年裡令人不安的回憶開始浮現。她的公眾假象開始崩裂，迫使她面對逃避了二十年的問題：火災當晚究竟發生了什麼？母親的奇幻世界背後隱藏著什麼樣的黑暗歷史？

《The Children》深諳童年記憶隨時間累積的神話重量，以及我們最喜愛的故事如何隨我們一同成長。這本書獻給所有曾重溫舊時心頭好，卻發現書頁被投下陰暗色彩的人——當我們發現曾經撫慰我們的書籍本身帶有陰影時，分隔魔法與現實的界線也隨之模糊。

“An extraordinary book. It’s a page-turner, full of mystery, but that’s the least of it. The language is dusted with magic. The Children reminded me of Ray Bradbury at his best.” ―Stephen King

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 imagine: 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 from: 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.