Marissa Meyer’s 2025 young adult novel The House Saphir is a Gothic fantasy that blends mystery and romance to reimagine the classic French fairytale of Bluebeard. Meyer is a #1 New York Times-bestselling author known for her popular fairytale retellings, including Cinder and Scarlet of The Lunar Chronicles series, which sets classic tales in a science-fiction world, and her standalone novels Heartless and Gilded. The House Saphir follows Mallory Fontaine, a cynical con artist and witch with no magic other than the ability to see ghosts. To support herself and her sister, she runs fraudulent haunted tours of an abandoned mansion once owned by the infamous Count Bastien Saphir, or “Monsieur Le Bleu,” a murderer of three wives a century ago. Set in a world filled with folkloric monsters, ancient curses, and various forms of magic, the novel explores Deception as a Means of Survival, Blurring the Lines Between Human and Monster, and Vulnerability as a Prerequisite for Trust and Love.

This guide is based on the 2025 Faber & Faber edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence and death.

Plot Summary

Mallory Fontaine is a witch who has no magic other than the ability to see ghosts. She makes a living as a con artist and gives tours of the haunted House Saphir in Morant. She leads her latest clients, Louis Dumas and his sister Sophia, into the abandoned mansion and begins her macabre tale of its former owner: Count Bastien Saphir, known as Monsieur Le Bleu, murdered three of his wives a century ago. Inside, she ignores the familiar but harmless complaints of Duchess Triphine Maeng, the ghost of Le Bleu’s first wife, whom only Mallory can see. A latecomer, Axel Badeaux, startles Mallory from behind, and she instinctively throws him to the ground, pleased with her quick reflexes. Triphine notes Axel’s resemblance to the Saphir family.

Mallory continues the tour in the wine cellar, the site of Triphine’s murder. She displays an imitation of Triphine’s wedding ring, vouching for its authenticity, and sells overpriced knockoffs. Axel reveals he has heard that Mallory is a reputed witch, but she denies being able to talk to ghosts. Back in the ballroom, Mallory stages a fake haunting with a mannequin. Louis and Sophia reveal they are investigators and have enough evidence to arrest her for fraud and trespassing. Axel intervenes and asks Mallory to prove she can talk to ghosts by questioning Triphine about a detail in her last portrait. Triphine answers correctly, and Axel reveals his identity as Count Armand Saphir, dismissing the trespassing charge.

After the investigators leave, Mallory grabs her hidden stash of earnings and Triphine’s real wedding ring and prepares to flee. Armand takes the ring from her, claiming it’s his legal property. A crash from upstairs alerts them to a voirloup, a werewolf-like beast, which attacks them. It is one of many monsters that have invaded their world since the fall of the veil, a barrier between mortals and dark magic. They barricade themselves in a bedroom upstairs, and Armand throws Mallory’s silver coins at the creature to weaken it. He pleads with her to trust him and pulls her out a window to escape. The vines they cling to break, and they fall two stories. Armand breaks Mallory’s fall but is knocked unconscious. Two monster hunters, Fitcher and Constantino, appear and capture the voirloup with a magical arrow, turning it into a glass figurine in a bright flash of light. They give Mallory a business card for “Fitcher’s Troupe” before disappearing. Armand rouses himself in time to see the flash of light and mistakes it for Mallory’s witchcraft.

The next morning, Mallory and her sister, Anaïs, are evicted by their landlady for not making rent. Armand arrives and offers Mallory three thousand lourdes to exorcise the ghost of his great-great grandfather, Monsieur Le Bleu. The ghost has been haunting his family château in Comorre for seven years, since a night known as the Mourning Moon. Anaïs realizes the date coincides with a séance they performed as children. Desperate, Mallory accepts the job, hiding that she and her sister are not real witches.

Mallory and Anaïs travel with Armand to the Saphir estate, which is in disrepair and run by a small staff. Triphine’s ghost has stowed away, magically tied to her wedding ring, which Armand brought with him. During dinner, Mallory sees the ghosts of Le Bleu’s other murdered wives, Lucienne and Béatrice. Later that night, Mallory falls in the fountain while trying to steal a loose piece of a sculpture. Armand treats her to some hot chocolate, and the two bond.

The next day, Mallory and Anaïs begin their fraudulent exorcism attempts. In the conservatory, Armand shows Mallory his collection of medicinal and poisonous plants. She then meets Lucienne and Béatrice, who explain they are trapped by Le Bleu’s incomplete spell for immortality, which required five sacrifices. His fourth wife had escaped, and her brothers beheaded him. Mallory confronts Le Bleu’s ghost in the cellar, where he confirms that her childhood séance allowed him to escape the afterlife, Verloren. During that ritual, he corrupted her natural witchcraft into “death magic,” which lets her see ghosts but blocks her other powers.

One night, the maid Julie asks the sisters for a fortune reading about her secret marriage, and they give her a scripted routine about everlasting love despite ominous cards. During the reading, a lou carcolh, a giant tentacled snail, attacks them. They fight it off with salt. Deciding she needs real help, Mallory tries to contact Fitcher’s Troupe, but a fire-breathing salamander destroys their business card. Soon after, screams lead Mallory and Armand to the trophy hall, where they find Julie’s body, murdered in the same manner as Le Bleu’s wives, with her ring and finger missing. Mallory investigates and, finding a pressed flower from Armand’s greenhouse in Julie’s room, suspects him. While pretending to place protective wards on his door, she finds him with a shaving cut and offers to give him a shave. The intimate task leads to a passionate kiss, and they fall off Armand’s chair. From the floor, Mallory spots what looks like Julie’s missing ring hidden under Armand’s vanity and flees, convinced he is the killer.

Mallory and Anaïs use Anaïs’s secret god-gift, the ability to reanimate a corpse for five minutes, to question Julie, who names Armand as her killer. The sisters flee, but Armand confronts Mallory in the stables. His personality shifts, revealing he knows they are descendants of Gabrielle Savoy, Le Bleu’s fourth wife who got away. He attacks Mallory, and Anaïs knocks him unconscious with a shovel. While escaping, they are attacked by a cheval mallet, a spectral horse, but are rescued again by Fitcher and Constantino. They reveal a bounty is on the sisters’ heads for fraud and that the Saphir estate is bankrupt. The sisters’ ancestor, Gabrielle Savoy, then appears in human form, revealing she has been watching them all these years as a barn swallow. She explains that Bastien Saphir has been possessing Armand’s body, and it was he who murdered Julie to continue his five-sacrifice ritual for immortality. When they try to lure Bastien into a trap, he possesses Anaïs, who then stabs and kills Gabrielle, completing the spell. Bastien is resurrected in his own mortal body, magically restores the château, and declares he will kill them all.

Mallory devises another plan to trap Bastien, inspired by Gabrielle’s dying words that no one can take away her magic. She performs a witch’s binding spell, using the five murder sites on the estate as a natural pentagram to trap Bastien within the house’s walls. She and Armand then set the house ablaze, but Bastien traps them inside the burning building. They flee to the tower, but Mallory’s fear of heights prevents her from climbing down. The ghosts of the five murdered wives appear and help Mallory recite a transformation spell. As Armand falls from a breaking trellis, Mallory lets go of the roof, transforms into a barn swallow, and flies to safety. She lands and transforms back into a human to find Armand injured but alive. They watch as the House Saphir burns, destroying the trapped Bastien. The spirits of the wives are finally freed and ascend to Verloren, though Triphine chooses to remain.

Months later, Mallory and Armand live in the House Saphir in Morant. Mallory’s witch magic has fully returned, and she gives legitimate tours of the haunted house while Armand runs an apothecary business. Anaïs travels with Fitcher’s Troupe. Mallory and Armand are engaged; her ring is a cheap replica, but their love is real.