I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. It took me a couple chapters to really get into it and get an idea of how I might feel about it, and from that point I could not stop reading because I was so invested in the characters and the story playing out.
Each character featured is so distinctively their own person, deeply flawed and interesting beings that you as the reader just wants to learn more about to see what exactly makes them tick and what has brought them to the manor of super well known horror author Mortimer Queen, who has left each of them in his will. What makes each of them even more intriguing is the fact that most of them don’t even seem to have a close relationship with the now deceased author, and yet they all seem to have this level of narcissism to them that has them believing they deserve this questionable honour.
As each of their backstories played out a bit more it steadily made things a bit clearer on how they relayed to Mortimer, and each of their full stories comes out as to why he included them in his will, and the deadly mansion they find themselves stuck in. This kept me so riveted to the story both because they are dealing with the incredible danger of the mansion and the deadly game Mortimer has set up for them, but also because each of their stories unraveled and story by story made things a little clearer on why these seeming strangers were all gathered in one place. I legitimately did not want to put this book down and the element of horror played out so well, with a spooky setting and morally questionable characters that made you have to think on whether you really wanted them to survive or not.
I really enjoyed this book and very much want to read more from this author because I’m so hooked on the fantastic horror story that this turned out to be. I highly recommend this one to fans of horror, but honestly fans of thrillers as well because the details of the story play out like a mystery slowly being unraveled as the details of each character explain why they’ve been included in this horrible game, and the way the reader is forced to consider whether they deserve to be there or not. I can’t wait for more from this author.
