I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

This book started out slowly and kind of dragged along for the entire time. I loved the premise but thought that the execution was a little lackluster.

The thing that drew me in with this one was that it said it was for fans of Clue. I can’t remember the last time I read a murder mystery and not just a thriller. So what better than a Christmas themed one. I will admit this one started kind of slow for me. But it really picked up once the whole family got together.

Literally nothing like a little family discord and rivalry to get you into the holiday season haha. The family always play a game each year, but this one is different. It’s a game within a game. I loved the way this was done because the aunt left little clues in poetry form and they had to decipher where to find the key based on the riddle.

This one is a fairly quick and cozy read I think. It was real fun to watch all the pieces fall into place and to try and try and guess who the killer was. I really felt like I was playing a game of Clue sometimes haha. It’s fully of suspicious moments and suspicious family members. We have the clear rivalries and the more hidden ones.

I think the range of characters was phenomenal and the overall plot was really well done. I will admit that at points it kind of lagged but by the last like five chapters it felt like things were moving super fast. It really is a great choice if you want mystery and Christmas together.

Lily Armitage isn't surprised her grandmother finally passes away, but she isn't sure how she feels about returning to the family estate, Endgame House and playing one last Christmas Game with her cousins for the deed to the house. Lily's mother died there, so puzzles abound, both in the past and in the present day of the game. Of course, they are snowed in almost immediately and the game takes dark turns as people struggle to learn who to trust.

I enjoyed this so much . I will say I pretty much predicted the whole thing but still enjoyed every minute

I'm not usually one to enjoy Christmas books (most of them feel a little cloying or emotionally manipulative) so I was really excited to get my hands on a Christmas murder mystery. This was fun and twisty and exactly what I needed to mix up a string of Christmas romances. 10/10 recommend for anyone looking to mix up their holiday reading.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I was able to find the audio version through my local library.
Well I was looking forward to reading this book. The cover is well designed and really drew me in. The title also sounded very interesting! I don't think I have read a murder mystery that is set during Christmas? But I thought it sounded very Agatha Christie. I feel like this book should have taken place at least no later then the 1920's. That would have been perfect. Take out the stupid woke crap that is in it. It is amazing that the only two people that are happy in a marriage are the lesbian couple. Oh don't forget the main character is bisexual so there you go on that.
The author just repeated herself all the time! We are reminded that Tom is a counselor. Also we are also reminded every single day the book takes place sometimes multiple times that day that there is a dead body and how they should not be doing the game and finding the keys, or eating, or laughing, or drinking etc. We get pointless back flashes of the main character when she was a child. None of them pay off and this book should have been cut in half, It went on way too long. All the characters are just so bland and boring. The main female character is just ugh. Her cousin is so mean that no one in real life would ever put up with her talking like that to everyone. Everything that comes out of her mouth is disgusting and in real life someone would have punched her in the face... and she would have deserved it.
The writing all in all I think it could have been a good story but the author was just blah. Like I said if the story would have taken place in 1920's it would have been way more interesting. It was a hard pass for me. I DNF around 80%. I just could not take it anymore. The story went no where and honestly I didn't care what happened to any of the characters, let alone the main female character.

The Christmas Murder Game is a holiday family murder fest. An estranged and embattled group of cousins play a game of riddles stipulated in their aunt's will. The prize? The family manor, which is now a hotel. The cost? Maybe everything.

Our protagonist is Lily. She found her mother dead in the manor's extensive maze as a child and has no wish to return to the place she once called home. But the memories that haunt her have nothing on the letter her aunt left behind. Her mom's death was a murder, and if she plays the game, all will be revealed. Lily has no intention of playing for the house's sake, but for the knowledge of what happened to her mom? She's in. Unfortunately, she has a secret that could put her in danger as cousins start dropping like flies. Snowed in by an epic blizzard and left without technology per the rules of the game, there's no one to call for help.

The cleverest part of the book is a game within a game-- searching for anagrams from the 12 days of Christmas on each of the twelve days in the game. Each creative turn of phrase made me suspicious until I checked that the letters didn't match up. I had this constant second task running in the back of my mind trying to find each anagram. So busy with my own little puzzle, I wasn't at all bothered to leave Lily to the more complicated sonnet clues on her daily agenda. I experienced intense satisfaction at solving them only matched by my stress level when it had been a while since I spotted one. I did reach a level of fatigue where after solving the first eight, I decided to just focus on the story for the last four days and let the puzzles go. The multitasking felt like it was taking away from my investment in the plot, even though I was following it just fine.

A cool part of the book is that Lily's bi, and her hints of a romantic subplot are sapphic. It comes up a few times, including a moment of biphobia from the most outwardly cruel of the cousins that's shut down by the others. A cousin Rachel is there with her wife, Holly, so Lily isn't alone in a sea of straight people, thank goodness.

As a mystery, I found the story a bit disappointing. I had a pretty good handle on the murders early on despite my level of anagram distraction. Then you reach a point where so few are left alive that it becomes frustrating when Lily can't piece it together despite her famed cleverness. The mystery of Lily's mother was more of an unknown to me, but the eventual resolution seemed anticlimactic compared to the weight it had on Lily and the game.

This is a murder mystery with some fun elements for the reader, but the execution of the story wasn't what I hoped for. Thanks to Poisoned Pen for my copy to read and review!

The Christmas Murder Game is the perfect deviation from those sappy Hallmark holiday movies and books. Alexandra Benedict's novel is filled with puzzles, devious characters, and mystery wrapped in a pretty Christmas bow. I found the plot to keep the readers engaged and guessing the entire time.

When Lily Armitage returns to her family's compound over the holidays she knows that the annual Christmas Game will take place as always, only this year the prize at the end is not the presents but instead the deed to the house. Now Lily and her cousins are in a 12 day challenge where more seems to be at stake than just a keys to the front door.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for the opportunity to read this novel.

I was excited about the different genre Christmas story. I love a good holiday cheerful read but also love thriller/mystery’s so I was pumped when I reviewed this ARC from NG.

However this book feel so flat for me. The characters were super one dimensional and none of them had any great character development outside of that. The writing was awful I really dislike a lot of repetition in books and can look past it sometimes if the story line holds but my gosh after the 10th time I think we get it.

I felt like it was pretty predictable and just didn’t deliver what I had hoped it would when I read the book description.

A closed door mystery, this one is set in an heirloom hotel where the cousins gather for a game which will determine who will win the property. One by one, each of them dies, leaving the others scared and worried. Would someone go to the extent of killing their own family for the property?

It was an interesting read, but it dragged in a few places. The premise, the puzzles and the entire game itself was quite interesting to read.Att some point, it became a bit predictable but the build up to that point was certainly worth reading. If you like closed door mysteries, then this might be an enjoyable read for you.

I love whodunnits and this was good. I enjoyed every minute and finished it quickly. The element of Christmas time elevated it.

2.5 stars

A perfect book for puzzlers.

Personally, I didn’t get along very well with this mystery, which is a real shame because the premise—an isolated/snowed-in house, a murderer among us picking us off one by one, esoteric clues left behind by an eccentric old woman that purport to lead to fortune—is all right up my alley. However, the prose style just didn’t work for me. The characters felt more like dolls maneuvered through the plot than like real people, and I found their dialogue weirdly unreal.

I wanted to like our heroine, who is a talented historical seamstress with a desire to veer into couture fashion, but I felt like this cool part of her personality got left by the wayside. She parades around in very cool-sounding outfits, but the author doesn’t do much of interest with this (fascinating) vocation.

The author clearly wanted the readers to get a chance at cracking some additional puzzles outside of the story. She therefore instructs the readers that she has hidden anagrams of the gifts from the “12 Days of Christmas” song within the book for us to find. This is all well and good, and fun, but as I read chapter after chapter I got the impression that the author’s delight in word games took precedent over her delight in the novel, and more work was put into those word games than in making a believable story or compelling characters. The culprit is also painfully obvious from nearly the beginning, and so the ‘big reveal’ felt long overdue and also unearned—and then the climax just got silly.

This is a book with a (refreshingly) overtly queer (bisexual) heroine, which becomes plot- and character-relevant, so if you’re looking for a fun, quirky, unabashedly queer holiday mystery, this is definitely the book for you. I just didn’t connect with the plot or the characters.

I really really wanted to love this book. I love mysteries and I love Christmas so it seemed to be a match made in heaven, plus the cover art is really cool. The book wasn’t bad, but I have read better. Though I am glad that I read it, it kept me guessing

When Lily Armitage was growing up the whole family would gather at Endgame House for Christmas and the annual Christmas Game. She and her cousins would solve elaborate riddles and clues to find their cache of Christmas presents. But since her mother died on the grounds twenty-one years ago Lily hasn't returned. She was raised by her Aunt Liliana so of course it's because of Liliana that she's returning. Liliana's dying wish was that Lily would return for the final Christmas Game. Over the twelve days of Christmas Lily and her cousins will vie with or against each other to find twelve keys with the prize being the deeds to Endgame House. Lily doesn't want Endgame House, what she wants is answers, and that's the reason she agrees to return. Liliana has promised that the clues will reveal who killed Lily's mother. Wearing her own designer couture that is concealing a secret Lily returns to Yorkshire. There she is reunited with relatives and retainers. Liliana's children, Sara and Gray are there, as are Uncle Edward's, Tom, Rachel, and Ronnie, with Rachel's spouse Holly, and Ronnie's spouse Phillipa. Housekeeper Mrs. Castle is on hand to take care of them and provide the daily clues while Liliana's solicitor and Lily's former crush, Isabelle Sterling, is on hand to dot the i's and cross the t's. While Lily is shocked how happy she is to see all these people the warning from her aunt is clear in her mind, don't trust anyone. Because it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or as happens here, Ronnie ends up dead. He might be the first but he won't be the last. Because when the first corpse appears they realize that they are trapped in Endgame House with a killer. The snow is piled high and there's a tree down across the drive. And then the car batteries go missing. Someone wants them to stay and play the game and Lily is ready to play. She came to find out who killed her mother and she is not about to die like she did.

A book claiming to be Clue at Christmas that happens to be loosely a golden age locked room mystery is a must read for me. The problem is that's not what this book is, this book is more Game of Thrones murder mystery though with even more animosity, hate, and incest. I truthfully can say not only did I dislike every single character in this book I hated them. They are all horrible horrible people who I would not like to spend one single second in the presence of. And that's not the main problem of this book! The main problem is there is no motive for the deaths. We are supposed to buy into the fact that obviously anyone would want to inherit a Manor House in Yorkshire. Yet Manor Houses aren't cash cows, this one was run as a business center for years that seemed to just barely be in the black, and everyone has horrible memories of the place, yet they want it? Even if their future plans are solid the horrible memories should make them rethink their plans. But then again, they are all either sociopaths or psychopaths, throw a dart and it's one or the other. So maybe the bad memories don't bother them? Whatever way you look at it the truth is that all these relatives go to Yorkshire to slaughter each other. And Liliana had to know what she was doing. After all her own brother killed her sister! This isn't generational trauma, this is generational homicide. The only answer I have is that they are evil. Evil evil evil. Yes, I love a Christmas murder mystery, I don't want Christmas slaughter. This book has literally one and only one thing going for it, it flips the script on the bury your gays trope. The whole idea that gay characters are expendable or deserve to die is so outdated it's shocking how many people still use it. The Christmas Murder Game was the exact opposite, and for that it should be cheered. Any character who was alive at the start of the book who identifies as queer, gay or bisexual, is alive at the end. And only they are alive at the end. All the straight characters are cleared from the board. So at least that was refreshing. About as refreshing as a snowball in your face, but you take what wins you can sometimes.

The annual Christmas Game is starting at Endgame House, the Armitages' family home. This year's prize is the deed to the house. Lily has no intention of returning, as she has not returned home since her mother died, twenty-one years ago, until she gets a letter from her aunt promising to tell her the identity of her mother's murderer.

A mix between Clue and The Westing Games, the family must solve clues and riddles in order to find keys and win the house, but there is a murderer in the house and family members start dying. This books had me hooks from the beginning, easy to read, entertaining, suspense and puzzles are rolled into one. The character has different sides and developments along the way, and had enough personality to keep the reader engaged.

The book contained some LGBTQ relationships in here, making the book feel "current", as the rest of the story has an old times feel; horse stable, ice box, dark mansion, corsets, no cell phones (a rule before the game started), etc. I had guessed at who the murderer may have been, but there were enough twists to keep you guessing and changing your mind (as I had done a couple of times). Although the ending was good, I feel like it missed something, or that it ended somewhat abruptly. I still enjoyed this book and would recommend it others!

I rate this 4 🌟!

I'd like to say a huge thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review

In The Christmas Murder Game we join Lily who has been 'summoned' to the house she grew up in to play a Christmas game with her cousins. The prize - the house itself. They get a riddle every day which will lead to a key but for Lily it's about more than solving the puzzles. She's trying to find out who killed her Mother years ago but it seems there's a killer also playing the Christmas game.

I absolutely loved this and devoured it in a couple of days. It was fast-paced, I didn't see any of it coming which was great. I liked the overall plot, the characters, the writing style. It really was a good time. A 4.5 out of 5 from me.

The Christmas Murder Game is a delightfully witty holiday themed mystery by Alexandra Benedict. Originally released in 2021, this reformat and re-release from Sourcebooks on their Poisoned Pen imprint, it's 288 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. Other editions available in other formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is an engaging cozy with a nice closed circle mystery revolving around the Armitage family gathered for the holidays at Endgame House for the annual Christmas Game. The mystery is well constructed and the characters well rendered. It's a very slightly harder-edged cozy, with lots of very clever wordplay, and is an enjoyable, diverting read. The plotting is *full* of twists with lots of undercurrents and red herrings to keep readers engaged. The resolution and denouement were written with finesse and facility and readers will find it a satisfying read. Bonus for cruciverbalists: the author has included lots of clues for readers to find and puzzle out parallel to the main story.

This one reminded me in a lot of good ways of the best of the golden age authors, especially Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, or even John Bude or Edmund Crispin's slight shadings of campy lighthearted repartee. Quite a worthwhile read. Fans of golden age British crime shouldn't pass it up since there won't be anymore classics from the original sources.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

The Christmas Murder Game gives readers the chance to enjoy a variant on a locked room mystery with the added bonus of both the Christmas season and some side puzzles for solving. These extra puzzles are things like anagrams.

Lily is in her thirties and is a designer of corsets, many of which she reproduces from historical sources. She spent a great deal of time at Endgame House when she was young but has not wanted to return there since her mother’s death…was that a murder?

When Lily’s aunt dies, she wants Lily and her cousins to come to the manor over the festive season. While there, they are set a series of tasks which will require their solving skills with a lot at stake; the winner will become the new owner of the house. Oh, by the say, there will be a number of deaths over the twelve days of Christmas.

Whodunnit? Why? This was a fun read as I waited for answers. I also enjoyed Ms. Benedict’s images. For example, Lily talks about wanting to make a briefcase shaped corset for lawyer, Isabelle. She describes a housekeeper as something like a candy cane without the sweetness.

I enjoyed this book and recommend it to those who would simply like to be entertained.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this title. All opinions are my own.

A mix of the movies Knives Out & Ready or Not in book-form. It's got a little mystery, suspense, and puzzle-solving during the holiday season. The characters were real and complex, although sometimes annoying. The clues that need to be solved moved the story forward in a way that sucks you in and keeps you turning the page. This is one for Agatha Christine lovers.