The Quiet Room is the second novel based on Terry Miles' podcast, Rabbits. Emily seeks out the 12th iteration of the Rabbits game along with some shadowy figures from her past. Much like the first book, detailing the 11th iteration, patterns and coincidences intertwine in a glorious tapestry. Better than the DaVinci Code and more realistic than Ready Player One, I completely adore these books for the mysterious trail Emily must follow and the deviously clever ways she avoids the Rabbits Police. You don't need to know anything about the Rabbits podcast in order to follow the story.

A great answer engaging follow up to Rabbits. The writing is crisp and easy to follow and coherent. Twisty and fun. Highly recommended!!!

Loved every wild, bumpy minute of this return to the world of Rabbits. I am not a sci-fi (or sci-fi-adjacent) reader whatsoever, but this series breaks down my resistance and pulls me along for the ride every time!

This is a surprisingly effective sequel to Rabbits: evidently, Miles has lots of ideas to explore beyond the initial concept. The star of this installment is Emily Connors, who finds herself trapped in a timestream where the game does not exist. She remembers her husband K dying, even though he allegedly won the previous installment of the game. She reconnects with billionaire Alan Scarpio from the first book, as well as her lover Pepper (who disappeared in the kind of mysterious circumstances associated with the game).

In this reality architect and theme park designer Rowan Chess is apparently the only person playing Rabbits at first. But all of the players find each other before long, after dodging the Rabbits Police who seem intent on preventing the game from happening. They all come to believe that they are in a
reality stem that is about to be cut off, ending that world and all of the people in it. What can they do? Play the game and hope they can find their way back to their own world. Against all odds Emily not only survives but prevails. After one last shock, she prepares herself for the next iteration of Rabbits, and one more chance to save the world.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader's proof.

The Quiet Room, Emily has drifted into another dimension that has been severed from the multiverse and will soon be destroyed. We soon find out that The Engineer, who is a threat to the multiverse, is trapped there and the reason for the split. Emily can’t seem to find Rabbits or any evidence of its existence.

Rowan is on the best date of his life and feels a true connection to her. Only, after having gone into the bathroom but never coming back out, she has disappeared. A possible clue written in lipstick on the back of the door says, “The Door is Open”.

When Emily and her friends are finally able to track down the list of Rabbits players, only one name is there, Rowan Chess.
But Rowan, has problems of his own, namely, a building he designed but never shared the design plans with anyone, not only was brought up in his interrogation with the “rabbits police”, but has appeared in Vegas.

Emily and her friends keep finding references to The Quiet Room, which supposedly exists outside of time & space. They realize it could be their way back to their own dimension(s) and set out to find it.

I’m absolutely obsessed with the whole Rabbits universe. I loved the first book, Rabbits & immediately listened to the whole Rabbits podcast after reading it. While I didn’t love The Quiet Room quite as much as both of them, I really enjoyed it. To say I can’t wait for the next book is a huge understatement.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book to review.

I actually enjoyed this installment of the Rabbits novels better than the first. While an understanding of the Rabbits universes/game is necessary, this book could potentially be read as a standalone. It follows Emily's journey to return home after the events at the end of Rabbits.

Since there was less world-building/lore being explained, we could really focus on the game and the cast of characters. Emily ends up in a world where Rabbits is hiding, and she discovers, along with some familiar and some new characters, that things are more sinister and dire than she ever imagined.

I love the relationships between all of the characters. They all complement each other and ultimately it's the team work between them that makes the story.

I'd definitely recommend this series to my followers and I'll for sure read any upcoming books in this series.

Great book from the author that brought us Rabbits (book and podcast). If you enjoyed the first book, you will be glad to pick this one up, as the world of Rabbits both continues and expands. It truly felt like a "next chapter" approach as this book picks up right where the first one left off. While different in many ways, we get the same escape room / meets MMORPG game / breaking reality excitement that you would expect from Terry Miles. Pick it up and enjoy!

I should have clicked that I will not be giving feedback on this one, but I accidentally didn't click that and now I have no option but to leave this here.

I cannot believe I am DNF'ing the sequel to Rabbits, one of my favorite books. The pacing in this one is too slow, and I know we're not supposed to worry about editing that much, but this really needs a good line edit. It's excruciating to read at some points.

I really appreciate the opportunity to review this title, and apologies that I am not continuing. I hope many others enjoy it more--this series' premise is so great!

After the Eleventh iteration, Rabbits goes so popular, it’s inter-dimensional. Emily Connors finds herself in a dimension where the game actually doesn’t exist at all. Meanwhile, Rowan Chess is having the opposite experience. The game is actually pursuing him relentlessently and people keep vanishing as if they’d never existed. When Rowan and Emily meet, they’ll uncover a conspiracy that could change the game (and reality) forever.

I enjoy the Rabbits universe, and this latest installment got wilder but no less entertaining than precious forays into this reality. It’s got that world in a world thing I enjoy so much. Explaining the plot would probably make my brain hurt and also not come out well, but if you’re caught up on the Rabbits world and want more story, check this one out.

I stumbled on to the world of Rabbits quite by accident a few years ago and was excited to devour The Quiet Room by Terry Miles, the second novel in the Rabbits series. This science fiction thriller grabbed me from page one and held me to the end. I cannot wait for the next one!

The Quiet Room picks up shortly after the ending of Rabbits, book one. While Miles does a stellar job of bringing new readers up to speed, I recommend starting with book one. This one fed my inner nerd and Dungeons and Dragons’ child.

Emily Cooper, who played the game Rabbits in the previous book, seems to have shifted into a corner of the multiverse where Rabbits is hiding. Rabbits is an underground game where players race to win by finding patterns.

It’s an average work day. You’ve been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air—4:44 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th—4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444. Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

The game can be deadly. There can be unexpected consequences that affect our dimensions and others. Yep, lots of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff. As a die-hard Doctor Who fan, I devoured the concept of Rabbits. This time, the reader will question whether they are playing the game or if the game is playing them. Something is VERY wrong with the game.

Rabbit agents, abductions, and more soon have Emily tracking down a previous winner. Meanwhile, a young architect named Rowan Chess crosses paths with Emily. Rabbits is hiding here, but it seems Chess is playing the game. Only he’s never heard of the Rabbits.

I loved the twists, the unknown factors, and meeting up with others we have previously encountered. This was such a stellar follow up to the first novel. Miles kept it fresh while taking us deeper down the rabbit hole. Perfectly paced with a wonderful buildup to the climactic scene.

The ending brings closers, but teases the readers about what is coming. This reader cannot wait.

While I enjoyed the previous novel "Rabbits," "The Quiet Room" felt like a jumble of plot points and info dumps that didn't really seem to gel at the end. I wasn't sure if the "rules" that I was being told about the world and various timelines were something that I had read in the previous novel or something that were pulled out of the air in this novel. I didn't feel as much of a connection to the stakes and the plot.

Multiple timelines and a game to find it all. Here are reasons to read the this SciFi book:

Sequel - in this Sequel to the book Rabbits

Game? - We are not sure if the game really still exists. If it does, it will be in it’s 11th Iteration

2 POV Meet - Emily and Rowan are 2 POV we follow in this book and when they do meet they discover

Reality - That their own reality might not be as stable as they thought

I was really excited to read this book as I really enjoyed Rabbits. It was kind of a strange book, but this one is just as much. I really do like how a lot of the characters from the first book are coming together to figure out what is happening and why there are people trying to stop them. There isn’t a lot I can say, except this book is definitely for you if you like sciFi books or books about games.

I would like to thank Random House Worlds and NetGalley for allowing me to read an eARC of this book.

The Quiet Room is a sequel to Rabbits, and while not absolutely necessary to be able to follow what is happening, I would recommend reading Rabbits first to familiarize yourself with the game and the characters.

The Quiet Room brings us back to Emily Connors, who almost won the last iteration of the Rabbits game. She has been having strange dreams and strange things happen to her, including being kidnapped by the Rabbits Police. This book also brings back some other familiar names in Alan Scarpio and Pepper, and K (indirectly). We also get introduced to Rowan Chess, an architect and theme park designer with a penchant for puzzles and escape rooms. The book alternates between what is happening with Emily and what is happening with Rowan, and things really heat up when Emily and Rowan encounter each other.

Emily and Rowan and a bunch of other players become trapped in a dimensional stream that has been cut off and will be destroyed. It is a race against time and the Rabbit Police to win the game in order to save themselves. But the game doesn't even seem to exist; either that or it's desperately trying to stay hidden. Add to that a very dangerous person (known only as the Engineer) is also trapped there and will do anything to get out.

The first 1/3 of the book was really good, and pulled me in right away. The middle 1/3 became a bit muddled and confusing at times. There were definitely points where I wasn't sure what was happening. There are several dimensional streams in play (and therefore different versions of the same people) and parts are in the past and parts in the present. It made it hard to determine exactly when in the timeline what I was reading happened. The last 1/3 of the book picked up again and I really enjoyed the ending. It definitely left it open for another book!
 
I enjoyed the first book a bit more than this one, as it was more straightforward and less confusing. However, if you are a fan of Rabbits, the multiverse, and sci-fi in general, I would definitely recommend this book.

First I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing for giving me access to an eARC copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.

The Quiet Room is a story about games that can change the world, and if you’re not careful they will cost you everything. This is the second in a series of books that continue the events of the podcast Rabbits. I strongly recommend that you start by listening to the podcast first and then read the first book in this book series before you start this book. That said I’ll talk a little bit about the plot without giving too much away about the previous entries into the world of Rabbits.

This story follows Emily Connors, who made an appearance in the previous book in this series, and a new player Rowan Chess. Rowan is a fan of puzzles and escape rooms and has even made a name for himself designing interactive pieces of architecture for theme parks the world over. Emily is nobody, she woke up in this universe knowing full well it is not where she belongs. Emily has been playing Rabbits, a secret AR game hidden in plain sight, for a long time, but now she can’t find Rabbits anywhere. After a series of wild events puts Rowan in Emily’s path she becomes convinced that Rowan is unwittingly the only person currently playing the game, and his success or failure could have dire consequences for this universe and possibly every Universe.

The Premise here is really solid and exactly the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from the mind of Terry Miles. I have loved the podcast from the very beginning and I have also enjoyed a number of the other pods on offer with The Public Radio Alliance. Unfortunately the novel doesn’t hold up as well as the premise does. Part of this is probably my expectation that a Rabbits story is going to be edge of the seat suspense heavily dotted with puzzles and secrets that may never be fully solved. The mystery is a big part of the attraction to this franchise, however with The Quiet Room a large portion of the page count is dedicated to re-explaining all the previous findings of the podcast and the last book. It seems like the intent may have been for this to work as a standalone novel, but it really felt more like someone force feeding you lore and puzzle answers that didn’t forward the plot much.

I don’t want to be too hard on the story though, because if you strip away all the unnecessary exposition you’re left with a really interesting story that expands the lore in an interesting way and asks a lot of great questions about determinism vs free will. Once I got into the last half of the story it also seemed to find the sense of urgency that it really needed.

In conclusion, I continue to love the Rabbits stories and I’m looking forward to reading the next book. If you are a fan of the series already it’s definitely worth a read. I also can’t say enough good things about the podcast and it’s great for fans of games, puzzles, and unsolved mysteries. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a wonderful day. Happy reading.

Emily had nearly won Rabbits, the international and hidden alternate reality game. Now that it's over, she's in a world where the game never existed. Only, every time she goes looking for it, mysterious figures keep showing up.

The Quiet Room is the sequel to the Rabbits novel, so it takes place after the eleventh iteration of the reality-bending game is completed. Clues for the game rely on synchronicity, finding discrepancies between memory and reality, and chasing down coincidences to find the truth at the center of it all. For those not playing the game, it will feel like risk-taking for no reason and psychosis. A lot of this is explained as Emily meets Alan in the beginning, as well as when her path crosses Rowan's. So don't worry if you didn't read the first book, context is all here and you can dive right in.

Emily is trying to escape detection and knows about the game, but slips sideways into another dimension where it doesn't seem to exist. At the same time, signs are present that the game actually does exist, and the only player's name is Rowan's. He doesn't know about the game until Emily tells him about it, but he designs amusement parks for a living and has always loved puzzles, so he naturally takes to the spirit of the game. We learn more about the game as the book progresses, why this particular dimension seems so odd, and what the Escape Room is. Emily and Rowan have more allies than they think, but they're on a clock and there is resistance at every turn.

I really liked Rowan from the first time he was introduced. We've met Emily in the first book, but now we see her perspective more clearly and learn more about her history. She's more closely tied to the Rabbits game than I had realized, and I love how that history slowly gets revealed and contributes to finding her way out. I wanted to shout out loud when I got to the end of the book because what?! In other words, it's an ending that makes you want to go back to see what you might have missed and eagerly wait for the next book.

This series is amazing and The Quiet Room did not disappoint me one bit! The dimensional travel, barrier breaking and psychological impacts were well laid out and easy to follow along the labyrinth of thoughts and ideas. Miles is a gifted writer and keeps you guessing all the way through. Never giving up anything that would lead you astray or provide any idea where he's taking the story until he's already brought you there!

Loved the 1st book. It was a world not seen before. I was heavily invested and loved the world building, how things operated. This book was a continuation of the first book. Had I not read the 1st book, I would have rated it higher. It's not a bad book, it's just more of the same.

#NETGALLEY #TERRYMILES. #THEQUIETROOM

A unique and thought provoking plot that will stay with you long after you finish reading.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Publishing for providing an eARC of The Quiet Room for review!

The Quiet Room is a trippy ride through the multiverse, perfect for anyone that has an interest in liminal spaces and ARGs.

After the conclusion of the 11th iteration of Rabbits, Emily is stuck in a dimension that doesn't seem to have Rabbits at all. Worse? There seems to be a secret agency to detain and question anyone trying to find the game.

Rowan Chess is living his life normally enough until he goes on the perfect date from a seemingly perfect dating app. What could go wrong? When his date disappears and a message is left for him in the bathroom, it seems like Rabbits has come out to play.

I was much more impressed with The Quiet Room than when I originally read Rabbits in 2022. If you are a fan of YouTubers such as Wendigoon or Nexpo, this would be an interesting series for you!

Emily and Pepper loving each other across dimensions is so sweet, and I love the amount of lore in this sequel! Be ready for a lot of information on the Radiants, Betweenspace, and of course The Quiet Room

One Sentence Summary: After the events of Rabbits, Emily Connors finds herself in a world where the game seems to not exist, and her search for it brings her into contact with Rowan Chess, whose life is suddenly filled with odd coincidences, but there’s danger everywhere and a conspiracy nipping at their heels.

In Brief
In this follow-up to Rabbits, The Quiet Room presents a carefully crafted science fiction thriller that involves the fate of a world and the survival of people important to the game itself. Emily Connors finds herself in a stream where Rabbits doesn’t exist and Rowan Chess finds himself surrounded by coincidences. Teaming up helps ensure survival, but there’s a conspiracy quickly closing in on them, along with a literal ticking clock later on, and players forcibly separating them and putting them, unknowingly, on opposite sides. This is a fast-paced story where things can easily become confusing if one isn’t paying enough attention, but it’s certainly easier to understand after the groundwork has been laid in Rabbits. While the game itself is elusive and may be disappointing to a reader hoping for another wild iteration, there’s still plenty to hold the reader’s attention. The story hardly stops and, when it does, there’s important character development that impacts relationships and the story itself. This is a fascinating wild ride that focuses on the few where Rabbits focused on the survival of the many, but certainly delivers a broadened world, characters who feel human, and a relentlessly driving story that sweeps the reader up with it.

Extended Thoughts
The Quiet Room follows some time after the events of Rabbits. Where the first book was centered on K and K playing the game to, ultimately, save the world, The Quiet Room follows Emily Connors, an important but relatively minor character in Rabbits with quite an interesting history with K. While it’s possible for The Quiet Room to function as a standalone since it deals with a different world and different characters, the foundation, as crazy as it is, really is laid down in the first book. Rabbits is an absolutely crazy game that deals with the multiverse and with keeping the different streams healthy and functional, and that idea is certainly at play in this novel.

In The Quiet Room, Emily Connors finds herself in a stream where the game seemingly does not exist. No matter how hard she looks, it’s not there. But what is there are people dressed in black who keep taking her in for questioning. With a fellow Rabbits player, Alan Scarpio, Emily desperately follows clues, running into people from her past while having to deal with her past from different streams. It’s all a bit confusing at times, and often felt impossible to keep all these streams and how these people knew each other, or different versions of each other, straight. But it’s a fast-paced story that doesn’t often let up. There were several times where I felt sorry for Emily. Her life has been turned upside down, and continues to be turned upside down. Once she receives some information, I certainly felt a lot of desperation in her, desperation that wasn’t exactly mirrored in the person she needed help from the most. But she’s committed and dogged, and I truly admired her and respected her for everything she had to deal with.

Things get even crazier when Rowan Chess is brought into the story. He’s quite an ordinary man, a well-known and accomplished architect who has a super secret design locked in a vault. He has no idea what Rabbits is, and has no intention on playing. But things turn odd and incredibly coincidental in his life after he accompanies a date to a mansion to play a game where he meets an intriguing woman who makes him an offer that’s hard to refuse. Things get even weirder when he meets a woman for a date, and then she vanishes and he tries his best to find her when no one seems to believe she literally vanished into thin air. It was fascinating to get to know Rowan, and I felt for him when he ended up in all the craziness. There were times when I just wanted things to go back to normal for him, but then there’s that feeling that there’s something special about him. And, when the twist about him comes into play, things start to make a lot more sense, even if I did start to figure it out well before any of the other characters did.

Where Rabbits ended up massively confusing, The Quiet Room felt a lot more straightforward. I sorely missed the playing of the game as that’s what initially drew me into this world and these books. But I liked that feeling of desperation I had alongside Emily that it just had to be somewhere. After all, the game is vital to the health and existence of the multiverse. I liked that it used Rabbits as its building block. All the hard world building was done there so it was, more or less, smooth sailing in this one. There were times when I was still massively confused, but I felt the idea of the multiverse and how it operated actually made sense in this one. At least, a little more than it did in the first book. There was one bit I was not a fan of in the first book, but it came into play in this one, and it just felt like it neatly slotted into place.

There’s a massive conspiracy in this book, one that helps further the world building while also presenting a lot of danger and a literal ticking clock. It put me in two minds, so I wasn’t a huge fan of it, but I did understand it and the characters and their motivations. Where I spent the first half concerned about this world and what was happening and how it was affecting the characters, the second half had me zooming in on just a few characters and their literal survival. I didn’t much like the feeling it all elicited in me, but I do feel it was necessary, and hope to see how the way it ended will play out in the future. This conspiracy shaped and changed a lot of lives, but I really loved the world building it involved.

Just like the first book, The Quiet Room is mostly set in Seattle. But, where I really got a sense of place in the first book, I struggled a little more in this one. It was fun to visit some restaurants and stores, but I felt the characters really spent far more time in isolated spots and captivity. It was nice, though, to see places from the first book brought in, even if this is a different stream. It just felt nice to find something familiar, and I think it was great to see the characters in these places that are familiar, but don’t belong to them. Mostly, I get a strong sense of forests and concrete, so Seattle didn’t feel quite real to me, but what certainly felt real was a crazy place out in the desert outside Vegas. That was creepy and weird, but also kind of fascinating.

The Quiet Room was quite a ride. It took me a while to find my feet with this one, mostly because I kept looking for the game and kept being denied it. On the other hand, it gave me everything I was looking for in the first book: no crazy twists that kind of felt like a cop out (they actually worked in this book) and a more linear approach. Rabbits felt like the world was bending and The Quiet Room felt like the world was flattening out and finally made some semblance of sense. There are some threads that are left wide open and some characters that I was left wondering about. I’m hoping there will be future books that will address them. But it was really fun to see characters from the first book in this one, and to meet new ones.

This was a really fun book to read, and I liked that it made a lot more sense than the first one. I loved that the twists that bothered me in the first book found a place in this one so it actually made sense. I loved getting to know this world more, and I loved that it involved something serious that would have quite a few ramifications down the road. But my favorite part was that I actually understood what was happening, though there were some crazy places where I just had to put my trust into the author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.