This was a fun quick read. Escape room premises are always pretty interesting because it puts various people in high pressure situations. Very intrigued from the start and the action gets started pretty quickly. Definitely recommend.

Great idea for a book but did not hold my interest for long. For me, I felt it was a slow read for me & the characters were not memorable.

This was a fun ride! I loved the concept of this story- giving very much Saw 2 vibes. The different rooms and characters were so engaging and kept me guessing what would happen next. I felt the ending was a bit abrupt but overall an engaging and entertaining story!

Six strangers are brought to a weird house and locked in. They must work together to escape, but death keeps showing up. The rooms are horrifying and very cleverly constructed. The story is very creepy and well-written, but the ending, for me, is lacking, which is why this review has 4 stars instead of 5. Thanks to NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing for providing an ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing and Duncan Ralston for an eARC copy of the great book. After being blown away by reading WOOM, I thought I would give this a try. It very much had the Saw vibe and delivered on the good story as well. While it was not as "sick and twisted" as Woom, it was still a fanstactic ready. I will be adding Duncan Ralston to my follow list and look forward to reading more of his books.

I very much wanted to enjoy this book. It is a shame I did not.

The premise of the story - strangers locked together in a puzzle house who must work together in order to escape - is a fascinating one. I generally enjoy the genre of death/strategy games, where people must use their wits in order to escape and get a reward. On the surface, this book appears to be a good addition to this midst. The first few chapters where most of the relevant characters get their own introductory chapters were great - I was interested to see how each of them would fare in the games.

Unfortunately, by the time the real plot in the house begins, the characters stop really feeling like actual people. Instead, the characters revert into stereotypes - the prisoner with the heart of gold, the gorgeous actress, the quirky professor, etc. The villain also does not feel like a real person (a vaguely Eastern-European moustache twirling man who loves puzzles), which makes it that much more difficult to take him seriously. The plot is also fairly predictable, and even a few twists and turns aren't enough to make it very engrossing.

Overall, Puzzle House is an interesting premise with a disappointing execution. If you are looking for a decently entertaining read, and you don't really mind characters being more stereotypes than actual human beings, I would recommend this. Otherwise, I unfortunately cannot recommend this. 1.5 stars, rounded up to 2 because the writing was decent & I appreciate a fairly unique premise.

Thank you to the publisher for this copy! This one had me hooked. It picked up pace right away and I was blown away at the creativity of each “puzzle”. This escape room themed thriller is a suspenseful ride and it was fun. The ending fell a bit flat and I think the book could have been a bit longer to aid in that. All over, an enjoyable read.

3,5 stars rounded up to 4. I did enjoy this book, albeit it had a couple of "buts" that I wasn't all that happy with. Overall though, I appreciated it greatly and I read it eagerly.

The premise for the story was very intriguing to me and I don't think there's any major flaws in the writing as it is - it's more what is not written that I would have liked to be included, that constitutes one of my "buts". This but comes down to the characters personalization that I feel could have been done a little bit deeper. All the characters felt quite superficial and did not quite reach the stage where I really cared about them all too much. I did like Henry and Oliver; Rudy I also found compelling but as he was not one of the narrators of the story, he remained more anonymous. Oliver was also given way too little space. More background and developments might have improved on that, but then again I am not sure that would have been relevant to the story. As I do feel this was one of those that are more about what is happening, the mystery, than it is about the characters in it. As it is, I was left with quite a few questions about the different characters in it though.

The second of my "buts" was regarding the ending. Now, I liked the ending. I would LOVE to read a continuation to it, because the ending did not feel like an ending - it felt more like this whole book was just a prologue to the actual story that is to follow. And therein lies my "but" as this is not marketed as a prologue to another story, it is not even mentioned to have a continuation. It is described as being about the mystery of the puzzles. And as such, the ending was not fitting for me. I feel it would have been more fitting to have an end that did not go into the supernatural dystopia, and instead kept to actual, real-world puzzles and explanations. The ending being what is was, it felt like a cop-out: like it was easier to include supernatural elements as the explanation than coming up with real-world explanations.

All that said, if this one would turn into an actual dystopian, supernatural book series, I would add it to my TBR instantly and try to get my hands on a copy asap, as such a series would be right down my alley and turning this book into a series would give space to deepen the characters and the world and thus deal with both of my "buts" mentioned above.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wicked House Publishing and most of all to the author Duncan Ralston for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really tried to like this, but I thought this was... not great. I LOVE escape rooms and mysteries, so I thought this would be a fun read for me. But I didn't connect with any of the characters, there were logic gaps, and the twist at the end was so cheap. I gave it 2 stars because it was entertaining for the most part, but I wouldn't personally recommend. HOWEVER, I saw that a lot of people loved this, so I'm likely in the minority here!

Our 6, well make that 7, main Protagonists find themselves in the House of Enigmatologist Alexei Fyodor Vasiliev …and we will join them in their little, shall we say, Adventure!?
They are Henry Hall, Joy Reese, Dr. Oscar Evans, Dr. Rudolph (Rudy) Thomas, Ileana Athanasiou, Jessica Danvers and unfortunatey Atkins.

The recently deceased 'Puzzle Maker' has chosen these six people to 'undergo' special Challenges in his Puzzle House.
But caution, nothing is what it seems.
For every Puzzle they solve, our group has a price to pay. Quid pro quo is the Motto here!

Will they all make it out of this House alive? 🧩

I have to say, that this was far more than what I anticipated from the Book when I first lay my eyes on it.

It had a lot of topics, which made reading this Story a very rewarding Read!!
Sumerians, Akkadians, Maya, Gods/Goddesses, Demons… *sighs*
Strangers coming together as a group, united to solve Puzzles. Making sacrifices as they go.

There was a moment, where I was so disgusted with an especially gory part, let's just say that one of the first few Puzzles shouldn't be read while eating. Trust me, Lovelies!

Out of the whole Group I really felt connected AND was most sympathetic toward(?) Henry, he was such a crybaby… but you would have been, too, if you had been in his Shoes.
I was totally rooting for him before we were even through the second Puzzle.

I can't say much more about the Book 'cause that would easily spoil it for you, dear Reader!
But let's just say, it's really worth every page!

And the End… it was kind of unexpected and I bloody LOVED it!

One thing I would like to add, the Author did good research regarding Mythologies and ancient Religions , thank you for that.

I give this a 4.8 🌟 Rating. Which I will gladly round up to a full 5 on GR <b>and</b> on NetGalley!!!

𝑴𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒈𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚 𝑷𝒖𝒛𝒛𝒍𝒆𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒉!

I was so engrossed in this book that I finished it in one sitting! The intricate world-building introduced in the final chapter was exceptional and genuinely unsettling.

I'm desperate to find out what unfolds next. This has easily been the most satisfying 5-star read I've come across in quite some time. The numerous unforeseen twists kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire narrative.

There wasn't a single dull moment, and the way the characters were introduced added a lot of depth to the story.

To be frank, I was initially anticipating something akin to the Escape Room movies, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a much more intense and catastrophic storyline. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to others.

I loved this book!! It was such a fun and fast paced read. I love the escape room /competition elements which somewhat reminded me of saw. This is definitely a lot more tame than this authors previous books. So if you like horror but not so much extreme or gore, definitely lick this one up

I really enjoyed the puzzles and general concept of this book! The fact that the whole idea was to try and gain an inheritance and that each person had a different motivation. The connections made throughout were super interesting and I enjoyed, and our two main characters, Joy and Henry as I see it, were likeable in general. However, I never felt like each character was as explored as they could have been. While this was a shorter story in general, I still think it would have benefitted from an expansion of sorts.

Overall, this book gets 3 out of 5 from me.

Not having ever read a Duncan Ralston book, I went into this book with book expectations. It started out well, maybe a little predictable and contrived in dialogue and plot. The disgraced cop, the prison guard who treats him badly, the movie starlet having an affair with the director, etc. It got better with the entry into the house (no spoilers haha), had some good, solid gore in it and the plot twisted a little.

The ending was completely unexpected and I loved it. That alone garners 4 stars.

Thanks to Duncan Ralston, Wicked House Publishing and Net galley for allowing us access to the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and Wicked House Publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
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So I saw this publishing group being promoted for their thriller/horror books on one of my Facebook groups and so I immediately had to check them out! I saw this book as an option on NetGalley and I knew that I wanted to read it to try it out and I am so glad that I did! I felt like this was a book version of a combination of the movie Saw and Escape Room. I loved the puzzles that the author included in the book and felt like they just kept the reader engaged thought out the entire book. I feel like there were some things that were a little unnecessary at times and didn’t add to the plot of the book as much. But it wasn’t enough to like make me want to stop reading or anything like that! Overall, if you are looking for a spooky thriller with the edge of solving puzzles and a little gore, then this is the book for you! I cannot wait to see what else the author has in store for us!

The Puzzle House was was pitched similar to the Saw movies so naturally I was immediately intrigued and had to get my hands on it. It was a very quick read and definitely had some creepy moments throughout, but unfortunately the second half or so reallllly lost me and became a little too over the top while being questioningly convenient some of the wild knowledge these characters had that just happened to get them out of their puzzles. If you're wanting a weird, over the top, Saw-like read, give it a try this spooky season.

Thank you Netgalley and Wicked House Publishing for my review copy!

This was an entertaining book. I liked the mixture of Saw and Escape Room and some of the deaths were very imaginative. All in all a very interesting read.

This was my second book by this author and he didn’t disappoint. I love the way he weaves each character’s own story with the bigger story, giving you multiple points of view while not confusing you. It reminded me a lot of my favorite movie called Cube, the mystery behind what each room would offer to its victims and how the characters themselves would unfold as the story progressed was perfect. I went one to read 3 more books by this author. I’m absolutely obsessed with their work.

Not a first time caller

I've been a fan for a while but this still surprised me. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a chance to read it earlier!!
I read a lot of horror and every author comes at it differently. I personally like books like this where I really like some of the characters because I get more invested.
The story is about a group of people hoping to earn an inheritance by making it through a puzzle house, but of course things aren't what they seem. I was surprised more than once, horrified a few times, and laughed out loud at the end, immediately feeling guilty. I can't wait to read more by this guy

Puzzle House by Duncan Ralston is a really good, well thought out and researched book. I never want to go to an escape room ever again. Puzzle House is a nod to the Saw franchise which I loved.
Not overly gory for those who dont enjoy that sort of thing.
Whens the sequel dropping?