Another catch up review from a book that I managed to squeeze in at the end of December.
The Christmas Murder Game
Alexandra Benedict
Twelve clues. Twelve keys. Twelve days of Christmas. But who will survive until Twelfth Night?
Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House—the grand family home where her mother died twenty-one Christmases ago. Until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve twelve clues, to find twelve keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house.
Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: the clues will also reveal who really killed Lily’s mother all those years ago.
So, for the twelve days of Christmas, Lily must stay at Endgame House with her estranged cousins and unravel the riddles that hold the key not just to the family home, but to its darkest secrets. However, it soon becomes clear that her cousins all have their own reasons for wanting to win the house – and not all of them are playing fair.
As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, the game turns deadly. Soon Lily realises that she is no longer fighting for an inheritance, but for her life.
This Christmas is to die for… Let the game begin.
Bookshop.org | Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon
I very rarely read a festive book or if I do it features a romance so I took a bit of a gamble on this one but it was entertaining.
The author has included a few games within the book for the reader to discover and whilst I think this is a nice idea, I don’t like searching for things separately from the story. It just means I’m not focused on the book and end up not taking in what I need to, so I didn’t play along but I’m sure there will be those that would enjoy it.
The story itself is interesting, a locked-in mystery, with a family all vying to win the house they are staying in by solving riddles and finding clues over the twelve days of Christmas. I also liked that Lily was there for another purpose to find the extra clues left just for her to help her solve her mother’s murder.
I didn’t find myself entirely invested in the characters, I enjoyed the edge of deception that each of them had, but I didn’t find any of them particularly likeable. I want to be able to root for the main character or be really on their side but I just found Lily a bit lacklustre, so it was hard to engage the way I would have liked.
Also, I know that it is fiction and you have to suspend your belief a little but I found I couldn’t quite get my head around that they would all stay in the house when someone was being killed almost every night, even with the obstacles to hinder them in getting help, to me it just felt a little much. Especially because they are all family and none of them seemed to be all that convincingly sad that their relatives were dying, I’m not sure I could focus on riddles in that set-up.
However, I was keen to stick with it and try and deduce who could be the murderer, whilst I didn’t hit the mark exactly I had made a few correct assumptions along the way. I thought that the final piece of the puzzle was very clever, and after some weird revelations, it was a slightly nicer and lighter note to end on.
Even with the book having murder in the title, I thought it would be a more cosy crime style, but it turned out to be a bit dark and bleak at points. However, I did still find it quite an entertaining read and managed to whizz through the story.
everywhere-and-nowhere.com 