“This is how people die”
This is my first Christina Henry read and now I need to read everything she’s ever written. I loved the blurb and expected this book to be fun, but not this much fun!
Desperately trying to survive the horror stories they’ve been cast in without their consent are Celia, Allie and Maggie.
Celia has a husband and young daughter she doesn’t recognise. She owns a restaurant near her home in a town she doesn’t know. Unsure if she’s experiencing amnesia or something more nefarious, Celia suspects that this is not her life.
“You’re the number one suspect.”
Allie’s girl’s weekend was hijacked by her friends’ boyfriends. Now she’s using her horror movie knowledge to avoid being added to the body count.
“Movies are fun and all, but that kind of stuff doesn’t usually happen in real life. Usually.”
Maggie has twelve hours to successfully complete the Maze. Her daughter’s life depends on it. Although characters reference The Hunger Games while Maggie does her best to ensure her insides don’t become her outsides, I kept thinking of Squid Game.
“Let the game begin”
There was plenty of action and blood spatter, and I enjoyed the anticipation as the body count grew. I loved figuring out what was going on along with the women and watching them use their individual skills and knowledge to outwit, outplay and outlast.
“Men always underestimate women”
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books introducing me to a new favourite author.
Once Upon a Blurb
Celia wakes up in a house that isn’t hers. She doesn’t recognise her husband or the little girl who claims to be her daughter. She tries to remember who she was before, because she is certain that this life — the little family-run restaurant she owns, the gossipy small town she lives in — is not her own.
Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip — but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. The cabin looks recently assembled and there are no animals or other life anywhere in the forest. Nothing about the place seems right. Then, in the middle of the night, someone bangs on the cabin door…
Maggie, along with twelve other women, wakes up in a shipping container with the number three stamped on the back of her T-shirt. If she wants to see her daughter Paige again, Maggie must complete The Maze — a deadly high-stakes obstacle course.
Three women. Three stories. Only one way out…
Schizanthus Nerd 