I've fell out with horror lately. I don't know why, but nothing I've read lately has gave me that buzz that horror used to deliver.

I received an ARC of The Dark Game, courtesy of Netgalley and it sat on my kindle, unread, for almost two months. I've loved everything else I've read by Janz , so when the official release date approached - I bit the bullet and gave horror another try...

This book is the dog's bollocks! (for non British people, this means really fu***** good)

I blasted through it on my day off, something I haven't done with a horror novel in a looong time.

I don't want to go over the plot as you can read the blurb. What I will say is that the pace, atmosphere and characterisation are all perfect. No mean feat , when you have so many characters with their own unique voices.

I'm back in love with horror!
But what the hell am I going to follow this up with? 

ARC kindly provided by Flame Tree Press and Netgalley

So this is a brand spanking new book for Mr Janz, not a reprint but a fresh story. This is not as scary or as gruesome as his other stories I have read but there was something a bit more clever about it and more fresh. Plus I have to say straight of the bat I LOVED LOVED LOVED all the references to his previous works and other stories. I picked up the nods to The Siren and the Spectre before they were obvious and the Sorrows. I am sure there were more, I have a feeling the Nightmare girl was alluded to.

For a change, I was not grossed out and I wasn’t completely petrified under my cover reading this, I actually sat back and enjoyed the story of 10 writers off on a retreat to win some money and meet the mysterious Roderick Wells, a legend, who is going to help make it all happen. I mean what possibly could go wrong?

I mean I know that I was not on edge for a change but it does not mean that there were not a few game-changing scenes where I sat catching flies I mean, I did just read that didn’t I, plus when gore was needed it was there! One bit in particular….that ending! In the midst of the macabre the way the characters carried on was surprising to me, I mean they did just see what I read but you wouldn’t know, the crazy kids!

I love in the midst of the creative retreat, with the “writers” all trying to write the next big thing, channelling all the inspiration they can, whilst fighting their secrets. Secrets that haunt them, secrets that take a life of their own. Things really do go bump in the night and manifestations do really exist in this closed-off corner of the world. Who or what is causing this darkness?

Fear! That is the theme, not just with the writers on the retreat, are they good enough? Will they make it? But the fear of the unknown, where will this story takes us? What is lurking in the dark?

This is such a hard review to write because I can’t spoil anything for you. This is a dark dark thriller and it keeps you turning the pages with the short snappy chapters. You get insights to all the characters, you witness their secrets, some were just horrifying but everyone got a voice. You got everyone’s story as they all tried to prove why they deserve the prestige. It felt like you were in charge of this book because as the story unfolds I agreed with the way the events played out. Man, there is so much more I want to say!!

I love the Q&A’s at the beginning of each book as you get an insight to the author and the book, and when reading this, you could sense like Janz said, that Rick was so loosely based on him, especially with the Jack Ketchum reference. The Dark Game seems quite a personal ride for Janz and an insight into the fear of a writers journey.

As everyone knows I have a HUGE fan of Mr Janz and his storytelling. As much as this may not be knocking the Siren and the Spectre off the top spot, the magic that Janz weaves on the page still makes this an enjoyable read and one I struggled to put down. Each different take he has done on a known genre just wins for me. Janz has such a distinct voice, that I would be able to tell it was his book I was reading, even if the cover said something different. He sucks you in, leaving you on edge, completely engrossed in the world laid out in front of you, never quite letting you go even after the last page.

A good and interesting read. It kept me glued to the pages throughout. Even though the ending felt a little rushed, it was still a satisfying read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review. The Dark Game debuts April 11th.

This may have been a poor choice for a first book to read by Jonathan Janz. I didn’t know much about Janz, though the name vaguely rang a bell. (More on that later.) The premise is a bunch of writers competing for mentorship and future literary prestige at a spooky retreat. Normally I’m not huge on stories where the MC is an author; the characters always read cringy to me, like an over-the-top author-insert. But the whole writer competition thing sounded fun, so I decided to request the book.

Yet it turns out that ten writer MCs read more cringy to me than one writer MC, by a factor of about ten-fold. (Whodathunkit.) Again, this is totally a personal preference thing; I just can’t get past all the talk about agents and advances and genre dissing, since I’m forever trying to suss out Janz the author’s actual thoughts.

    He narrowed his eyes, appraising her. “You look like a YA writer. Am I right?”

    She considered telling him of her early success, transforming his arrogant expression into a look of awe. 

Take the above quote, for example—what do you mean by that exactly, Jonathan Janz? You wanna throw down? Huh? Huh? 😀

But then. Then. We get to the above and beyond part. Because Janz inserts multiple mentions of one of his own novels into the book and talks up how great it is. Read that again. One of the writers on the retreat is writing one of Janz’s books, The Siren and the Specter, and keeps saying how it’s amazing. It’s bookception, with a marketing twist. As my husband put it, “Wow, that takes a lotta balls.”

This is when I realized why Janz’s name seemed so familiar to me; I have The Siren and the Specter on my (lengthy) Goodreads TBR. Honestly I have no idea if there are other Easter eggs in The Dark Game, but I wouldn’t be surprised. My overall sense is that this book might be great for diehard Janz fans as a sort of fan service book, but it left me kind of feeling like I was missing a bunch of inside jokes, while also being served some sneaky advertisements. I also had a difficult time connecting with the characters since there were just so damn many of them. Some had interesting back stories, but most felt fairly interchangeable, and it was hard to keep everyone straight. (Save for Sherilyn; really enjoyed her brief POV sections.)

So I’m not ruling out reading another book by this author, but suffice it to say that The Dark Game was unfortunately a miss for me.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The Dark Game is a complex paranormal thriller that at times pays homage to classics like Stoker's Dracula and at others invents completely novel and unique characters. It is a feast of backstories, books within books, and whodunit themes. A wealthy author holds a secret contest for aspiring writers at his estate. The catch: nothing is as it seems. We encounter imaginary foes, real-life killers, and ruthless competitors. We read developing drafts of various stories interwoven into the main plot line. We get to know each contestant's dark past as it unfolds in the present. 

Jonathan Janz shows great creativity and ambition in this novel. Sadly, the execution falls a bit flat. It was strenuous to follow the present plotline while sorting through the past side stories. It was difficult to remember who is who. But most importantly, it was too hard to care about any of the characters. This led to me slugging my way through the book as it dredged on. This should've been a suspenseful and fast-paced horror mystery but I was rarely scared or uncomfortable and I never felt my heart beat quicken. This book just felt perfectly average. It was a decent read. It just didn't have the little something extra that makes a novel super special or great.

Wow!  What a story!!  I found this story entertaining, original, and bloody...just the way I like them.  The characters were great and I really enjoyed reading the stories within the story.  Whoever would have thought about writing a story about a Siren with the Rappahannock River as the setting, lol?  Keep 'em coming Mr. Janz.

I was really excited by the premise of ‘The Dark Game’ – horror mixed with my favourite subject – books! Ironically however, I found the writing to be a let down! My first problem was how predictable it all was – the reader and the characters can easily guess what is going on by chapter 3 and there is no big twist or reveal which deviates from that in any way throughout the book. I feel like the whole thing needed more setup – we needed the illusion of a normal, if slightly odd competition to start with which would have then added an element of tension, mystery and suspense as the book went forward.

There are also way too many characters – some of which are not developed at all. Trying to sort out 10 competitors, their backstories and the characters in their stories as well as Wells and his staff was confusing and difficult to do without writing it all down as you went. The fact that occasionally they were referred to by their surnames also didn’t help! Perhaps with a competition pool of 5 or 6 characters we would have gotten to know them a little more and their fates would have actually meant something to us as a reader. Wells himself was underdeveloped as well, we didn’t really get much of an introduction to him or the books he had written to make him a famous author so the references to his books near the end didn’t have half the impact it should have done.

The stories themselves were interesting but again felt underdeveloped, we only got a little hint of them in text form and then they were fully referenced to later on which made me feel like I’d missed a few chapters. I felt like we knew more about the characters backstories than the books they had written about. I did enjoy the backstories though and thought they were interesting and a nice way to bring the horror into the story.

My next problem was actually outlined as a bad writing technique a few times throughout the book -to quote: ‘This is titillation… you hoped the subject matter would conceal your lack of skill.’ It seems everything in the book links back to sex in some way and it actually makes for some really cringey scenes. I found myself crying with laughter at the phrase ‘he diddled himself expertly’ – not really what you want from a horror! Although sometimes it is needed for the story it is telling, I can’t help but feel that if most of the terrible sex references were edited down the words could be used to better tell the horror story most of the readers were expecting to read.

Overall The Dark Game is a missed potential, and it’s ironic that a story that features a competition on good writing could make so many writing mistakes. Thank you to NetGalley & Flame Tree Press for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for a (very!) honest review.

The Dark Game had a really interesting premise. Struggling writers are invited to a sort of competition disguised as a retreat hosted by a prolific author, Roderick Wells. The last writer standing gets an invaluable amount help - deals with publishing houses, agents, and of course, the advice of Wells himself. Little do they know that they've been very carefully selected, not necessarily based on their talents as writers, but based on their past. On the secrets they might be hiding.

So we meet the writers. There are quite a few. In fact in the beginning, I had a hard time keeping track of them. After a few are "asked to leave" it became easier to remember who was who. Janz did a great job crafting these characters, their histories. They felt very well rounded. 

Another thing I've come to love about Jonathan Janz's work is that his scenes with a lot of action and physical movement are so cinematic. It's like he choreographs his characters' movements or something. In my head, it's so easy to picture exactly what's going on.

This was fast paced and easy to get sucked into and fly through. I'd recommend it for those who don't shy away from dark, ambiguous characters - good people who might have done bad things.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for letting me have this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I went looking for a Horror book in NetGalley’s categories and found this gem. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint. Look at this cover! It’s fantastic! I do love a good horror novel and I wasn’t sure what to expect but there are so many good things that I have to say about this one. In this post I’ll be keeping it spoiler free, outside of the description of the book from NetGalley and the occasional character name referenced. This is be more about what I liked about the book overall and just how I felt as I read it.

This book is big, 352 pages, it’s broken into five parts and I think that really makes sense with just how much information we needed as we went. The chapters will go back and forth, between different characters but it works for me. The characters all have their moments and they are wonderfully written moments that I enjoyed learning more about each person as I went. I did immediately have two favorite characters, I won’t say who, I don’t know if the author did that intentionally given how this book ends but I took to them over all others right away.

It flows really well even with the bouncing between this and that, it moves at a good pace that you don’t feel bored at any point of reading. The descriptions were perfect for me, I don’t like overly wordy descriptions of the rooms and surroundings but I don’t like barely anything. The vocabulary use was great, there were even some words that I’d never heard of before and had to look up. Of course my favorite was solipsistic, I knew that one because it’s used in one of my fav’s “You” by Caroline Kepnes, but learning the definition it’s just a great word.

It is vulgar. Sex, Violence, Depravity. It’s all here and I think you have to really be okay with reading that because it’s not for everyone. There are scenes that are very intense and even slightly nauseating but I’m someone that expects that out of an Adult book as well as out of a horror. It isn’t out of place or shoved in just for shock value. I didn’t feel like it was gratuitous either, it was all well placed and made sense for the moments or the characters that were involved.

What I really loved about The Dark Game was the characterization! Jonathan Janz just a phenomenal job with creating these characters. From the host, Wells, to the ten writers that have come to compete. Each was different, each with their distinct personalities, motivations, secrets and stories that have brought them to this ‘retreat’. I have to give kudos to being able to delve into the minds of ten characters, develop them and bring them to a point where you are interested what happens to them.

Reading about each person, learning about them, either you love them, hate them, pity them or are disgusted by them. Either way the writing in this book makes you feel something and that is what I want in a book. I wanted to know more, I wanted to understand these characters and the events and experiences that brought them to play The Dark Game.

The ending also was a perfect end, it went in a way that I was hoping but not quite what I expected. It worked and it felt right. After I finished, I sat wondering about when I’m going to finish my novel. Reading about ten writers, with hopes of becoming published, reading their works in progress over the course of the retreat made me feel inspired as someone that wants to finish her own horror novel.

I haven’t read any of his other books but reading this makes me want to read them all. I can recommend this book enough! It’s currently available for pre-order. Check out the links below to buy the book as well as follow the author!

The Dark Game comes out April 11th. BUY THIS BOOK!!

Jonathan Janz is my go to to for horror, his story telling is unique to him. This story wasn't my favourite but I still enjoyed it. Plus it mentions The Siren and The Spector if you haven't read that one its a must read for horror fans.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance read, I am voluntarily providing my honest review.

A few years ago I may have said Jonathan who? These days I need only see the name Jonathan Janz to know that I need to grab the book without even reading the description. Jonathan Janz knows horror, More than that he is an amazing story teller who doesn't need to go for the cheap scares or the gore only route. Every character has a purpose and I am not going to go into the plot much except to say each character has their own twisted little back story and the way in which it all played out was deliciously creepy. I also loved the way it mentioned The Siren and The Spector, which is another book by this author that you really need to read if you haven't yet.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

well not sure about this one...i found it to be a combination of dorian grey and the novel by agatha christie "and then there were none"...with a bit of horror and gruesomeness thrown in...those two books on their own are good but put together within this story....i will let others decide.....

10 writers brought together to win 3 million dollars....and not one of them had any appealing qualities about them...but then maybe that was why they were picked....

sorry to say though i did finish this book it wasnt for me...but there was something about the authors writing that i would give him another go...just that this story didnt do it for me

“Storytellers have existed since the beginning of time. Even though society regards them as mere entertainers, their role is a sacred one. An essential one. And though they deal in fantasy, in fabrication, the essence of their power resides in truth. No one is more honest than the storyteller. No one has greater power. They have the ability to create life…or bring death.”
Telling stories is not a skill that everyone has been blessed with in equal measure. While some of us struggle just to make events seem coherent, others are able to weave wild narrative into vivid settings and elicit a diverse range of visceral emotions. Where Lovecraft was able to terrorize readers with wild tales of monsters and horrific gods, Tolkein mesmerized with wondrous tales of fantastic worlds and beings, and Shakespeare…well he did it all. But what about Jonathan Janz, the US horror writer behind the upcoming novel The Dark Game? Does he have this storytelling ability?... Absolutely!

“Writing instructors correctly point out that a villain needs to be the hero of his story, but what they forget is that the villain also needs to be frightening. In fact, I’d argue that the effectiveness of a story is directly correlated to the threat posed by the antagonist.”
At the heart of The Dark Game is the reclusive, enigmatic, and highly successful Roderick Wells. From even before his first on-page introduction, his malignant presence haunts everything about the story, like some sort of god from the pages of Lovecraft or Poe. As an author, he even has a sort of meta-literary awareness of what he is and the effectiveness of pervasive and lingering menace. Indeed, that pervasiveness spreads through the help that he employs around him, from the unsettling butler/handyman to the quiet but ever-present maid, and it is hard not to feel somewhat suffocated by just the mere thought of him at any given moment. 
Joining Wells at his estate is a group of writers invited to take part in a writing retreat / competition. They’re certainly a diverse group that bring much to the table with regards to their attitudes, personalities, and back stories. However I did feel that, at times, there was a struggle to provide each with truly unique voices to distinguish them all from one another. Despite these occasional difficulties, the dynamic nature in which many of them are written ultimately makes for satisfying reading while also helping to keep the plot moving forward at a frenetic pace.

“Wells called it a place of magic, and it was. But the magic was of the darkest, most demented sort.”
While The Dark Game’s ability to unsettle readers may predominantly come from the monster at its core, it is actually rooted (somewhat literally) in the mysterious Wells estate. With so many characters and narratives, it could have been easy for the setting to be somewhat overlooked, but the role of the Wells estate is written almost perfectly. Ultimately, much like the eponymous setting of Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, the Wells estate plays a central role in proceedings. Almost immediately it evokes contradictory feelings of entrapment and isolation while helping to exacerbate Wells’ malevolence and, as the story develops, so does the influence of Wells’ estate. So much so, in fact, that by the end of the book it began to feel like a part of Lovecraft’s infamous Miskatonic Valley, somewhere I would be terrified to ever find myself. 

As a book that seemingly draws upon many significant authors from the horror, thriller, and mystery genres, The Dark Game does a phenomenal job at taking ideas that have been seen before and presenting them in ways that are both novel and exciting. Having the plot focused around writing allows for a level of self-awareness and self-reference that hints at the processes that went into the writing of the book, which, on a personal level, provided a level of satisfaction and enjoyment that I’ve not had from a book in quite some time. The game may be dark, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

I have to admit up front that I have a certain fondness for horror books about authors whose literary creations come alive. One of my favorites, of course, is Stephen King’s The Dark Half, and I’m pretty sure Dean Koontz wrote something along these lines as well, but I’ll be damned if I can recall the title (or maybe I’m just getting hit with a serious case of Mandela Effect). The Dark Game, a brand-new release unleashed amidst Flame Tree Press’s unofficial Year of Janz reissues, toils in the topics of writers and their creations, and the perils of writing horror villains that are a little too realistic.

Ten writers have been hand-selected by the reclusive but highly regarded literary legend Roderick Wells to take part in a competition. The prize — three million dollars and a guaranteed best-seller status that will likely have the winner set for life. The secret catch? That one writer has to write well enough, and live long enough, to win.

On the topic of writing, The Dark Game may be Janz’s most thematically rich title to date, and the author is afforded plenty of page space to muse on the merits of an author’s legacy, their immortal creations, the various ways in which writers bleed upon the page, and the lessons learned and passed down from one author to another. After being tasked with writing a horror novel for Wells, Lucy confides in Rick (our central protagonists here) that she’s afraid of failing. Her debut book was a hit, her second less so. Rick asks if she’s ever heard of horror author Jack Ketchum, and imparts upon her the sage advice that was shared with him by the man himself: “Fuck fear.” Write bravely. Get those words down on the page. 

I suspect this was advice Janz learned first-hand and is sharing with us through Rick. We get various other nuggets along the way, as Janz shares other tidbits of advice through his characters. Wells philosophizes over the nature of villains and reminds his group of authors, “You mustn’t allow the audience to know what he will do, yet his actions must always make sense in retrospect. You must provide him with a motivation. A purpose. … Make your villains live, my friends. Through them, you shall become legend.”

Rather than being a how-to guide or Janz’s version of On Writing, The Dark Game is very much a horror novel. It’s also a horror novel in which we can see the author exploring why he writes, sharing the lessons he learned over the years, while also telling one hell of a well crafted story. Although there’s clearly a lot of personal experience baked in, it never feels like Janz is speaking directly to you or breaking the fourth wall. Rather, it’s an author using a subject matter he is intimately familiar with — in this case, being an author — to ground the work in concrete credibility. Horror novels are rife with horror authors encountering the unnatural and inexplicable and becoming the main protagonist, and while that’s certainly true here, too, there’s a richness to the story, a muscularity to it all, that puts it pretty well close to the top of Janz’s output thus far. The suspense and eventual bloodshed have a literary meatiness to them, and the ideas presented within this book provide plenty to chew on. There’s an elegance to the revelations here, and Janz takes his time springing his various traps on us. The secrets each of these authors possess unfold slowly, while the plot simmers to a roiling boil.

The most popular maxim in writing is to write what you know. Well, Janz knows horror and literature, and the result is The Dark Game, a book that is all about fear. The fear writers carry that their stories aren’t ever good enough, the hope that their works can instill fear, the fears that make authors write in the first place, that inspire them or force them to grapple with, and the fear of unintended consequences. The fears of succumbing to egomania, and the price of immortality…and simply the fear of being forgotten or derided. And, ultimately, getting over those fears and just doing the damn work, to choose to, as Ketchum advises, fuck fear. It’s advice worth following, and advice that I suspect Janz took to heart writing this book especially. The end result is a story showcasing an author at the top of his own dark game.

I really enjoyed this one. A group of writers gather in a secluded mansion for a writing retreat, unbeknownst to them that evil awaits, and in time all hell breaks loose. Once again, author Jonathan Janz delivers an effective horror story with an energetic narrative and a character development worthy of his name. He is one of the better 'new' writers out there. Pick this one up. You won't be sorry. This is an Advanced Reading Copy with a publication date of April 2019.

Jonathan Janz's The Dark Game is well constructed and frightening look into ten writers trying to survive a competition run by a very intriguing host. This one gave me a lot of And Then There Were None vibes as the isolated crew was picked off one by one. However, The Dark Game is very original, because of its amazing antagonist and setting. Roderick Wells is a villain that will haunt my dreams for a long time to come. The chaos that he can create is beyond imagining. The mansion and surrounding woods are the perfect backdrop for the haunting events to take place. The mystery of Wells and the mansion were very fascinating, and I loved learning more and more about them as the book went on.


I want to thank Flame Tree Press and NetGalley for giving a copy of this novel for review.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Very interesting supernatural thriller that was just a bit reminiscent of Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Matheson's Hell House and Scott Thomas' Kill Creek - but take my word for it; people thrown together in a haunted house is where the similarity ends. Jonathan Janz took that premise and jetted off in an entirely different direction that was very satisfying, if a bit confusing.
The sheer number of characters made it somewhat difficult to keep up with, but the masterful way he picked them off, one by one, definitely caused it to get easier as the novel progressed. 
As always, his plot was imaginative even though the characters weren't as "fleshed out" as he usually makes them (understandable since there were so many).
All-in-all, this was an enjoyable read and I would definitely recommend it.

I got this ARC from Jonathan Janz, Flame Tree Press and NetGalley I'm exchange for an honest review.

I haven't read a horror book in a while and was craving a good horror story and this book was perfect! Full of mystery and interesting characters. I love books like this one who follows a few characters who all have their own little stories. Some parts of the book litteraly gave me goosebumps! I loved the concept of the story and loved the ending! I don't really have any negative thoughts on this book apart from certain parts were a little long but then again, it was still interesting. If you like thrillers I highly recommend this book as it is full of suspense, horror, great characters and great nemesis!

I have been a fan of Jonathan Janz for a long time. He’s is good and I really dig his work.

There is a lot going on with this one though and it was a bit difficult to keep it all straight. I think it could have used a wee bit of a trim here and there to keep it a little leaner and meaner. That being said, it definitely didn’t lack for crazy sh*t going on. That’s for sure.

$3,000,000 up for grabs.

Let the games begin.

My thanks to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley.
It's just one of those things I suppose. A book description sometimes sounds way more exciting than the actual book. This was the case with me. I've only read 4 or 5 books by Mr. Janz, and I plan on reading more. But, this book in particular was almost the same book as another I've read by this author. Which one? Heck if I know! 😬  But, it was on an island, and shit was weird. Here? Yep, maybe not an island, but definitely lost, and definitely strange! As soon as I started reading the story I knew how it would go. I had hoped I was wrong, "as I often am," but this book was exactly as I expected. So, a familiar storyline, too many people and the weird, the "Big Bad?" Too confusing. Mixing a lot of people and scary element's are usually a good thing, but the characters were hard to keep 👣 track of, and the bad was just too over the top! This just isn't a book I'd recommend, unless it's one of your firsts by this author. Still, Janz is a pretty intense storyteller, so I'll be waiting for the next book.