Cover Image: Reprieve

Reprieve

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Member Reviews

3.5 stars
This was a very slow burning story - not horror at all in my opinion - I would shelve this as a mystery with some dark moments but those moments are very few. There's a lot of different POVs and skips forward and back in time. Just when I was thinking I'm not enjoying it, the story started to unfold and drag me in. So the story opens with a court case, you know something went very wrong at a full contact haunted house attraction but over the course of 400 pages you get to find out what, but also how every character fits into the story and why (whether you need to know or not 😬) but I can't say it wasn't beautifully written and very clever because those are points I cannot fault here.

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This took me a while to read as I kept dipping in and out . I am glad that I read it as I really enjoyed the premise, I just found it a bit slow to start but it did get me involved in the end.

I was given a free copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

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I didn't find this particularly gripping, it was good in parts, but also a bit repetitive and hard to keep going in other parts.

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This is a great book - very cleverly written and it held my attention throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me an early look at this book in exchange for an honest review.

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With thanks to the author, publishers Bloomsbury Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

It took me a while to get into this one.

The concept was an intriguing one, but I honestly found the array of characters and their different timelines and settings quite confusing to follow at times, and the length of the novel and how repetitive it seemed at certain points made it a bit of a chore to get through.

Kendra was quite a likeable character and I felt some some sympathy for Leonard, but I found Jaidee to be quite annoying in the main. Some of the other characters felt a little too vague and unexplained, such as Jane, who is a team member in the Quigley House but who we get barely any information about. Also I felt the ending was a little bit of a let down.

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It took me a while to get into this book but then I started enjoying it. Unfortunately the ending really let it down.

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This is a cracker of a read: an escape room mystery with a bang up-to-date cast of diverse characters, whose experiences expose white privilege without derailing the plot-driven narrative. Fast, fun, and furious.

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Reprieve is a story that spans an array of genres, part horror, part thriller, part social commentary. The narrative bounces between the events in the full contact escape rooms, the characters backstories and trial transcripts. This works very well to move the story along at the same time as allowing the reader to absorb all the relevant information. The cast of characters are diverse and interesting and flawed in many different ways. Overall I would say this isn’t really a horror but more a social commentary with added gore and suspense.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this unique book.

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I loved Kendra and the way this book managed a thoughtful and slow (but very interesting) narrative. It has a really interesting premis. An escape room. I’ve never wanted to do this and this book explains why!!

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It took me a little while to get into but once I did I enjoyed it. However, I did feel let down by the ending. There was no reason why. So it felt like no ending.

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Unfortunately after multiple attempts, I have had to admit defeat and place this book as dnf. I just struggled to get into it.

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Thank you to netgalley and the publishers fir this review copy. A novel with great potential but let down at the end,

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Horror mixed with sociology results in an edge of the seat/behind the sofa read that is quite compelling. As a fan of escape rooms the setting alone would have had me read this book. Horror would usually put me off, but this is clever. The sociological aspects tame the horror as we view from a different angle.

I knocked a star off for the ending which felt a bit "off" but would nonetheless recommed the read. It's not for horror fans, I don't think, but is for those who like to think and don't mind a few gaps!

With thanks to the author and publisher for the ARC

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The blurb and cover suggest this book is a horror, or at least a jump-scare thriller. It isn’t. But it’s still a good read. What it actually is, is a careful and thoughtful social commentary novel, which forms the flesh over the mere bones of a horror/thriller concept.

I have never heard of a full-contact escape room and the name alone was enough to horrify me, never mind the gory reality of sliding about in the dark, drenched in lashings of fake blood, and being actually touched by actors made up as horror film monsters. We are introduced to the basic set-up, and then the story is told through a mixture of courtroom testimony and flashback-style accounts of how the main characters ended up running the ‘Reprieve’ gauntlet and how it all went wrong.

The plot sets up this gripping mystery/drama, which then unfurls slowly as the author explores notions of ‘otherhood’ and ‘outsiderness’, incorporating racism, sexism and homophobia, as the characters struggle to understand and communicate with each other, resulting in the terrible missteps that lead them to Quigley House and, eventually, to tragedy.

In fact, this would have been a 5-star read for me, if not for the ending, which felt a little flat and unsatisfying after such a careful and intricate build-up.

Definitely not for those looking for jump-scares, gore or fast-paced thrills, but an entertaining and interesting read for those who find their horror in how people treat each other.

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

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I really struggled to get into this. I have to admit I gave up multiple times and would wait a while and see if I could continue but it just wasn’t keeping me attracted to it. I’m not sure if it’s the way it was written or not. But I’m disappointed I couldn’t make it to the end in one reading. I found the last few chapters much more enticing though

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The story doesn’t get together until the very end. I felt like the author needed a long time to introduce the characters, by which time you won’t understand how it will all click together. It is a very slow burn book.

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At 'the Quigley House', a sort of extreme horror-themed escape room, a real crime has taken place. A dual series of flashbacks - through the lives of the protagonists, and the various rooms they have endured to this point - we see how the fantasy has become nightmare.

The novel seems to be drawing parallels between the horror of the house and the horrors of human behaviour - especially racism, outside. So chapters alternate between - investigation of the crime, description of the game of the Quigley House and backstory for each character. However it's too ambitious on all fronts so that ultimately, we don't really understand the motivations of the culprit. Equally the mechanics of Quigley House always seem a bit vague (how could it possibly make money?) and the characters sort of develop and then disappear. Some parts of the individual narratives are extremely well done - Leonard's obsession with the Thai woman Boonsri for example, and Jaidee's antagonism towards black students at his university. But who is Jane and why is she even there? What's Victor's story? Ultimately this novel suffers for a lack of focus and peters to a slightly unsatisfying conclusion.

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Not a bad book though I hated every character in it 😂 quite slow and dragged in parts but in all not a bad book really, not sure it’s everyone cup of tea but I didn’t mind it.

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This was a character focused, quiet novel that looked at the lives of those involved in a tragedy at a full contact haunt. I loved the writing in this book and found it incredibly compelling. There was a thread running through the narrative dealing with the different faces of racism and sexism in society, which was fascinating and uncomfortable in equal measure. I thought that Quigley House as a setting was fabulous and the horror was very present and visceral, albeit as an undercurrent of threat as opposed to in your face scares. I think those who go into this book expecting a thriller set in an extreme escape room will be disappointed, because that is not what this is. Instead, it is a literary exploration of why people act in certain ways and the lengths people will go to for acceptance and I loved it!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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I didn’t finish this one. It seemed promising when I requested it but I lost interest a third of the way through. Not a good choice for me unfortunately.

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