This was a fun debut filled with an interesting collection of characters and a good murder mystery plot that will keep you thinking about all possible answers right until the end. I really liked the 2 main characters, Mimi and Addie, and thought that they worked really well as a team and I also enjoyed the inclusion of the gaming aspect which adds a fresh take on the mystery.

I loved the setting of the mansion in the middle of a snow storm that cuts the power and leaves all the guests stranded and as the host of the party is murdered in her bed, it is a race against time to catch the killer before the police can get to the location.

This book really gave me cluedo vibes with the array of characters and the different rooms in the house where various suspicious things occur throughout the novel. There's a chef, a life coach, an old actor, game show host and more all involved in this intricate web of lies and blackmail that create this intriguing plot.

There are plenty of red herrings and side quests to conquer as Mimi and Addie act like a detective duo as they try to get to the bottom of the mystery with no way of them, the guests or the killer getting in or out of the mansion.

This is Not a Game' is such good fun, a murder mystery romp like an Agatha Christie on speed through an exclusive isolated country house starring maverick grandma Mimi and her game designer grand-daughter Addie.

Mimi has been invited to a neighbour's art auction, but the invitation is accompanied by a blackmail letter telling Mimi that she will be paying full price for a particular piece of art, or her secrets will be shared with the world. Mimi asks Addie to come to the auction with her; the setting is a huge country house with its own 200 foot moat and drawbridge, hidden tunnels and secret rooms. The other attendees are an eclectic mix, TV stars, astrologers, scent-artists and local businessman Jim Towels (the best name ever!). The house-owners themselves are a controversial pair, rich socialite Jane who is dating her own son-in-law Matthew and providing gossip for everyone.

The unwilling auction guests enter the house; the drawbridge is raised- and then the murder starts. Jane is found dead in her room just before a brutal snowstorm knocks out the power and confines everyone to the house without chance of a speedy rescue.

The story is hugely entertaining, completely improbable and such a lot of fun to read. I am delighted to see that there will be another book soon!

3.5-4 stars.

This is a fun and easy-to-read murder mystery with all of the cosiness of a Golden Age novel and the same lack of any real sense of peril.

The dynamic between our 2 amateur sleuths is interesting and I enjoyed the fact that they were a grandmother-granddaughter team, resolving their own family issues whilst solving crime.

Perfect reading for anyone looking for an enjoyable book that doesn’t over-tax the stomach or brain cells.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

A locked room mystery with a unique edge .
Mimi is being blackmailed and she’s not a happy lady !
She is invited to an extravagant auction at a party held on Mackinac Island in a mansion which has its very own drawbridge .
Mimi doesn’t want to go alone and decides to ask her granddaughter Addie to accompany her .
They don’t have an easy relationship and Addie has to think twice about the invitation, and agrees to go to the auction.
Addie has her own issues she has broken up with her partner and is about to embark on a legal fight for the business they grew together .
Mimi is more than a little apprehensive about the party and with good reason .
The party is hosted by the acerbic Jane and things take a dark turn when she is found dead and the drawbridge is closed and there is a power outage so that means that all of them are trapped in the mansion .
Mimi and Addie start to investigate and uncover mystery rooms , passages and more dead bodies and plenty of twists and turns .
This is a great read and I love the dynamic in the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter .
Great writing that keeps the pages turning .
Excellent !
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone .

A fun, easy to settle into, cosy crime.
I do love a cosy crime, especially when there is a cast of thousands making the whodunnit big reveal so much fun.
Feisty female leads are always the best sort, and a plot impossible to predict.

Jane Ireland is throwing an extravagant auction party at her mansion on Mackinac Island , and local woman Mimi has been invited. Well, when I say invited, I really mean blackmailed into going. She decideds to ask her grandaughter Addie along for support. Addy who is still recovering from a break up from a manipulative partner (both business & personal) , is happy to tag along.
Mimi is trying to think of a way to tell Addie the real reason for the invite, and also how to tell her the truth behind the blackmail.
However, towards the end of the evening Jane is found dead, with Mimi being prime suspect.
the island is cut off due to a vicious snow storm, so Mimi & Addie put their sleuthing hats on, and try to find the real culprit before the police can find their way through the drifts.
I found this book really entertaining, and the characters of Mimi & Addie fun to read. A great read with a bit of fun along the way.

The book is set on Mackinac Island in a Grand old Mansion with it's own drawbridge. Resident Mimi is attending an auction there as part of a blackmail note she receives. Not wanting to go alone she invites her Grand Daughter Addie from the mainland to go with her. Addie has her own issues to contend with after breaking up with her fiancé who was also the co-author of a successful online murder game she wrote.

Despite the title, the story did feel more like a game to me. I couldn't really take it seriously especially as at every turn of events Addie was comparing it to the game she co-wrote. She and Mimi take upon themselves to be the detectives after no one can gain access to the mansion due to the weather.

There were parts where I was really drawn into the drama and was enjoying reading the book. Overall it felt a little repetitive for me. Some of the dialogue was very stilted, more like a murder mystery party than a real life drama. The characters didn't feel real and although it was set in present day it seemed more like the 1920s.

I really enjoyed This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen.
The story pulled me in right from the start and kept me hooked the whole way through. It’s a great mix of suspense, mystery, and just the right amount of twists to keep things interesting.
I especially liked the two main characters—they were easy to connect with and had a dynamic that made the story even more fun to follow.
Mullen’s writing is smooth and engaging, easy to get into and really draws you into the world she’s created. The book had an Agatha Christie feel with a modern twist, with smart characters and a bit of a techy edge.
If you’re into stories that keep you guessing this one’s definitely worth checking.

I'm not sure what the line is between a cosy mystery and a more ambitious one, though I assume it's a relatively porous one and is as much to do with ongoing characters and a slow-burning soap opera in the background than the quality of the murders. This Is Not A Game appears to have greater ambition than just being a cosy mystery, its a little longer and there is a country house aspect to it, which means the crime needs to be solved there and then. But it is still fundamentally about an old lady and granddaughter solving a relatively bloodless murder in a locked down location, whilst quipping and drinking Gibson martinis. All of which is fabulously entertaining.

The book also sets itself a relatively high bar, as the granddaughter's interesting job is designing whodunnit video games. As such, there is a touch of inside baseball here, a slightly meta commentary on the rules of the country house murder. Her grandmother was invited to the fatal party as a form of blackmail, it turns out most everyone there was also being blackmailed. So in the best Agatha Christie fashion, its down to our intrepid duo to worm out the motives, and cross-reference that with the time of the crime - and somewhere along the line discover the secret passages and identities of their other guests. It was a lot of fun, and worked well both as a mystery and as character development for the leads, but then it knows what it is doing, because it shows you as it does it.

Thank you to Kelly Mullen, Random House UK and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I loved This Is Not A Game from beginning to end. I loved the relationship and banter between Mimi and Addie. The mystery throughout the book was brilliantly paced with plenty of twists and turns right to the end. The worldbuilding was really well thought out and described and there was plenty of interesting moments with Mimi and Addie - a granddaughter and grandmother sleuthing duo. I really hope there ends up being a series of books with these two - very Elsbeth (the tv series) like.

This was such a fun fast paced mystery. This was filled with mystery blackmail murder and intrigue and I like a good locked room story with amateur sleuths so i knew i was going to love this. I liked the dynamic of a grandmother granddaughter duo and seeing them work together to solve the mystery and the issues they were facing in their lives was fun. Mimi was such a bold great character and watching Addie realise she could do great things on her own was heartwarming. I highly recommend.

This was exactly what it promised to be; cosy and mysterious. It’s not a genre I usually go for but the synopsis really pulled me in. While a few parts fell a bit flat, I still think it was a strong debut. I’d definitely be interested in checking out whatever the author writes next.

★★½ ROUNDED UP ⬆️⭐️

Mimi has been blackmailed into attending a posh party on an island, in a manor house with other blackmailed attendees. She takes her granddaughter Addie as her plus one, to make sure she has time to tell Addie all about why she's been blackmailed before the host of the party has a chance to spill the beans. Alas, there isn't only a snow storm that cuts the power and ensures that nobody can leave the manor, but the host also turns up dead. What a happy coincidence that Addie and Mimi both love puzzles and detective novels and shows. They start investigating the locked room mystery and it shouldn't be too hard for them to find the culprit.

I was intrigued at first and then bored. I wasn't invested in the two main characters. I found them rather annoying and their relationship wasn't fully fleshed out, it felt somehow immature. Then the investigation dragged on and on as it was (deliberately?) going in circles.

I skimmed the last 30% of the story to find out whether my guess at whodunnit was right.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

Yet another re-run on the 'murder in the country house' theme - this time the dinner party guests are trapped by a bad storm and electric drawbridge. They have been invited by someone who has been blackmailing them, but then the host is murdered and there is a plethora of suspects.

Mimi and her grand daughter Addie, who have been having their own issues, are present to sift through the clues and try to find the murderer before s/he strikes again.

Its all very contrived, with some definite errors in procedure and some unlikely clues and suspects. It is quite entertaining, and Mimi and Addie were interesting characters, I just didn't care for the setting and implausible reasons why no-one could get out nor for how the characters handled being blackmailed. The other characters were quite stereotypical, and I found it all rather hard to believe.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK and Cornerstone for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set on the island of Mackinac, Mimi is sent an invite to an auction held by the wealthy Jane. However, attached to the invitation is a threat: bid on and buy one of the items, or her secret will be revealed.

In desperation, she invites her granddaughter Addie to accompany her to the party. Addie, in the middle of a lawsuit to prove her authorship of a video game, Murderscape, arrives and accompanies her. However, when they are snowed in and find that their host is dead, they find themselves in a situation similar to that of Murderscape. They must investigate and catch the killer, while they both learn about each other and themselves along the way.

This is a nice cosy story that's a nice twist on the usual whodunnit stories that you'd get from Agatha Christie. A lot of focus is on getting to know the characters and their back stories, which is great and adds depth to the mystery. However, I found it did detract slightly from the reveal, which was a bit rushed. I think it's one of those novels where things would become clearer with a second reading, which is what makes for a good mystery novel. I would recommend if you're a fan of Agatha Christie type novels.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC for review.

This Is Not A Game by Kelly Mullen

I was so excited for this when I read the description, but it ended up being just your average murder mystery and there is not, unfortunately, much that sets it apart from any other book in this genre. Also, I am sorry to say, I just didn’t find this the most enjoyable read.

This is your classic, cosy locked-room type murder mystery. I enjoyed the setting of the idyllic Mackinac island and how this contrasted nicely with the gruesome murder which later takes place there. The setting was definitely well constructed. Jane’s house was explored in thorough detail by the two main characters, and it was really brought to life in the writing, so you could really picture the lavish, expensive home full of hidden passageways and secrets waiting behind every corner. There was a real sense of atmospheric tension throughout and the author does deserve credit for the careful, clever way she sets the scene.

The plot was fun and, for a murder mystery, not too complicated so it was easy to read. The whole book had a very lighthearted tone to it so it is definitely not your gruesome, heart-pounding type mystery book. I found the pacing a bit off at times, and felt after a while that the repetition of the “interviews” with the suspects became tiresome and drawn out. Furthermore, it came across at times that the author was trying too hard to explain things to us; the story felt contrived and the plot felt forced rather than a natural flow of events. Certainly it didn’t help that the author employed a lot of “tell” techniques to give readers information rather than letting us work things out ourselves which was frustrating as a reader. I did enjoy the way we got to follow the two at-home sleuths and almost solve the mystery alongside them, it felt like we were actually inside Addie’s game Murderscape. The addition of the murder-mystery game element was fun, and I liked that this was a new twist on the “mystery writer solves crime” trope, which has become a bit overused lately, in my opinion. However, the fact the video game references kept being brought up in almost every scene was a bit annoying after a while, as it was not really relevant to the story other than to show where Addie got her mystery solving techniques from. It absolutely should have been included to make the main plot, and the sub-plot regarding Brian and Addie, make sense, but it did not need to be so repetitive or forced upon the readers. In general, I just didn’t find the plot overly gripping or suspenseful so it was a relatively average reading experience for me. The ending was okay, but the scene where Addie encounters the killer felt rushed and the “big reveal” scene at the end with all the characters was sort of just an information dump (information we pretty much already knew just being repeated) that left it feeling anticlimatic.

The characters were the real saving grace for me with this book, especially when it came to Mimi. I didn’t really warm to Addie much throughout the book, perhaps mainly because I found her only personally really to revolve around Brian and Murderscape. Yet, I did appreciate the character development that was explored from beginning to end; her growing into herself, gaining confidence, trusting her own instincts and becoming less dependent on her a-hole ex-boyfriend (which was really annoying me at the start as she was just so naive and obsessed over this guy who clearly manipulated and used her, but I appreciate that was probably the author’s intention there as it did help show her development over the course of the book). I did like as well the development between Mimi and Addie and how their relationship blossoms through the shared experience of solving the crime together and found this a heartwarming sub-plot that ran throughout. Mimi was who I really loved. I found most of the things she said to be hilarious and her droplets of sarcasm and snarky comments throughout did lighten the scenes that I was otherwise finding tedious to get through. Her having a snow-mobile named Joan Rivers was brilliant, as with the potted plant Big Phyllis, and I loved that there was this almost hidden layer of comedy with her bag that seemed to be bottomless and full of random items that just kept miraculously coming in handy. She was what carried this book for me. The other characters, or suspects, were well crafted and did all seem distinct from one another, which is hard to do with that amount of background characters. Yet, I found it a bit unrealistic that these two relative strangers (Addie and Mimi) were able to draw so much information out of this set of characters who they knew very little, if at all. I know if I was stuck in a house with a potential murderer I wouldn’t be sharing my life story with two random people and would be locking myself in my room hiding until the police arrived, but maybe that’s just me. It just felt forced that our two main characters managed to get all these clues together and it felt like they (and we) were being fed the information too easily rather than much real work having to be done for them to solve it.

Overall I rated this a 3 out of 5 stars, so very average unfortunately. The writing felt unfinished; something about it just didn’t seem coherent, the plot and the solving of the mystery felt forced and it was in general just awkward to read, at times. I would be very interested in playing the Murderscape Game, but less so in reading more from this author at this time. It’s a real shame as this book has real potential, it just fell short in the actual delivery. Thank you to Netgalley and Kelly Mullen for the ARC.

A very ironic title as everything about the book is a game that Mimi and her puzzle loving, murder mystery game creating granddaughter Addie set about solving.

Okay, so I am a big fan of this trope, trapped locale – in this case, the traditional isolated house. This novel took on a modern version of the murder mystery and set everything up rather nicely so we as readers could play along with Mimi and Addie. The setup gave off Agatha Christie vibes, and there are frequent references to one of the writers’ well-known creations, Poirot.

The ameteur sleuth duo went about solving the crime in a traditional and methodical way. It’s always fun to explore a big house in this kind of novel, and it didn’t disappoint. I warmed up to Addie more than Mimi and found her actions towards her husband, reading this from the perspective of a disabled reader, problematic.

The clues were given subtlety, and the cast of suspects all appeared to have the same motivatation, none of them really stood out more than others. At times, I had to remind myself who some of them were.

I guess that was kind of the point. Unlike some modern crime novels, the book really made the reader work those ‘little grey cells’ to solve the case. I partly guessed, ‘whodunit’, and when I looked back, the clues were there, but oh so subtle. A few red-herrings, but for me, I wasn’t particularly swayed in any direction.

I would have liked to get into the psychology of the suspects a little more, too – like in Christie’s And Then There Were None. This would have added a more chilling aspect to the book and built up a little more suspense. Overall, a clever mystery that gets you thinking. 3.5 stars.

Grandmother/Granddaughter duo, Mimi and Addie, are a force to be reckoned with in this locked room whodunnit!

This is a fantastic debut novel from Mullen. It is atmospheric and throws you right into the thick of it alongside a host of wickedly funny and some just plain wicked characters. The wit and banter between Mimi and Addie had me laughing out loud until the very end.

Highly recommend. Compelling, cosy crime at it's best!

A mysterious locked-room debut, with a lot of thrills and a wonderful grandmother and granddaughter relationship.

Widow Mimi lives on idyllic Mackinac Island where cars are not allowed and a Gibson with three onions at the witching hour is compulsory. Her granddaughter, Addie, is getting over the heartbreak of her fiancé, Brian, dumping her and cutting her out of the deal for the brilliantly successful video game, Murderscape, they invented together.

Mimi discovers she's being blackmailed over a dark secret in her past and is lured to a party at a neighbours mansion. Addie comes as back-up, though in the dark about the parties real purpose. Before the party can truly begin, the first body is found and Addie and Mimi must solve the crime before one of them is next.

A fun and twisty mystery with a unique focus on mystery games and the classic points of the genre.

This is an enjoyable locked room murder mystery with a duo of feisty protagonists.
Mimi and her granddaughter, Addie are invited to a party by a local celebrity. It takes place in the middle of a snowstorm, the drawbridge to the house is pulled up so there’s no escape and the host is dead.
This is more of a cosy crime caper than I usually enjoy but Mimi and Addie are great detectives. Addie is the inventor of a murder game and Addie has a fabulous tote bag with any number of very useful things in it (a woman after my own heart). The other guests are a diverse bunch of slightly odd people, which makes this a fun read.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.