Book Review: Puzzle House by Duncan Ralston
Title: Puzzle House
Author: Duncan Ralston
Release date: September 15, 2023
This meme, made from the viral video where the football player gave an interview and said that line, sums up this book perfectly for me.
A large part of it was my neglect at exploring more, going further, as well as simply ‘believing’ what Duncan had shared. Duncan and I message fairly regularly, and at one point he’d shared the synopsis and cover for this book. By all indications, I was under the assumption this was a singular release and it was a straightforward novel about a group of strangers in a ‘Saw’-type house, where they had to solve their way to survival.
For the most part, that is true, until about the half way point, when we learn way more about the ‘truth’ to who is behind the mystery within and we get a lot of occult/ancient deity involvement. And that, honestly, is where my reading brain started to hold back from the book.
What I liked: I should state first, though – thanks to Wicked House Publishing, Netgalley and the author for sending me a digital ARC of this one.
The novel begins just as I mentioned – we get some back story on an inmate and the world’s biggest female movie star, Joy, who are summoned to Joy’s ex-husbands home. Alexei has died and he’s decided to leave his staggering fortune to those who come. A group of six strangers, but with only Joy who knew Alexei before. Alexei made his fortune through creating complex puzzles and in order to receive their share of his fortune, they must solve the puzzles. Of course, this being a horror novel, we learn that they’ll need to not only solve the puzzles but that they’ll have to actually survive the puzzles as well.
Duncan does a solid job of setting up this premise, but also having us root for the two main characters, Joy and our prisoner. They play well off each other and as the book moves along, it was great to see them have a solid, platonic relationship without any hint of romance or potentially hooking up.
I really enjoyed each new puzzle room – up to a point, which I’ll discuss in a moment – and how they worked collaboratively together to solve it, even as each one becomes more extreme and more squirm inducing.
The first half of this novel had me hooked, but then it went in a very different direction, one I wished was a completely different book.
What I didn’t like: Briefly, before I get into the bread and butter of some stuff, I did find the extra characters, just that – extra characters. No connection, one dimensional and there simply to die in each room. But, the truth is, in a book like that, you need those characters. So, I didn’t mind that they weren’t as well defined or fleshed out.
I think for me, and minor spoilers here – so enter at your own risk – is I went in completely invested in a singular novel about people struggling to solve life-or-death escape rooms, and this was so much more. That so much more is a solid thing, a good thing in most cases (looking at you Ghostland trilogy), but I wasn’t invested in that when I started. I found the Book of Magic to feel out of place and the Infiniti Enterprises aspect should’ve been featured in a completely different book.
I went along for the ride, wanting to see who would survive and what would be left of them, but I was a bit frustrated when it went very ‘raising the dead’ and ‘the world you left isn’t the world you’ll return to.’ I was also expecting a solid, THE END, not a jarring finish with the dawning understanding that there would be another book.
Why you should buy this: Now, it may sound like I didn’t like this book, but honestly, I did. I liked each avenue separately, and I am invested now, wanting to see what tricks Alexei and Trent have in store for our survivor and what this strange new world has become. Saying that, I still do lament the fact that I didn’t get a straightforward Puzzle House story.
So, I’m splitting the difference. The first half, for me was a solid 5/5. The latter half a good 3/5.
Overall, this one was a 4/5 and a reminder that I shouldn’t always go in blind to books, as this reading brain will sometimes get far too stuck in its ways to loosen up and go with the flow!
