Book Synopsis:
Eight contestants. One killer. Can you find the traitor?
Everything is a clue.
Bonnie arrives on a remote sea fort off the coast of England to take part in a mysterious reality TV show. Competing against seven strangers, she must solve a series of puzzles to win the prize money, but this is no game – and the consequences of failure are deadly.
No one leaves.
Under scrutiny from the watching public, the contestants quickly turn on one another. Who will sacrifice the most for wealth and fame? And why can’t Bonnie shake the creeping sense that they are not alone?
The only way out is to win.
When the first contestant is found dead, Bonnie begins to understand the dark truth at the heart of this twisted competition: there’s a killer inside the fort, and anyone could be next. If Bonnie wants to escape, she needs to win…
Are you ready to play?
My Review:
The Escape Room is a dark, gripping read that was surprisingly thought provoking.
I used to love reality shows in my younger days (I don’t get much time to watch any these days) so this book instantly appealed to me, especially it’s comparison to The Traitors TV show which I’ve been hearing a lot about. I was immediately drawn into the story and the dangerous situation the characters find themselves in. It quickly becomes apparent to the reader that not everything is as it seems from the isolated setting of an abandoned sea fort to the increasingly dangerous challenges the group are set. The sense of unpredictability helped increase the tension in the book making the book hard to put down as I wanted to see how everything would end up.
The book is told mainly from the point of view of Bonnie a she negotiates being a contestant on the show with flashbacks to the contestant interviews when they applied for the show and an podcast interview with Bonnie about her experiences on the show. I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters on the show as they all had flaws which made them very unlikable and I often found their attitudes toward each other weren’t very nice at all. The only slight exception to this was Bonnie who on one hand annoyed me as she seemed the most worried about how the viewers would be viewing her but on the other showed lots of courage in dangerous situations and seemed to actually care about her fellow contestants.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be recommending it to others. I thought the book was incredibly gripping and the tension in the book never really let off making it very hard to put the book down. There were lots of twists that took me by surprise and just seemed to keep coming. Just when I thought everything had been revealed there would be another twist that sent the story in a completely different direction. I found parts of the story quite thought provoking as it has definitely made me think more about reality shows not just how far they could go but how much audiences would be willing to accept before turning off. It also shines the light on social media and how harming it can be on other people. I’ve never been particularly interested in Escape Rooms and now, after reading this book, I’m definitely never trying one.
Huge thanks to Chloe Rose from Transworld for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. If you are looking for a gripping thriller with a difference then I highly recommend this book.
About The Author:
L.D.Smithson is a psychologist from Yorkshire who has published a series of Crime Thriller Novels under a different name. THE ESCAPE ROOM is her debut stand alone novel.
Over The Rainbow Blog 
Enjoyed reading this one too
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