I loved this one!! Right until the last two chapters. I adore a locker room mystery and this one delivered! High stakes, alternating storylines, real world issues. But the end fell flat, just a bit too tidy. Still, it helped the hours pass at work, so it’s a pick for me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #netgalley

An example of the supreme art of war – how to subdue the enemy without fighting

Vincent de Vries is the Senior Vice President of Stanhope and Sons. It is a company strategy to set up a crack, multidisciplinary teams that are small and nimble and help fulfil the fantasy of every investment banker – to retire at forty. Vincent's team is made up of Sam, whose wife spends his money faster than he can earn it; Jules, a lawyer who has a drug and alcohol addiction; Sylvie, who was a catwalk model as a teenager and Lucy, a computer nerd with Goth tendencies and an obvious inability to connect socially. Sara Hall is hired as an analyst for the team. She has two degrees, including an MBA, with a major in corporate finance and investment banking. She has yet to learn that you become addicted to the salary, that success becomes your heroin but that it is killing you softly, not to mention the brutal hours at work, the backroom machinations and the constant stress that is a continuous undercurrent of your life.

The team has recently failed to secure two deals in a row and are called for an escape room challenge, the results of which would be used for internal consultations about internal staff planning. They will be locked in a room and have to solve many clues to get out. They work together, usually spend more time together than apart, they know each other better than they know themselves, know each other’s secrets and lies …… and they despise each other.

This was one of those books that you cannot put down because you need to know what is going to happen next. I would highly recommend it, the twist of the ending is something that I did not foresee, and it blew me away.

Saphira

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I had put off reading this ARC because I thought it was a horror, and I really don't like gory stuff, but it's definitely more of a mystery/thriller. This is a fun, quick ready. My only criticism is because she uses a first-person narrator, the ending is literally her telling you what happened rather than showing.

Oh. My. God. This book was incredible! I have been gushing about it relentlessly with friends since having finished it.

I loved everything about it and now I want to read everything that Megan has written. I thought the pacing and suspense was done to perfection!

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I enjoyed this one, but didn’t love. It was a good book to pick up and tune out the world.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

I was sent this book months ago and even got to meet Megan briefly at Book Expo. I really wished I had read The Escape Room before I met her because I would have LOVED to ask her about some of these characters!

First thing to know is that this book is probably going to be one of those where you gotta just let things roll- it’s got a thriller-ish with a side plot worthy of a really great soap opera type show vibe and sure, there may be some times you’ll think “That can’t happen”- just go with it and enjoy it. Because it is good!

What I liked:

Hello, cover. I mean that one eye peeping out?! Give me more!

Lucy. Lucy was a character that I could really get behind. Plus, without Lucy- the story loses some intrigue.

The cut-throat world of finance. I couldn’t work in that kind of environment- but coupled with a thriller-ish story line- it was entertaining as hell.



Bottom line: Just go get this book. And if someone invites you to do an escape room, think twice.

This is hands down one of the best thrillers I’ve read so far this year. The story was well laid out & I loved the conflicting timelines. Excellent execution, excellent ending! If she writes more books as good a this one, I’ll be a die hard fan forever! Definitely see myself being nervous to step into an elevator for awhile!

When an escapist exercise turns into an emotional mystery, the thrill & suspense is inevitable. Setting up the throat-cut competition in a financial world and the consequential flaws due to lack of hostility can spark a needed dialogue in the midst of the this fiction. Narrated through split timelines, one from the perspective of a deceased character and one from the four corporate competitors in an elevator. Complexity of the individuals in this story is hard to miss but impressive when you find yourself not rooting for anyone yet completely engrossed in the story.

First, let me thank netgalley and the publishers for approving my request for an early release of this book. All reviews of my netgalley books can be found on goodreads and youtube. Please be sure to check out the links attached.

Total page turner; I ended up finishing it in just two (late) nights! I loved the premise of the book, and also seeing the team dynamics at Stanhope, which reminded me a bit of my own management consulting training… though obviously we weren’t QUITE as cutthroat :) While at first I wondered how this could realistically escalate to murder, that was eventually made clear, so the book didn’t seem quite as far-fetched as I initially thought from the first chapter. Highly recommend this as a fun thriller!

I did not care for this one, although I appreciate the opportunity to read it. The characters were universally unlikable. This doesn't automatically turn me off from a book; however, I found them to also be one dimensional, poorly written, and they behaved in unbelievable ways. I had a very hard time making it all the way through.

I recieved an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I loved this book and will recommend it often to lovers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels!

Sorry to say, I read this, loved it and then promptly forgot to go ahead and write the review. If you really want to read a page-turner, this is perfect.
Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are top players in the world of finance. They live well and show it.
The competitive quartet are invited to be a part of an escape room challenge. Little do they know that the escape room is the tiny elevator they’ve boarded in a high rise building. The elevator ascends, the lights go off (and stay off), and the doors will not open.
The four are trapped in the dark and forced to solve the clues to try and get out. It’s obvious from the clues that someone knows secrets about them that are going to come out.
Who has set this up and who is going to make it through the ordeal?
It was a one-sitting read.

Oh, dear. The premise of The Escape Room was catnip: Four high powered investment bankers in an elevator in an empty building that becomes an escape room ‘game’. This had all the potential to be a great thriller, but the writing was not there. Lots of stylistic tics that make me nuts: repetition in an adjective used to describe a character (feeling vulnerable, looked vulnerable, made him vulnerable—I get it, please stop), repetition with characters’ name in one conversation (“Jules, what do you think? Jules, did you say something? Are you angry, Jules?”), and last but not least excessive descriptions that don’t make sense (how can the color of a tie make your eyes burn with intensity?).

Still, I was curious, so ended up skimming the book and being disappointed at an ending that didn’t add up and felt silly.

The Escape Room is so interesting that I had to binge it in a day. It all starts as financial hotshots - Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam get stuck in an elevator to do what they think is some teambuilding. As the story develops, switching between past and present, the reader learns about who the people stuck in the elevator really are. It is clear not everyone is who they seem. The escape room may have more than just teambuilding intentions. Megan Godlin created a solid story. The financial and psychological games plus the character motivations keep you reading. You just want to know what the next clue is for the 4 to solve I wish that the ending allowed the readers to get to learn more about what happens next for the characters.

The concept of this book is really fun, especially with the rise of escape rooms becoming a common team building activity. I enjoyed the alternation between the escape room happening in real-time and the past events slowly building up to collide with present day.

Sometimes, it felt like the author had a hard time between creating character development and repeating character history. There were both parts that felt repetitive and that didn't feel fleshed out enough.

Overall, a really fun read that I finished in two sittings!

I really enjoyed this! Very suspenseful and it was different than a lot of the formulaic mysteries you read. The ending was a little fantastical but the book was such a good read I didn’t mind! I finished it in one afternoon because I couldn’t put it down!

Great read! One of the few books I have continued to think about, dates after finishing. The planning of the "escape room" was ingenious. Never underestimate whose out for revenge.

4.2 stars

This book would make a good screen adaptation!

It had a lot of 5-star potential.

I would have given it 5 stars if it had felt more a thriller than a corporate drama to me.

The intensity felt a little flat, especially at the end which was a little anticlimactic.

There was also a character that's in the spectrum that let me down compared to the other characters. It felt more like a list of Asperger syndrome's characteristics than a real person.

Other than that, this book was VERY entertaining! I couldn't put it down! I was totally immersed because I felt like I was experiencing all the ruthless, greedy, scheming of corporate america in person with real people!

The characters (with the one exception) and the intrigue were phenomenal!

I really enjoyed the story so I'll be reading more of this author!