loved trying to solve the puzzles of this book, it was a fun way to engage in children to read. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time reading this.

This seems like a great idea- a print version of an escape room. However, this needs a little refining. The system for solving the puzzles can be confusing, and with right and wrong answers printed next to each other, it's too easy to cheat. I could go straight to the possible answers list and find the right answer without looking at the puzzle, and advance to the next section. I'm not sure what exactly can be done to improve this; it might be too complicated an idea for a book. The concept doesn't have much replay value, either- one time through and you'd know all the answers, unlike a Choose Your Own Adventure book where the reader can have multiple stories by changing what they choose to do next. It's an interesting idea, but it needs more work. This is a get-at-the-library book rather than a buy it book.

#EscapeBook #NetGalley

I love mysteries and escape games so Madam Mortell's Haunted House was a lot of fun. It's great primary school horror so I'm sure kids will really enjoy it. The riddles bring just the right challenge and the many colourful illustrations help to fully immerse in the story.
However, I had some issues with the setup of the book. There was a lot of page turning back and forth and since there are no page numbers but only chapters it always takes some time to find the right number of your answer. This and the fact that several solutions were written on the same page was leading me to get spoiled many times, making it easy to cheat. I guess the whole experience is much better with a physical copy instead of the ebook.
It's the perfect book for children who like taking part in some spooky mysteries but I would recommend having a notebook nearby.

Really interesting concept and fun descriptions and puzzles. It would increase the page count, but it might be worth taking a cue from the old choose your own adventure books nd have every option on a different page. It takes a lot away from the story if you can see right away what the other options are.

A fun & enjoyable book for kids, where they solve puzzles and make different choices to advance the story, much like a choose your own path type of book.
These kind of books are great for picky readers, as they become truly immersed in the story, because they get to choose what to do next.
The puzzles are challenging and engaging. They’re sure to give kids hours of entertainment.
Re-reading and re playing the different choices to get different endings also increases the fun factor for kids.
Highly recommended for kids to boost their brain activity, as well as provide hours of entertainment.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC.

The story begins when you come across a big old house (spoiler alert: it’s Haunted), and are invited in by Madam Mortell to join the monster ballroom party. If you can make it there and survive the night.
Underway you have to solve puzzles that will determine how your story unfolds, and you will come across many different beings, who will either aid you or hinder you.

Madam Mortell’s Haunted House is the kind of interactive escape book, that I would have been obsessed with as a child. And I still find it enjoyable as an adult.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this available..

This was so fun! Readers of all ages can enjoy this great puzzle book. It's very interactive and the illustrations were bright and kid friendly and the puzzles were well thought out. It's certainly a way to keep everyone busy during quarantine.

It would be much more enjoyable and easy to do with a physical copy rather than a ebook!

This was really interesting.

Growing up I was always interested in those books that had you solving mysteries, and this did not disappoint. I think kids will really love this as I felt that even as an adult that this was a fun read.

This is actually a fun concept for a book. I loved how interactive and fun this book is. It just felt burdensome to me, as a reader of ebooks, since it's hard for me to search for the different locations/pages in the book. Other than that, I think this is fun and enjoyable to do if you have the physical copy.

I’ve always loved puzzles. I’m not sure how many puzzle games I currently have on my phone, and every time I head out on vacation, I pack a couple of puzzle books. I like problem solving, I guess. I went to an escape room with my family a few years ago and we had a blast. I’m happy to report that we did escape. 🎉

When I got the opportunity to review Escape Book: Madam Mortell’s Haunted House by Arthur Tenor, I was very excited. Escape rooms? Monsters? Puzzles? This is right up my alley!

I felt so much nostalgia while reading this. Another thing I loved as a child was choose your own adventure books! Though in order to actually complete the story, readers actually have to take all the paths, Escape Book reads like a CYOA at times. For instance, readers are given a choice of which room to explore first at the beginning of the book, and whether to continue deeper into the haunted mansion, or return to the Entryway.

I also love the bright, colorful illustrations throughout the book. The monsters are campy, and not too scary. I enjoyed picking out all the little details in the scenes.

My nephew is a lover of problem solving like me, and I know he would get a kick out of this book. But I also know how easy it would be for him to cheat with the way the book is set up. I tried my hardest to follow the rules exactly and not skim to find the right answer, but it was difficult with the correct and incorrect solutions being on the same page and close together.

If you have a kiddo who likes to solve puzzles and likes monsters, this might be a fun book for them! Escape Book: Madam Mortell’s Haunted House will be released April 27th, 2021.

I received an advanced copy of this book for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

After a bit of a dud, this series of very young Choose Your Own Adventure-styled books proved much more successful last time round. So it's a little unfortunate to say that this is going back the wrong way. Our narrator is Madam Mortell, who has guided us into her haunted house – but doesn't seem to want to make it easy for us to leave. She puts us in the entry-way, and gives us the map we see on the page in front of us, and says we can go to any room we want except the library. Well, for one thing it's impossible to work out from the top-down illustration which room actually is the library – it seems to be one with a wide-open doorway in the wall, leading into it from the entry-way, so why they put that into the design when we can't use it I don't know. In fact there is only one thing for us to do, which is to follow Madam's suggestions in the text, and start with the office – or to go somewhere not even on the map. Ho and indeed hum.

And then there's the ballroom, a place we're supposed to go to at our peril – and yet when I wanted to go there, I was at a stage of the book where I got no prompt to do so. So the whole concept of the book, acting as before as if it had a game map that only unlocks section by section, is really muddled. The branches of the route through make a path so awkward that at one point I was asked if I had all six passwords – when I was sure there was seven, which there is. Note as before that this is not like the usual CYOA, where we flick from one end of the book to the other, and chase no end of illogically-numbered paths through the paragraphs, here everything is decimal. So we enter the room whose text starts, say, at 30, then meet the puzzle at 32, and then find that next on the page are the options 321, 322, 323 etc for us to pick from. The right solution guides us not to 179, or 6, but 33. I hope you get the gist.

The gist of the positives here is that this handles primary school horror quite well, even if it really sticks to Hallowe'en and cartoon stereotypes. As a story it's not offensively bad, although the end is a bit muddled. The gist of the negatives is that this plays so confusingly, offering an open map that isn't, then just assuming we know to follow the path we need en route to the climax. Be prepared for offering parental help with this one, then – one more reason why I can't exactly recommend it.