This is a story that should be read twice.
First, it's a treasure hunt to win the deed to a mansion, but the MC has been promised information that will clear up the mystery of her mother's death many years before. The mystery is revealed through the steps of the hunt.
Second, Alexandra Benedict has set a treasure hunt within the story. She's disguised the mind game well. Solve it after you've finished the book.

A great Christmas, snuggle up by the fire with a cup of tea red. A who-dun-it like an Agatha Christie.

Extremely predictable since page 1. Only one likeable character - Lily . Also really poor writing style I found. I went in thinking this would be a fun Christmas thriller with fun puzzles in it, but instead it felt like a game of clue where we were in a mansion hunting for keys that lead to nothing while all the characters were just annoying. 🥲 Wasn’t a fan at all!

“The Christmas Murder Game” by Alexandra Benedict is a festive and cleverly crafted mystery that delivers both chills and holiday cheer. Set in an atmospheric English manor, the story revolves around a high-stakes scavenger hunt where secrets, riddles, and murder abound.

Benedict excels at creating a tense, locked-room mystery vibe, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. The riddles and puzzles woven into the narrative were a standout feature, adding an interactive layer that made the book hard to put down. The protagonist, Lily, is relatable and determined, and her journey of uncovering family secrets adds emotional depth.

While the middle felt slightly repetitive at times, the clever ending more than made up for it. Overall, this is a perfect holiday read for fans of classic whodunits with a modern twist.

And neither of them says it, but she knows they’re both thinking it: they’re trapped in Endgame House with a murderer. 😬😬😬😬

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
🔪 murdery games 🤪
🔪 family dramatics
🔪 LGBT rep
🔪 lots of characters
🔪 “And Then There Were None” vibes

From the opening memo in this book I really thought it was going to be a game for the reader to play trying to find the clues… I got a little bit too caught up in that until I realized I wasn’t actually looking for clues. I picked this for my bookclub because I thought it was going to be so fun for us to read and talk about the clues together. That was a little disappointing for sure. Even the end when the clues were revealed I didn’t really understand what we were supposed to be doing?
I love when authors include extra things like maps and family trees 🩷🩷 it really shows that the author put in extra work to make the reader understand and keep track of what is happening.
There were a lot of characters in this one which can definitely be a love/hate for me if the characters are hard to keep track of. This one was pretty easy to keep track of who’s who though so this was very enjoyable to me.
This was definitely a slowwwwwwwww burn until the middle when the first murder happened.
I really liked the characters Lily and Mrs. Castle. I hated Sara and wished she would just shut up 🤣🤪
I actually guessed the killer this time!!!! That never happens 🤪🤪 I am a true crime fanatic and the character said something early on that just didn’t sit right with me, so I felt like they might end up being the bad guy/girl 🤪
I really enjoyed this book; it’s a lot like the style of book I love to read. A group who-dun-it mystery 💕 with a little bit of family secrets and almost a “And Then There Were None” Agatha Christie vibe 🩷 I will definitely be reading more by this author in the future!

I really enjoyed this book, it was even better than what I was expecting. It was fast really fast paced, which is amazing. This is a perfect read to anyone who enjoys thrillers and mysteries.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

This book started out slowly and kind of dragged along for the entire time. I loved the premise but thought that the execution was a little lackluster.

The thing that drew me in with this one was that it said it was for fans of Clue. I can’t remember the last time I read a murder mystery and not just a thriller. So what better than a Christmas themed one. I will admit this one started kind of slow for me. But it really picked up once the whole family got together.

Literally nothing like a little family discord and rivalry to get you into the holiday season haha. The family always play a game each year, but this one is different. It’s a game within a game. I loved the way this was done because the aunt left little clues in poetry form and they had to decipher where to find the key based on the riddle.

This one is a fairly quick and cozy read I think. It was real fun to watch all the pieces fall into place and to try and try and guess who the killer was. I really felt like I was playing a game of Clue sometimes haha. It’s fully of suspicious moments and suspicious family members. We have the clear rivalries and the more hidden ones.

I think the range of characters was phenomenal and the overall plot was really well done. I will admit that at points it kind of lagged but by the last like five chapters it felt like things were moving super fast. It really is a great choice if you want mystery and Christmas together.

Lily Armitage isn't surprised her grandmother finally passes away, but she isn't sure how she feels about returning to the family estate, Endgame House and playing one last Christmas Game with her cousins for the deed to the house. Lily's mother died there, so puzzles abound, both in the past and in the present day of the game. Of course, they are snowed in almost immediately and the game takes dark turns as people struggle to learn who to trust.

I enjoyed this so much . I will say I pretty much predicted the whole thing but still enjoyed every minute

I'm not usually one to enjoy Christmas books (most of them feel a little cloying or emotionally manipulative) so I was really excited to get my hands on a Christmas murder mystery. This was fun and twisty and exactly what I needed to mix up a string of Christmas romances. 10/10 recommend for anyone looking to mix up their holiday reading.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I was able to find the audio version through my local library.
Well I was looking forward to reading this book. The cover is well designed and really drew me in. The title also sounded very interesting! I don't think I have read a murder mystery that is set during Christmas? But I thought it sounded very Agatha Christie. I feel like this book should have taken place at least no later then the 1920's. That would have been perfect. Take out the stupid woke crap that is in it. It is amazing that the only two people that are happy in a marriage are the lesbian couple. Oh don't forget the main character is bisexual so there you go on that.
The author just repeated herself all the time! We are reminded that Tom is a counselor. Also we are also reminded every single day the book takes place sometimes multiple times that day that there is a dead body and how they should not be doing the game and finding the keys, or eating, or laughing, or drinking etc. We get pointless back flashes of the main character when she was a child. None of them pay off and this book should have been cut in half, It went on way too long. All the characters are just so bland and boring. The main female character is just ugh. Her cousin is so mean that no one in real life would ever put up with her talking like that to everyone. Everything that comes out of her mouth is disgusting and in real life someone would have punched her in the face... and she would have deserved it.
The writing all in all I think it could have been a good story but the author was just blah. Like I said if the story would have taken place in 1920's it would have been way more interesting. It was a hard pass for me. I DNF around 80%. I just could not take it anymore. The story went no where and honestly I didn't care what happened to any of the characters, let alone the main female character.

The Christmas Murder Game is a holiday family murder fest. An estranged and embattled group of cousins play a game of riddles stipulated in their aunt's will. The prize? The family manor, which is now a hotel. The cost? Maybe everything.

Our protagonist is Lily. She found her mother dead in the manor's extensive maze as a child and has no wish to return to the place she once called home. But the memories that haunt her have nothing on the letter her aunt left behind. Her mom's death was a murder, and if she plays the game, all will be revealed. Lily has no intention of playing for the house's sake, but for the knowledge of what happened to her mom? She's in. Unfortunately, she has a secret that could put her in danger as cousins start dropping like flies. Snowed in by an epic blizzard and left without technology per the rules of the game, there's no one to call for help.

The cleverest part of the book is a game within a game-- searching for anagrams from the 12 days of Christmas on each of the twelve days in the game. Each creative turn of phrase made me suspicious until I checked that the letters didn't match up. I had this constant second task running in the back of my mind trying to find each anagram. So busy with my own little puzzle, I wasn't at all bothered to leave Lily to the more complicated sonnet clues on her daily agenda. I experienced intense satisfaction at solving them only matched by my stress level when it had been a while since I spotted one. I did reach a level of fatigue where after solving the first eight, I decided to just focus on the story for the last four days and let the puzzles go. The multitasking felt like it was taking away from my investment in the plot, even though I was following it just fine.

A cool part of the book is that Lily's bi, and her hints of a romantic subplot are sapphic. It comes up a few times, including a moment of biphobia from the most outwardly cruel of the cousins that's shut down by the others. A cousin Rachel is there with her wife, Holly, so Lily isn't alone in a sea of straight people, thank goodness.

As a mystery, I found the story a bit disappointing. I had a pretty good handle on the murders early on despite my level of anagram distraction. Then you reach a point where so few are left alive that it becomes frustrating when Lily can't piece it together despite her famed cleverness. The mystery of Lily's mother was more of an unknown to me, but the eventual resolution seemed anticlimactic compared to the weight it had on Lily and the game.

This is a murder mystery with some fun elements for the reader, but the execution of the story wasn't what I hoped for. Thanks to Poisoned Pen for my copy to read and review!

The Christmas Murder Game is the perfect deviation from those sappy Hallmark holiday movies and books. Alexandra Benedict's novel is filled with puzzles, devious characters, and mystery wrapped in a pretty Christmas bow. I found the plot to keep the readers engaged and guessing the entire time.

When Lily Armitage returns to her family's compound over the holidays she knows that the annual Christmas Game will take place as always, only this year the prize at the end is not the presents but instead the deed to the house. Now Lily and her cousins are in a 12 day challenge where more seems to be at stake than just a keys to the front door.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for the opportunity to read this novel.

I was excited about the different genre Christmas story. I love a good holiday cheerful read but also love thriller/mystery’s so I was pumped when I reviewed this ARC from NG.

However this book feel so flat for me. The characters were super one dimensional and none of them had any great character development outside of that. The writing was awful I really dislike a lot of repetition in books and can look past it sometimes if the story line holds but my gosh after the 10th time I think we get it.

I felt like it was pretty predictable and just didn’t deliver what I had hoped it would when I read the book description.

A closed door mystery, this one is set in an heirloom hotel where the cousins gather for a game which will determine who will win the property. One by one, each of them dies, leaving the others scared and worried. Would someone go to the extent of killing their own family for the property?

It was an interesting read, but it dragged in a few places. The premise, the puzzles and the entire game itself was quite interesting to read.Att some point, it became a bit predictable but the build up to that point was certainly worth reading. If you like closed door mysteries, then this might be an enjoyable read for you.

I love whodunnits and this was good. I enjoyed every minute and finished it quickly. The element of Christmas time elevated it.

2.5 stars

A perfect book for puzzlers.

Personally, I didn’t get along very well with this mystery, which is a real shame because the premise—an isolated/snowed-in house, a murderer among us picking us off one by one, esoteric clues left behind by an eccentric old woman that purport to lead to fortune—is all right up my alley. However, the prose style just didn’t work for me. The characters felt more like dolls maneuvered through the plot than like real people, and I found their dialogue weirdly unreal.

I wanted to like our heroine, who is a talented historical seamstress with a desire to veer into couture fashion, but I felt like this cool part of her personality got left by the wayside. She parades around in very cool-sounding outfits, but the author doesn’t do much of interest with this (fascinating) vocation.

The author clearly wanted the readers to get a chance at cracking some additional puzzles outside of the story. She therefore instructs the readers that she has hidden anagrams of the gifts from the “12 Days of Christmas” song within the book for us to find. This is all well and good, and fun, but as I read chapter after chapter I got the impression that the author’s delight in word games took precedent over her delight in the novel, and more work was put into those word games than in making a believable story or compelling characters. The culprit is also painfully obvious from nearly the beginning, and so the ‘big reveal’ felt long overdue and also unearned—and then the climax just got silly.

This is a book with a (refreshingly) overtly queer (bisexual) heroine, which becomes plot- and character-relevant, so if you’re looking for a fun, quirky, unabashedly queer holiday mystery, this is definitely the book for you. I just didn’t connect with the plot or the characters.

I really really wanted to love this book. I love mysteries and I love Christmas so it seemed to be a match made in heaven, plus the cover art is really cool. The book wasn’t bad, but I have read better. Though I am glad that I read it, it kept me guessing