I was so excited for this book. The description had me hooked....

I'm not sure what I just read. Flat characters. Boring dialog and filler. Unbelievable happenings. This book was one big convoluted mess. I wish I had one positive thing to say, but unfortunately I don't.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!

What a perfectly cozy Holiday thriller!

This follows Lilly, a quiet but kind designer that winds up getting wrapped up in family drama when her Aunt dies and her last letter requests Lilly to join a 12 days of Christmas game to win the family mansion.

Lilly's mother committed suicide in the maze behind this huge house when Lilly was very young. However, as the game begins and Lilly unravels anagrams in the clues, she realizes there is a lot more to learn about her mother and family... especially, when the other cousins begin to be murdered one by one.

This really gave me great fall and winter/holiday vibes. The perfect read to snuggle up with a blanket and some hot cocoa!

Out October 4, 2022!

Content warnings for violence, death, murder, some gore.

The Christmas Murder Game

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Family members solving riddles to see who inherits the family house?! What could go wrong!

Ok first of all, I loved that the author put additional games in the text for readers to look for. Anyone looking for a word puzzle will love it.

This one was a little slow when it started but once a few murders happened I got more into it. The twist wasn’t crazy surprising but still a satisfying ending.

If you’re looking for a Christmas setting this isn’t a romance, find this when it comes out in October! Thanks to @netgalley for this eARC.

This was a quick, fun read.
I loved the puzzles and clues for the reader to figure out.

I loved the premise and title of the book. It reminded me of Knives Out, so if you enjoyed that movie, you should enjoy this book.

Who wouldn't love a locked room thriller in the English Country side with family members pitted against each other?

The Christmas Murder Game was a fun read. The twists and turns... oh my! I love the concept of the author adding puzzles for the reader to solve (I'm not that smart); it really adds another layer to the story.

This was a one day read for me; I started and finished it after work because I couldn't put it down. Who needs supper when you're in the middle of a gripping locked room-style mystery set in an English country manor over the Christmas holiday? Not me!

It's one of those books where you wish you could slow down and enjoy it but you're so hooked and engrossed in the story that you can't help but fly through it!

After the matriarch of the family dies, Lily Armitage and her cousins return to the Endgame house to play one final game. The prize? The house itself and all it's contents. But doubts and distrust is around every corner and is the prize worth dying for?

This is not a cozy mystery. It is basically a locked room mystery where the only ones that could be guilty are locked on a property together, knowing if you leave you lose. They keep playing games for keys even when members of the family start dying.
I found the premise of this book interesting and liked the clues of the different games played. I did have a hard time connecting to Lily or her fellow family members.

4stars for goodreads
I received this book free from netgalley and am providing a fair and honest review

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict is a delightful murder mystery that would make the perfect holiday read! The story revolves around Lily, who is returning to her family estate for a game with high stakes. Her favorite puzzle-loving aunt, who has recently passed, has announced that all of the heirs will compete in a scavenger hunt. The prize: the family estate and inheritance. But what will Lily do when people start dying?

Here is an enchanting excerpt from Chapter 1:

"Snow is falling. Because of course it is. Nothing about this is going to be easy.
Lily presses her forehead against the cold window, her duvet wrapped around her. It’s four in the morning and she can’t sleep. Streetlights shower gold rings onto Catford High Street. Snowflakes dance down from the sky. Two blokes stumble along the middle of the road, arms around each other, shouting, “It’s Christmas!” A fox runs away from them, eyes glinting.
At one time, lying awake on Christmas Eve would have been down to excitement. But Lily doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. She hasn’t believed in anyone since Mum passed. And today she has to go back to the place where her mum died."

Overall, The Christmas Murder Game is a lovely murder mystery novel that will appeal to fans of Knives Out or Agatha Christie. One highlight of this book are the great clues and hints, including special clues that the author wrote specifically for the murder to solve. I did take off 1 star, because I wasn't smart enough to figure out any of the clues before the main characters did. Maybe I'm just bad at puzzles? Others might have more luck than I did. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of mysteries in general, I recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in October!

I really truly wanted to love this book. I love books about games and set with a Christmas backdrop? I couldn’t be more excited. But the writing style is not it. There is a metaphor/simile on almost every page and it really took me out of the story. I found myself rolling my eyes every time I would come across one because I could tell the author was trying to be clever and it just doesn’t work when you overuse it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen for the e-arc.

I really wanted to like this book, the idea/premise sounded super interesting; but it just fell very flat for me. None of the characters were fleshed out and the story was very predictable yet beyond complicated. Since most of the twists and surprises were revealed early on there was not anticipation for what was going to happen next as you read through the story. I did consider DNF'ing this book, but I pushed through and did complete it.

Overall this is a 2 star read for me, I think the premise was great, but the execution was severely lacking.

I do enjoy mysteries where the characters are forced to stay in one place. I did like Lily and rooted for her and was interested enough to continue to the end. I did figure out whodunnit.

I wanted to like this one so much! I love books about games and families but unfortunately this one did not work for me. It was a 2 star read for me. It was predictable but complicated all at the same time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This was a bit of an odd book for me. A mystery and family reunion nightmare together.
I think I expected more of a thriller from it but it wasn’t bad.

I was really excited to get this book from Netgalley and i was let down. The premise was interesting, one last Christmas game to get the answers to her mother’s murder, but the multiple metaphors per sentence never brought me fully into the book and I kept disengaging from the plot.

I'm really becoming a sucker for the variety of Christmas themed books this year, this is a definite second round purchase for most collections

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen for the e-arc.
Great premise but I didn't enjoy this book at all. I didn't like any of the many characters, and is there a worse character than Sara? A robot has more emotion. It was so awful, I admit I skipped through a lot of it to get to the end, which was very unsatisfying. At that point, I didn't even care who won the game.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Twelve clues.
Twelve keys.
Twelve days of Christmas.
But how many will die before the 12th night?

If you love The Inheritance Games, then you are going to also love this one! Lily returns home, to Endgame House, after her aunt dies to compete in one final Christmas games to figure out who is going to inherit the estate. However, Lily has no interest in the estate, she is only there to uncover the truth on her mother’s death years before.
*
This book is such a wild ride and I absolutely loved it. I love when authors are creative and can come up with games inside of a novel. She did such a wonderful job with the riddles and creating the puzzles for the characters to figure out. I also loved the variety of the characters in the novel. There were some that were likable and there were some that I wanted to punch in the face every time they opened their mouth. I feel like this is a great book that would be perfect for either spooky season or to cozy up with a mug of hot chocolate on a winter’s evening and it’s snowing outside.

This review will be posted to my Instagram blog (read_betweenthecovers) in the near future!

A cozy mystery, a dysfunctional family, an aging hotel with a maze and lots of secrets? Let's do this!

The Christmas Murder Game was a fun, who-done-it style mystery that was filled with riddles. After her aunt dies, Lily must return to her childhood home (which was also a hotel) and compete with her cousins in a game of puzzles to determine who will inherit the estate. Hijinks ensue, more murders happen, and the clock keeps ticking toward the final clue on the twelfth day of Christmas.

Things I enjoyed about this book-
This book is a word lovers dream. It is filled with anagrams and poems that are filled with clues.
The housekeeper Mrs. Castle is the grumpiest, sharpest lady and I loved her character.
The dual mystery of a decades old murder and new murders happening.
Reading this feels like curling up next to a fire with a mug of hot chocolate while it is snowing outside. It is a great cozy mystery for the holiday season!

Things I could have done without-
The current day mysteries seemed easy to guess early on. I was able to guess the murderer long before the reveal.
The past family dynamics were convoluted and didn't make much sense. The solving of the old murders wasn't a big shock or even a momentous moment, it was slow trickle with a result that ultimately didn't feel realistic.
The current family characters were a bit one note. I kept expecting the characters to show some other dimensions but they were pretty flat and stuck to their tropes.

Overall, none of the cons kept me from enjoying this book too much because it was still a really fun Christmas themed read. For me, it was a solid 3.5 stars.

↓ Similar Reads ↓
1. Roger Scarlett’s Cat’s Paw
2. Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party
3. Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious

The Christmas Murder Game involves a brutal family reunion. Cousins lie and scheme to give themselves an upper hand as they compete for the deed of Endgame House. Meanwhile, Lily wants to uncover the truth about her mother's supposed suicide decades before. And her deceased Aunt Liliana has promised her the answers can be found only if she plays the game.

I was quite intrigued by the premise of this novel. Estate settings involving murder and deceit are a favorite of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed the snowy atmosphere and sprawling Endgame House, and it was fun to watch the clues be analyzed and solved.

I had a difficult time pinning down this mystery's tone and subgenre. Certain elements were reminiscent of Golden Age detective fiction and then a comment about Netflix would remind me abruptly that we were in modern times. Benedict also includes thriller/horror aspects in her writing - the possibility that Tom might knock on the door just seconds too late to join the game or Isabelle fearing for Lily's life if she were pregnant and the other Cousins knew (thriller vibes), the warnings from Mrs. Castle about Endgame house wearing the "skins" of past families' traumas/ghosts (horror vibes) - which added great tension but left me feeling confused and unsure how much further we would dip into those genres.

Many of the characters are unlikable, and typically I don't care if none are unlikable. However, there were some I felt we were meant to like - such as Aunt Liliana - but her cruel comments toward her daughter, Sara, felt unjust even if Sara was a brat at times. While I liked and rooted for Lily, our story's heroine, her timidity
and desire to be a wallflower frustrated me, and its repeated mentioning started to ring false for me. This was especially so when things started to become quite serious with her finding the coat her mother had wore the day she died, stained with blood, or the fact someone intentionally locked her in the ice house. And neither event seemed to alarm her sufficiently. Instead of alerting the others of the ice house incident, or strategically keeping it quiet, Lily's friend Tom offers to say he was the one who was locked in to "protect" Lily from the spotlight when that is the last thing we should be worrying about.

In the end, I elected to DNF this book at 36%. While there were many aspects of this narrative that I didn't enjoy, I do believe that I would willingly try something by this author again because she is clearly very creative, if not always realistic.

Thank you so much to Poisoned Pen Press and #Netgalley for gifting me an ARC of The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict in exchange for this honest review!

This book is unlike anything I have read before. I love that the author has games within the book that add even more layers for the reader to work through. I was slightly mad at who the killer was but it made the story. It keeps you guessing the whole book and had a lot of crazy twists and turns.

The Christmas Murder Game is an enticing thriller with a festive twist! I gave this book rating of 4/5 stars. I was gripped by the story for the most part but, the ending fell a bit flat for me. There was such an enthralling build up to the explosion of the story. It was interesting and suspenseful, the perfect combo for a thriller. I was quite shocked when it came time for the reveal. I wish that there was more detail unraveling the story. It was a bit flat compared to the rest of the story.

Alexandra Benedict curated interesting characters, and all for different reasons. The backstory behind our main character Lily was very well developed and added much needed context to the story. Setting a murder mystery/thriller in a giant mansion over christmas time is a great combination that worked extremely well. I got Clue/Knives Out vibes which made the book more fun to read. I would totally recommend this book to anyone looking for a festive murder mystery!

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for this Advanced Reader's Copy. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.