Based on the description/blurb, I was expecting a totally different book.

I really adore the cover and was so intrigued, but this fell a bit flat for me.

It felt slow with some things being harped on that never really became relevant (the devil's book).

I think the author is talented, but this just didn't come together for me. I would give this author another shot, but would not necessarily recommend this particular book.

Thank you for letting me be an ARC reader. I hope this book finds the readers who will love and enjoy it most. 3.5 stars.

I didn't really enjoy this book. It was terribly slow with very little happening beyond Becca unraveling. There was a good effort made to give the characters depth, but Becca wound up being a sad sack and both Scratch and Finn were rather flat. There was a decent plot, but it seemed lost in the domestic complaints and half explained memories. I found myself skipping pages of the book just to try to get through it, and it took me three days before I'd finally forced myself to finish. Overall, I was mostly just bored by the story. I feel that there were many missed opportunities to create tension and drama around the unhealthy relationships these three shared.

2 stars

This is a dnf for me. I tried my hardest. It is touted as domestic noir thriller, gothic. However it is soo boring. I was expecting some suspense and good mystery. Half way through this book, it feels like nothing has happened.

Sooo I'm confused! The premise of the book makes it sound like a horro/ thrillwr/ eerie ghost story and it's literally none of those things. If you want tension or haunted house type stories then skip this completely.

Everything in the premise is a bit irrelevant and misleading. It's actually about 3 childhood friends who refine and all have agendas and secrets from the past. That's it. The devil's book is completely irrelevant, the house isn't relevant, the old man is irrelevant.

It's maybe a domestic noir at most but because I was expecting a haunting or some kind if devil coming calling when this book ended then I spent most of tbe book waiting for the creepy events to start happening and they never did.

There are a few twists, the writing is good the characters are fine. There were some shocking reveals and then a bit if an abrupt ending but overall it was quite a decent story. Had I not spent most of the time waiting and waiting for something to happen that never did

Maybe recatogorise and adjust the premise so people who want to actually read a domestic noir read it, rather than people wanting a scary story which this book will never be able to deliver

Game is the story of three friends since childhood - Becca, Scratch and Finn. When they were kids they used to play pranks on Old Man Byrde, a reclusive man who used to sit in his house scribbling in a book, which Scratch always said was the Devil's book of wishes, and once it was full up the Devil would come for the owner's soul. Now in their late 30's, Becca and Scratch have been married for 23 years, and the trio reunite for Finn's bachelor weekend before he gets married. Only he rents the old (but now renovated) Byrde place and surprises Becca and Scratch with the knowledge that he now possesses the infamous book - and it's almost full.
The description of the novel makes it sound like it will be intense horror/thriller. While the writing itself is reasonably solid, the plot doesn't play out at all like the promises that it makes. I was over halfway through the book when I realized that virtually nothing happened. There was some excrutiatingly slow-burn build up, but at best it was a bit of psychological horror, as Becca has emotional problems and takes lots of pills. But the little snippets of possibly scary things happening are literally nothing but bumps in the night. While the longer they stay there the more of their past comes back to Becca and dark secrets about what really happened to Old Man Byrde and to the trio as kids, but not really in any scary or thrilling way. Ultimately, this really was just a drama about the three friends and the secrets they all have. I would probably have given this three stars were it not for the over-the-top silly ending where truths straight out of left field were revealed. I can only say this book was OK, but did not live up to expectations.