The story would be great for middle-schoolers! The pace is fast, yet not too much. It addresses the importance of friendship and I loved how the author included the amazing world that is escape games! The characters are endearing and we truly feel for them and wish them the best!

This was an enjoyable, middle-grade book. I think it would be ideal for 5th-8th graders. The pacing was good, the dialogue and friendships felt authentic, and the premise was fun!

Sarah, Hannah, and West are three best friends who love escape rooms. They come to the ultimate escape room - an abandoned 1950s funhouse hoping to find the treasure that was left behind when the house was never opened. This promise of a treasure is appealing to Sarah, who is desperate to help her family who face financial hardship and a house foreclosure. Sarah's friends are bound and determined to help their friend find this treasure, and so the games begin.

This book has great messages about friendships, facing adversity, teamwork, and trusting others. I loved seeing these themes play out against the backdrop of an exciting funhouse as they try to escape. Each room is set up with challenges or puzzles that must be solved to move on. I enjoyed reading about each room.

The pacing in the novel kept me turning pages, and I think it will be a real treat for those children who love escape rooms.. Be on the lookout for this book when it is published in April of 2024.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Young readers will be enchanted by these intrepid tweens who will find out if they have problem solving skills to discover a long forgotten mystery and escape with their lives.

I could not put this book down. I finished it in one sitting. It kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat. A fun story of friendship and escape rooms.

What a fun, quick read! A cute story about three smart and adventurous friends, they call themselves the Delta's since there's three of them - they love math, riddles, and escape rooms.
When Sarah's family falls on hard times and they are in need of money or a miracle, the Delta's decide to go explore an abandoned fun house in the next town. Urban legend tells of three triples who built this fun house like an escape room, and the person(s) who figured it out would win a treasure... Sarah wants that treasure to save her family. So the three friends set off to explore the fun house and find the treasure.
The bulk of the story takes place in the fun house, so you get to enjoy the adventure along with the kids.
The ending is just right. It's fun, and a nice escape. I really enjoyed it. A cute story!

Every once in a while I come across a book with a concept that's so cool, I end up kicking myself wishing I'd thought to write it. This is one of those books. A trio of friends with a knack for beating escape rooms. An abandoned, decades-old house / escape room that's never been beaten and with a rumored treasure at the end. It's got some serious Lemoncello meets Goonies vibes and I loved every page!

I received a copy from Netgalley. This is my first story by Lindsay Currie. It was well written. Escape rooms are popular, yet challenging. This escape house was extremely well designed. I kept thinking about how to rest a room for the next group. That is my practical side showing. I had to let that go and adjust my thinking to match the kids. Great ending! I highly recommend for school and public libraries. Fourth - eighth graders would enjoy it. The cover is outstanding!

Sarah and her two best friends Hannah and West love solving escape rooms together. Their individual talents combine in the best possible way, and their collaborative skills are unmatched. As much as Sarah enjoys escape rooms, however, she also uses them as a way to escape the difficulties in her life. Her dad is too sick to work, and her mom is not always able to pick up the slack. So, when a fabled treasure inside a decades-old escape room catches the trio’s attention, they know it might be the only chance to bring Sarah’s family back from the edge.

This fun middle grade novel blends some very real challenges of adolescence with the problem-solving component found in escape rooms. Most of the narrative takes place in an elaborate and abandoned sequence of escape rooms, and the three friends must work together to solve clues and advance from one segment to the next. Along the way, tensions run high, but the companions always find a moment to smooth over their differences in order to move forward as the friends they know themselves to be. The dynamics among the three protagonists feel real, and every interaction demonstrates to readers what positive and authentic relationships can be like.

While the book is enjoyable overall, it lacks some of the depth one hopes to find in longer novels. However, readers who enjoy puzzles and games will find the presentation to be particularly intriguing because nearly the entire story is an escape room. Additionally, the brevity of the chapters and the focus on action and dialogue make the narrative move quickly while being accessible to a range of middle grade readers. Lovingly crafted, this book will pull on readers’ heartstrings while simultaneously increasing their anxiety as the trio is faced with one challenge after another inside a space that does not guarantee their safety. This is a unique addition to library collections for middle grade readers with an interest in stories that champion collaborative problem solving.

Lindsay Currie has done it again!
The Mystery of Locked Rooms is a fantastic middle grade novel. I really enjoyed the idea of the escape rooms and how Currie crafted the tale of the mystery house. The threesome not only build up their friendship, but each character has an "a ha" moment about themselves as well. I think readers are going to love this tale of mystery and friendship.

This has been one of my favorite Lindsay Currie books to date. I was so intrigued by the funhouse with it's puzzles and mysterious pathways. I thought the friendship between the Deltas was great for younger readers who are figuring out how to be a good friend and will see themselves in these characters.

I especially liked that the friends had to make mistakes before they were successful and they showed fortitude and bravery in figuring out the puzzles.

Overall, this book seemed like a departure from Lindsay Currie's more scary stories, but the depth of the mystery and the friendships was just as exciting. I will recommend this to all my patrons who love escape rooms!

The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie is the perfect middle grade book for anyone who loves escape rooms and puzzles. When Sarah, West and Hannah go looking for treasure in an old abandoned Fun House they find more than they bargained for. The dynamics between the friends and their hope to save Sarah's foreclosed house make for a very interesting read.

I am always looking for engaging middle grade read alouds. This one checks so many boxes for me! Excellent read for anyone looking for a mystery, a little bit of spooky, and a good story of friendship. If you love breakout boxes, escape rooms, or haunted houses, this is the book for you!

Sarah Green and her best friends West and Hannah (aka the Deltas) are experts at escape rooms and have developed a reputation for this. Sarah's family is having financial difficulties and losing their house due to her dad's illness and is having to move out of state. Hannah tells Sarah about the local legend of three triplets who created the ultimate funhouse, but abandoned ever since their death, and the rumored treasure hidden somewhere in the house. The Deltas decide to sneak in this ultimate escape room and win the prize so Sarah's family doesn't have to move.
What I liked: The story moved quickly, and the adventure in the funhouse began almost immediately with lots of twists and turns, adventure, and riddles. Even with the short exposition, you get to know the characters, and the house is extremely well-described. This will be an easy sell to readers, and I will probably by multiple copies.

Hand to readers who like Willie Wonka, The Inheritance Games, and Mr. Lemoncello's Library.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Lindsay Currie is a proven queen of scream with the genre of spooky middle grade fiction conquered. Although this escape room mystery is very different from Currie's other works, it is a must buy for middle school teachers looking to enhance their mystery book collections. First amazing book I've read in 2024, and I couldn't love it more.

The Mystery of Locked Rooms is a delightful romp of a book. Adventures, riddles and hijinks. Great for fans of escape room books and clue-solving. A must-read for all juvenile libraries.

In The Mystery of the Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie, three kids: Sarah, Hannah, and West (also known as the Deltas) decide to make their way through an old funhouse that promises treasure at the end in order to save Sarah’s home from foreclosure. The three of them have previously solved escape rooms and are well equipped for the task of beating the funhouse. So they think!

Thats the story of The Mystery of the Locked Rooms. This intriguing concept was the reason I decided to request this novel from Netgalley. I thought I was well equipped to take on this book. Yes it had been awhile since I read a book that was more intended for kids than adults like me, but the concept was interesting and I couldn't resist checking it out. I wasn't as prepared as I thought though.

It took me months to read this book. It wasn't the fault of the book at all. It was well written and the characters and situation were interesting. I just couldn't get myself into it. And I kept getting distracted by other books. I started reading this book in November and it took me till January to finally finish it.

I'm usually a fantasy and sci-fi reader. Occasionally mystery too but I don't wander out of the fantasy or sci-fi very often. The Mystery of the Locked Rooms has no fantasy, no sci-fi, and while it does have mystery, its more focused on puzzles. So like the author says in the acknowledgements, she was trying something different with this book. So was I!

Once I finally sat down and decided I was going to read this book and focus on it, wow, I really got into it. I won't spoil what happens in the book but the puzzles the characters solve and the way they do that is well done. Once I unlocked my way into this book, I couldn't put it down. I had to know what happened. I was well rewarded with a thrilling conclusion and an excellent ending. I'm so glad I read this book.

There is a lesson here and its this: sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone when it comes to what you read. You need to try something new. It won't always be easy. You may find yourself wandering away from the new and going to the warm familiar books. Make sure you go back to that new thing though. You just know what you'll find.

The Mystery of the Locked Rooms is definitely for a younger audience, but that doesn't mean that it'll only appeal to them. If you like puzzles and escape rooms and movies like The Goonies, then you should check out The Mystery of the Locked Rooms too. This book is hard to escape.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Kids and Netgalley for providing a digital copy of this book. The Mystery of the Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie will be out on April 2nd, 2024.

There are no words for how amazing this book is.
In it, we meet three best friends Hannah, Sarah, and West. They’re on a mission to help one of their own so they won’t have to move away and break up their friendship also known as The Deltas.
This book is for lovers of escape rooms, mystery, and thrillers. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I will be reading this again soon and recommending it to all my friends!

The Delta's, a team of 3 friends, are a great escape room team. Sarah, Hannah and West each contribute a particular talent to the team. Each of them have a quirky social challenge as well, which makes them all so happy to have each other. Sarah's father has developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and has been unable to work or do much lately and their house is under threat of foreclosure. Sarah is desperate to keep her newfound circle of friends, so when they learn of an abandoned escape room "funhouse" with a treasure for whoever completes it, they decide to investigate. The trio sneak out of town with the intent to race through the escape room puzzles and find the treasure. I've long been a fan of Lindsay Currie's scary books, so I was excited to check out this new subject for middle grade readers and was not disappointed. Same great character development and friendship dynamics - just with a riveting Escape room adventure story instead of ghostly hauntings. Totally recommend.

Loved this new mystery by Lindsay Currie! The Mystery of Locked Rooms is an adventure of riddles, friendship, and of course, discovering who you are and what's ultimately important. Students will be in line for this one, so make sure you have multiple copies on hand.

This would be a great book for a late elementary school student. It has lots of adventure that students will enjoy.