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.

What a great read from Lindsay Currie! The Mystery of Locked Rooms had vibes along the lines of Mr. Lemoncello, Willy Wonka, and the Ambrose Deception, but with a perfectly unique and heartwarming storyline about the importance of friendship and perseverance. Perfect for readers who are looking for a bit of mystery and spooky vibes without anything too scary! Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC!

I love it when my favorite authors surprise me by writing outside their genre, and Lindsay Currie certainly did with The Mystery of Locked Rooms. Taking her trademark MG voice and perspective, she brings a breath of fresh air to mysteries for kids.

Sarah, West and Hannah make for the perfect sleuthing trio. They jump off the page and compliment each other as they solve riddles. The personal angle of Sarah’s impending home foreclosure adds depth and meaning to the story.

I so enjoyed the tight mystery plot, the carefully placed clues, and action that kept me turning the pages. Kids will love this segway into the mystery genre by Currie, who is already at the top of her game in scary MG. I can’t wait to read more mysteries by the author. Highly recommended for reluctant readers and kids who are ready to read outside the scary MG box.

VERDICT:
Purchase for your middle-grade library.!

BACKSTORY:
You'll sometimes see people distinguish between books that are plot-driven and books that are character-driven. The Mystery of Locked Rooms does it both.

The plot is driven by a piercing real-world pain: Sarah, one of the three main protagonists, may have to move. Her house received a foreclosure notice after her father was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and her mother hasn't been able to keep up with the bills.

Sarah is a member of the Deltas, a group of three kids (get it? three sides to a triangle, triangle = Delta?): Sarah, West, and Hannah. They love escape rooms and are one of the few winners of a local one in town.

After Sarah tells West and Hannah about the potential move, Hannah tells them about a local funhouse with a supposed treasure, all put together by triplets by the name of Stein. (Yes, the number three is significant across the book).

WIth twelve-year-old convoluted assumptions ("treasure is the only way Sarah can stay so we have to find it!") and confidence ("we can break into the funhouse ourselves even though no one else has ever found the treasure and other people have gotten arrested for trying!"), the jig is off and the book plunges into the bulk of the story: how they make it through each room, and how their friendship and understanding of each other grows with each new challenge.

Indeed, this is both an adventure story (think, Mr. Lemoncello books), a mystery (Blue Balliett without the heavy research and historical accuracy), and a story of team friendship (A View from Saturday comes to mind, although this is a wildly different format). With each room comes a new personal challenge that one of the Deltas has to overcome—for example, embarrassment about a way one of them feels like they "failed," or shyness about a skill they have. The clock is also ticking down. The character-driven obstacles plus the clock help keep the book moving, but the feeling that the stakes are shifting starts to slow down. I found at some point that the number of rooms and puzzles they had to solve started feeling skimmable.

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The one dissonant note I might say, other than perhaps a room too many, would be the ending. I love a good "and they live happily ever after" ending, but felt in this case there was a bit too much tidying of loose ends. Sarah's father miraculously goes into remission AND they find the deed to the house AND they get the money to stay AND the house gets reopened under the name The Delta Game? It felt a bit too "of course,"—the father going into remission being what put it over the edge of too perfect for me.

That said! Overall a fun book of adventure and friendship and a great addition to a middle-grade library.

Sarah Greene and her best friends Hannah and West love puzzles and escape rooms. The three even manage to beat the buzzer on the second hardest escape room at Escape City, Lasers and Lava, because they have an unbeatable combination of organization, puzzle skills, and team work. Sarah's aunt has given her a membership to Escape City, and it's a highlight in her otherwise difficult life. Her father has chronic fatigue syndrome and has been so ill that he can't work. Her mother has to work a couple of jobs, and her older brother Sean is worried that he won't be able to go to college. When Sarah sees a foreclosure notice in the mail, she knows what she needs to do. She, Hannah, and West are enthralled by the abandoned fun house from the 1950s that is near their town of Park Glen. The longstanding rumor is that the triplets who constructed it, Hans, Stefan, and Karl Stein, left keys to a treasure in it. The brothers were orphaned at age 8, separated, and built the house when they reunited as adults, only to have one of them die young. Some people have tried to get in, but most are caught by the police first, including some recent attempts. The house has been in the news for years; back in 1962, parents were saying that the place was a hazard. Still, given the skills of the "Deltas" as they call themselves, and Sarah's urgent need to find a way for her family to get enough money to not have to move away and live with grandparents, the trio attempts to solve the mystery. They manage to arrange a day when they can get to the site and not have their parents come looking for them so that they have more time to unravel the clues. They are lucky right away, thanks to their keen observation, and manage to get inside the house without forcing any doors. Sarah is worried that this isn't a good idea, which isn't unwarranted given that West breaks through the floor and the kids have no phone signal in the building; and no one knows where they are if things go wrong. The Deltas escape room background serves them well as they figure out clues, manipulate locks, search for hidden doors, and manage to understand the decades old riddles that the Stein brothers posed. It's stressful and dangerous; the kids end up in tight spaces with no ways to get out, experience some significant sheer drops, and sustain some minor injuries. West and Hannah have their own challenges; West has an extraordinary memory that he tries to hide even from Sarah and Hannh, since people at school treat him differently when they find out about it, and Hannah has "failed out" of dance. Despite all of the challenges, the three friends manage to make it through the house right before their parents and law enforcement show up at the fun house, but don't find any treasure. Is this the end of their attempt, or are there still a few clues that they missed?
Strengths: This was a particularly well crafted book; I can't imagine the notes necessary to lay out all of the clues and rooms in the house! The emotional state of the three students was interspersed through the adventure perfectly, so this never dragged or got too confusing with all of the fun house action. Pacing is tough, and this book is a master class in balancing elements so that the story is engaging. This also gets off to a great start, after a thorough but brief explanation of the Deltas' interest in puzzles, the Stein's creation of the funhouse, and Sarah's problems at home. I spent a lot of time after reading this thinking about what the house must look like and trying to map things out. This will appeal to middle grade readers because of the absence of parents (who are struggling but still alive!), the intricate mystery, and, of course, the promise of a treasure that will help kids save the day! I sort of want a prequel about the Stein brothers!
Weaknesses: I'm not an anxious person, and certainly let my own personal children play in the creek and bike around town on their own. But a 70 year old fun house with secret passage ways sounds like all kinds of dangerous, so this made me very uncomfortable. Younger readers will love this, and the chances of my students reading this and then trying to get into abandoned buildings is pretty low! I am also the last person you would ever want to be in an escape room with! It does not sound fun!
What I really think: This had all of the engaging clues and puzzles of Bertman's Book Scavenger (2015), the fun house elements of Guterson's Winterhouse (2018), and the enticing but hard to balance mix of adventure and personal growth found in Anderson's Ms. Bixby's Last Day.

If Encyclopedia Brown was more than a one-man operation (I know he had Sally, but she was the muscle behind the operation.) or Nancy Drew delved more into social dynamics with her friends, you would have something like The Mystery of Locked Rooms. Starring a friend group - the Deltas - who conquer escape rooms as an unstoppable trio, this middle grade story mixes just the right balance of plot and character to keep you on the edge of your seat and your heart in your throat.

What I liked most about this book was the perfect level of well-intentioned irresponsibility of the twelve year-old antagonists; they have just enough maturity to acknowledge that what they're doing may be dangerous and just enough misplaced confidence to think it'll all work out. The characters each have their own motivation for wanting to succeed at completing the main "escape room" in the story, but the story wisely pours most of its attention into our narrator, Sarah, whose father became ill two years before the start of the novel and whose inability to consistently work threatens the family's ability to keep their home. Her internal sense of responsibility for supporting the family despite being a child - a common theme in Currie's work - pulls at the heartstrings and has you rooting even harder for a win.

Beyond the puzzles and codes in the story is the mystery of the triplets who designed and eventually abandoned the funhouse that has "escape room" vibes that the story is centered on. While I would have loved to have more detail and dive more into this background, it might have made for a clunkier read and ultimately the focus being on the main trio was the right call.

This novel is so visually rich that some readers who may not visualize as they read may struggle with keeping track of the puzzles and the layouts of the rooms, but this may also be an opportunity for educators to use this book to help develop that specific comprehension skill. Overall, it's a great read that's tough to put down and easy to love.

ARC received from NetGalley

The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsey Currie follows the Deltas - West, Hannah & Sarah - as they try to solve the ultimate escape room located in the middle of nowhere.

Sarah’s father has gone from the strongest one in the family, to bedridden due to an illness. Meanwhile, her mom is trying to hold down the fort by working multiple jobs to support the family of four. After a foreclosure notice is posted on Sarah’s front door, the severity of their financial situation becomes real. Sarah reaches out to her friends West and Hannah for support and in a brainstorming session the idea of using their escape room skills to find The Triplet Treasure appears to be the best solution to help Sarah and her family.

Using their superpowers - West with his recollection ability is the riddle master, Hannah with her poise and strength from years of ballet can provide the balance needed to get through physical challenges and Sarah uses her knowledge of probabilities to lead the decision making for the trio - the Deltas make the trek to the funhouse built by the Stein triplets in the late 1950s.

Will the power of three help the trio find the lost treasure or will they lose their sense of direction as they work through the physical and mental challenges left by three brothers so long ago?

Full of fun rhyming clues, puzzles and traps, middle grade students are going to love this adventure-mystery.

I loved this engaging break out adventure. The friends in this story are incredibly supportive and understanding about each other, their insecurities, and their flaws while still helping each other to grow and to stretch beyond their comfort zones. It was fun to follow Sarah, West, and Hannah as they faced the different challenges in the puzzling funhouse. This is a great story for readers who love puzzles, adventure, friendship stories, and stories about overcoming challenges both emotional and physical. I will definitely be purchasing and recommending this entertaining adventure to my middle school readers!

Do you love escape rooms?

If so, make sure you pick up The Mystery of Locked Rooms immediately. This middle grade novel gives major The Ambrose Deception and Mr. Lemoncello's Library vibes.

Sarah, West, and Hannah are the best of friends. They love to solve mysteries and puzzles in their town's escape rooms. Sarah might have to move and break up their friend group after she sees an eviction notice on her front door. Since her father has not been able to work in recent years, the eviction notice means her family might have to move out of town. Sarah, nor her besties, want that to happen.

Hannah tells the group about the Stein siblings who created a funhouse back in the day. The Steins supposedly hid a treasure for people to find in the house they built. To their knowledge, no one ever survived the house and found the treasure. Sarah sees this as the only way out for her and her family. The threesome researches the Steins and their house. They decide to give it a go to ensure their friend doesn't have to leave them. Once they get in the Stein funhouse, they realize their decision might not have been the best idea. Will they make it out? Is there even a treasure?

The friendship between the three is beautiful. and realistic. They pick on each other, but love and care for each other deeply. The three capitalize on their strengths throughout the novel...just like true friends do. Sometimes your friends know more about you and your talents than you yourself realize.

I would definitely recommend this book for all middle school libraries and most elementary school libraries. I also think some ninth graders would enjoy the book as well.

Thanks to NetGalley for the copy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this middle grade mystery.

I really enjoyed this and can think of a number of students who will love this one. Along the lines of the Mr. Lemoncello and Mysterious Benedict Society books, this is a great puzzle quest for those who like those adventures!

The Mystery of Locked Rooms is an incredibly fun book with so much heart. I loved every page and I know MG readers will too. Three friends who love escape rooms decide to challenge themselves with the ultimate escape room: visiting an abandoned fun house/escape house in hopes of finding the long-lost prize. Sarah is determined to win, despite it being very hard and very risky, because her family may lose their house and the prize could help save it. What will happen when the three 12-year-olds break in and try to escape? Readers will be dying to know!
I love how readers who might not love spooky stories will have a Lindsay Currie story to enjoy! Readers will not be disappointed!

Thanks to netgalley for providing an ARC for an honest review.

Fun read! If you like escape rooms and choose your own adventure stories, this book is for you. Some heavy themes are mentioned (chronic illness, money troubles, bullying), but they do not pull too much focus.