In Lisa Unger's latest thriller, daredevil Maverick Dillan invites people to play the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on remote Falcao Island, the event quickly becomes a chilling test of survival. Combining a storm and the games turns the situation into something much worse than the social media stunt it was supposed to be.

Enter Adele, a single mother who enters the game to make life better for her children unknowingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. She and the others must survive the game and the storm to get back to their lives. It was a really great story with many twists and turns.

Overall, I'd say this book is a 3.5 ⭐️read for me. It has its flaws, like in my opinion the ending chapter dragged on way more than necessary.. it definitely kept me on my toes & had little shocking moments throughout the entirety of the book!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Park Row for this arc. I received this book in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts are entirely my own.

Lisa Unger has done it again. This is the type of book that you can binge in one setting if you wanted to. This book kept me invested the entire time. Adele Parks is a mom of two and a counselor at her kids school after her husband disappeared five years ago for embezzlement. Adele gets the opportunity to participate in Extereme’s Hide and Seek competition. Adele is an influencer who remade herself getting into fitness and doing competitions that has made her pretty famous. A girl named Chloe disappeared from Extreme’s last event the year prior and since then Extreme has come under quite a bit of scrutiny. Adele and the other contestants are in the middle of a different game with much larger stakes. Sadly lives are lost during the game and secrets are revealed. Some questions are never fully revealed so it lets you draw your own conclusions. There are quite a few surprises and double crosses that are revealed in such a good way. The passing is great and I throughly enjoyed this book and will be buying a physical copy once this book comes out.

A Deadly Game of Hide-and-Seek. The characters are well-developed, each with their own motivations and secrets. Adele's determination to provide for her child drives her actions, while the enigmatic Maverick Dillan, the competition's host, adds an air of mystery and danger. The other contestants are a diverse group, each with their own unique qualities, adding depth and complexity to the story.
Unger's writing is atmospheric and evocative, painting vivid pictures of the storm-tossed island and the psychological turmoil experienced by the contestants. The tension builds steadily throughout the novel, culminating in a heart-pounding finale that will leave readers breathless.
Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten is a thrilling and suspenseful read that will keep you turning the pages long into the night. If you enjoy psychological thrillers with a twist, this is a must-read.

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger is a gripping, high-stakes scavenger hunt like no other! The protagonist embarks on a quest to win a life-changing prize, but the risks are just as monumental, and even Mother Nature has her say in the outcome. But it’s not the competitors she should fear most—it’s the game organizers lurking behind the scenes. True to form, Unger weaves a thrilling narrative packed with twists, keeping you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Expertly written, it’s everything I’ve come to love and expect from this master storyteller.

3 1/2 stars to be exact . I really enjoyed this book. It started off very strong, I was super intrigued, however then I got bored and found myself not wanting to pick it up. I like the concept, it was fun but not very thrilling. The ending fell flat for me. Everything I expected to happen did, there were no surprises or thrills but I enjoyed the modern day vibes, thank you NetGalley for this advance readers copy. It was a crazy, wild, fun ride this book. If it was just a little more face paced, and something more twisty in the end and I felt some things needed a bit more explanation but I connected w the characters and I felt like it had some really Good life lessons to learn from!!!

I'd like to say that the title, Close Your Eyes and Count to 10, and the cover of Lisa Unger's latest novel wasn't the main reason for me to read it, but that would simply be untrue.

Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be.

Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.

Lisa Unger has a celebrated career in writing psychological thrillers that can chill us to the bone. Her latest release, Close Your Eyes and Count to 10, took me on a suspenseful journey filled set in an unsettling atmosphere. Despite my admiration for Unger's storytelling, this particular novel left me with mixed feelings.

The premise itself behind Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 is captivating—a charismatic daredevil named Maverick Dillan orchestrates a seemingly thrilling game of hide-and-seek on a remote island. However, the big distraction for me was the multitude of perspectives presented throughout the novel. While stories with multiple viewpoints can enrich an overall narrative by offering diverse insights into unfolding events, here it felt overwhelming. Characters seemed to blend together in my head as I was unable to really give each person their own voice. This distracted me from the overall story at hand.

The slow burn pacing also posed a small challenge for me during segments. There were moments where tension should have escalated instead stretched thin due largely due varied tempo shifts between chapters. This is not something that completely turned me off from the book, but made it more difficult to fall in love with the novel.

Overall, Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger is a good book with an excellent premise. The drawbacks of multitude of perspectives and pacing didn't take away completely from enjoying the book. Unger continues to craft tales with an unsettling atmosphere, unique plot line and thrilling twists, this one just didn't hit as hard as others in the past—The New Couple in 5B was one of my favorites of 2024. A big bonus for this book was the cover, damn that thing is beautiful.

I am a huge Lisa Unger fan so I was excited to pick up this one. Adele is a single mother with two children, seventeen-year-old Violet and fifteen-year-old Blake. Ex-husband Miller has been on the run for years after being convicted of fraud and embezzlement.

Blake is being bullied at school but won't tell as he's fearful of reprisals., but he's a big fan of online games. So when Adele decides to compete in Extreme Hide and Seek on a remote island for a prize of 1 million dollars, he's scared for her but proud that she's willing to do what it takes to get them out of debt.

However, when she arrives on this island, something seems "off" but she's determined to follow through even though it will be live-streamed.

The premise was very promising but the other characters once they got to the island seemed a bit hard to distinguish from each other. They seemed to blur together and didn't have much to tell them apart.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 was a little bit of a slow burn for me however I enjoyed it very much. Lisa Unger can do know wrong to me ! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was well-written in style, but had almost no substance. Which was weird. It felt like it was a book with a lot going on where nothing actually happened. There was a lot of set-up with different storylines and characters, and there was an attempt at building suspense by doing timeline flashes (which ended up being completely ineffective because they built up tension for events that never really transpired into anything). But in the end, almost everything that "happened" occurred off the page and the reader was finding out about it after the fact. It led to a really unsatisfying reading experience. The book feels like a strong premise but maybe too much got edited out?

I was excited to read this book based off it being an ultimate hide and seek game but I feel that storyline feel flat compared to all the other storylines going on. This story was very choppy and didn’t flow easily and often times I found myself a bit confused.

Happy Friday sweet peas! Are slow burn thrillers your thing? They are hit or miss for me and I struggled with this one for the first half of the book.

This one takes us to a secluded island, it involves a reality TV game show surrounding a high stakes hide and seek game in a decrepit falling down hotel.

The premise sounds amazing right? And I really wanted to love this book, I was so excited to get the NetGalley approval. But alas, I toiled with the first half of this book, there were POVs coming out in spades while at the same time nothing was happening. My mind was drifting and I was having to reread pages.

But, the second half of the book grabbed my attention much more and I enjoyed it so much better.

So here’s the gist of what’s going on: We’ve got Adele, a single mother, whose husband, Miller has flew the cuckoo’s nest after embezzling his companies money and is on the lamb. It’s been 5 years and Adele lives from paycheck to paycheck and signs up for a reality TV gameshow. The reality TV show is very questionable with someone disappearing from the last game never to be found. She leaves for the secluded island and meets up with the other contestants and the team behind the Hide and Seek show. Everyone has an agenda, none of them are trustworthy and the game never really takes place. Throw in a storm and some local folks trying to spook them all off of their island and you’ve got yourself an utter calamity while nothing was actually happening.

Even though this book wasn’t what I was hoping it to be, the pacing and character focus was wishy washy, it did redeem itself somewhat in the last quarter. And I really like how the author got her inspiration for this book – that is always intriguing to me.

3.25 ⭐️

Thank you @netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

LOVED this book. So much going on but so well woven together. A great read and keeps you guessing until the end!

This book was really interesting and kept me turning the pages. It was an enjoyable read and I was surprised some of the time. At times it felt a little predictable. Overall, I'd recommend it to friends!

Ok listen I would have died in this book lol. I am not miss wilderness girl and i already know. Meanwhile these ordinary folks kicked butt out there trying to survive this crazy ass game. I loved this

If you're into slow burn thrillers, this novel is for you. I liked the premise of the book but found it overall dull with a very predictable ending.

“Close Your Eyes and Count to 10” is a thriller/mystery by one of the queens of this genre - Lisa Unger. I’ve read a number of Ms. Unger’s books - and like her others - this has a fantastic plot. An extreme adventurer, Maverick, sets up an ultimate “hide and seek” at a deserted hotel on an island. Four people are selected - all just happen to be either influencer (of course) or famous. The winner gets $1M US - which for at least two of the people could help change their lives for the better. Right before the games start, complications arise - from issues with the contestants, issues with the local people, issues with the weather - basically a plot with things under the right conditions coming to an exciting head. Although I find Ms. Unger’s plots incredible - and quite often binge read her books (staying up way too late) - while this book held my attention, I felt there were a number of issues. It was long with a lot of backstory information. I felt that Adele’s backstory could have just been a single-Mom raising two kids - instead we got her POV (and backstory), POVs from her kids (which didn’t add much), and POVs from people connected to her (which also didn’t add much). Around the 50% mark, a new POV is added - which would have been fine, if that POV had continued interwoven into the book, but it wasn’t. I think the overall idea for this book was good - but between a number of characters, a bit of too many things happening at the same time, a bit of confusing action, and an open ended ending - for me this wasn’t her strongest book. However, I did stay up way too late reading it and it did hold my attention. If you like Ms. Unger’s books, this might not be your favorite, but it was a pretty good ride of a read.

this is an interesting fast moving book. It has a lot of storylines that will appeal to my students, gaming, Extreme sports, a missing woman, a mysterious island, lots of people with lots of secrets. It also looks at what one would do for followers and how being watched constantly affect us. Throw in a missing husband, who conned people and his counterpoint, the man running Extreme and family and relationship issues. The author wove a lot of stories together and kept it interesting 4.5 rounded up

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Life is full of games in many aspects -its truly how you play with others. This gave us family problems and how we are “unaware” of whats going on under our noses. It gave ups and downs of social media and influencers and how its not all the wonderful life as its made up to be. Then once they are all together is when the true games begin. Who is going to expose what and where and how far will one go keep it not exposed while we are rooting for the one who is doing this thing for family. It’s a must read because I just gotta find out what is happening. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC #LisaUnger #CloseYourEyesandCountToTen #NetGalley

This was another wild and twisted novel by the author.

Extreme Games is hosting another challenge, led by Maverick Dillan. Maverick and his team are offering one million dollars to the winner of the challenge, held on Falcao Island. Cue Adele, a single mother supporting her children, in desperate need of that one million dollars.

But as the contest begins, it is clear the islanders are not happy with their presence, nor is the run down destination for the challenge. Lies, deception and twists are all part of this treacherous game and there is only one person each contestant can trust - themselves.

So many twists and turns and I really enjoyed Adele's backstory. I really enjoyed reading each of the characters and the part they had to play, even the unlikeable ones and the author created such an interesting and hostile environment on the island, it was hard to put down.