How to Survive a Horror Story
A Novel
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3.8 • 8 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Seven authors enter the manor
Can they survive the story within?
When legendary horror author Mortimer Queen passes, a group of writers find themselves invited to his last will and testament reading expecting a piece of his massive fortune. Each have their own unique connection to the literary icon, some known, some soon to be discovered, and they've been waiting for their chance to step into the author’s shoes for some time.
Instead, they arrive at his grand manor and are invited to play a game. The rules are simple, solve the riddle and progress to the next room. If they don’t, the manor will take one of them for itself.
You see, the Queen estate was built on the bones of Mortimer’s family, and like any true horror story, the house is still very, very hungry.
With the clever, locked-room thrills of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone with the ghostly horror of The Fall of the House of Usher, How to Survive a Horror Story is a bright, biting, thrill-ride that begs us to contemplate how the best horror stories come to be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arnold refurbishes the popular premise of The House on Haunted Hill for her pleasantly old-fashioned debut horror thriller. Bestselling horror writer Mortimer Queen has died, and seven of his acquaintances—four men and three women, all of them fellow writers—have been summoned to his Vermont manor for the reading of his will. Too late they realize they've walked into a trap: the house is locked down shortly after their arrival, and they are forced, as a group, to solve a succession of riddles in order to escape. For each riddle not solved in an hour's time, the house (purportedly built on the graves of the author's ancestors) kills one of the group in grisly fashion. Arnold works her tale's And Then There Were None formula deftly, giving each of her doomed characters a past indiscretion against Mortimer that explains why he selected them for retribution, all of which shape the riddles posed to them. Though the ending is something of a foregone conclusion, the playfulness of the macabre mystery is sure to hold readers' attention. It's good, spooky fun.
