"Harry is a novelist on the brink of stardom; Edward, her husband-to-be, is seemingly perfect. In love and freshly engaged, their bliss is interrupted by the reemergence of the Holbecks, Edward's eminent family and the embodiment of American old money. For years, they've dominated headlines and pulled society's strings, and Edward left them all behind to forge his own path. But there are eyes and ears everywhere. It was only a matter of time before they were pulled back in . . .
After all, even though he's long severed ties with his family, Edward is set to inherit it all. Harriet is drawn to the glamour and sophistication of the Holbecks, who seem to welcome her with open arms, but everything changes when she meets Robert, the inescapably magnetic head of the family. At their first meeting, Robert slips Harry a cassette tape, revealing a shocking confession which sets the inevitable game in motion.
What is it about Harry that made him give her that tape? A thing that has the power to destroy everything? As she ramps up her quest for the truth, she must endure the Holbecks' savage Christmas traditions all the while knowing that losing this game could be deadly."
What Worked For Me
This is a great example of a premise pay off and I wish I would have picked this up sooner. There is an alternate universe where this book could have been more of a quiet domestic drama but I'm so glad Steadman went full steam ahead into thriller territory. The story does start a bit on the quiet side and it takes a little while for the sinister undercurrents to start coming to the surface but once they do, it is a real fun ride.
The comparison to the movie Ready or Not is pretty obvious and I think matches the tone of the read well. I loved the sort of fish out of water aspect of our main character and seeing the strange world that this rich family live in. We even get a similar sort of game element where this family has been playing certain games for years and our outsider main character gets thrown into the mix without knowing the full extent of the stakes.
I loved our main character, Harry, and how competent she was without feeling like she was unrealistic. She is a mystery/thriller writer so her brain is sort of naturally wired in a way to think through these sorts of puzzles. She has some resources from her writing job that she can reach out to for help and it never felt like she had over the top investigation skills - just a regular person with enough time on her hands to do a bunch of research. Her keen observations about the family and her investigation made her a really fun character to follow as she unraveled the mystery.
What Didn't Work For Me
The mechanic of Harry listening to the tape in chunks instead of all at once irked me a bit. I understand it happened that way in order to help the flow of the story so that she would investigate one thing at a time. However, whenever we got a new chunk, it ended up taking me out of the story a little bit because I just didn't understand why she couldn't listen all at once. At the end of the day, she still gets all the info off of it one way or the other, but I wish it could have been handled in a way that didn't feel quite so heavy-handed. Maybe multiple tapes are being mailed to her one by one or she has to collect them from different spots that are important to the mystery, something along those lines I think would have been a bit more immersive.
Overall, this was a really fun and fast paced read. I loved the reveal of all the secrets as well as the game elements.
Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC. Publication date was September 29, 2022.
