How To Survive a Horror Story – ARC Book Review

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.

Melanie Brown arrives at Mortimer Manor. Mortimer Queen died and has invited seven authors, including Melanie herself to read the will at the manor. Melanie was not a successful author, although all the others were successful and well published authors. However, what seemed to be a relaxing vacation turned out to be a nightmare, when the seven people were given a task. Each one must solve the riddle before one of them dies and only one of them will inherit the manor.

This was little weird to read but it was interesting and intriguing to read as well. Each of the characters except for Melanie has wronged Mortimer Queen in some way. The deaths of the people were kind of gruesome to read and is very unusual as well (the house does all the killing). As I said, it was interesting and intriguing with an interesting concept but then the story is weird creepy and pretty much, not very logical and unrealistic. I know this is the debut book of the author but since I found the story interesting and kind of funny, I am willing to give this book a 3.5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.