You have 24 hours to win. If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.
Are you ready?
When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.
But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…
As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.
Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed.
It starts out as a normal day. Crystal and her esports team are training for an upcoming tournament they're determined to win. Shortly after dropping her younger sister off for a school trip, though, Crystal receives a photo; her sister tied and gagged in a chair, clearly terrified. The photo comes with a list of demands, starting simple but escalating quickly into terrifying and life threatening.
Terrified, paranoid and alone, Crystal will need to figure out who's behind this, who she can trust, and whether it has anything to do with the thing that happened five years ago, the thing she and her friends never talk about...
Diana Urban is very much establishing a niche for herself; fast paced thrillers with some kind of game element and plenty of twists. This is her second, and it's every bit as good as her first. The game element is even more obvious here than it was in her first, with Crystal being a gamer and the antagonist taunting her with games and rules all the time. There's even a get out of jail free card.
I did suspect the person it turned out to be, but that's not saying much, because at one point or another I suspected everyone, including Crystal herself! Diana is very skilled at giving the reader just enough information to come to various conclusions without being able to settle on one, although as the novel went on I was increasingly convinced of my guess. Highlight for spoiler: it was the thermos that convinced me.
Now, the down side, and please remember this is just my own, personal opinion; I don't usually like books where the timeline skips back and forwards. I have a hard time keeping things in order when they're not presented to me that way. I did like the flashbacks in this one, but I felt like there was too much set in the past. A lot of it, in my opinion, wasn't necessary. However it was all beautifully written, just like the rest of the story, and I know some readers will really enjoy seeing Crystal and her friends a little younger.
Overall I loved this book, enjoyed trying to figure out whodunnit, and I'll enjoy rereading to see all the hints and clues that I no doubt missed this time around!
These Deadly Games publishes on the 1st February, 2022. (First book from next year!) I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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