How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold

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✦ BLURB ✦

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.

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✶ PRE-READING ✶

You had me at “authors trapped in a haunted mansion.” Throw in puzzles, riddles, and a creepy literary legacy, and I was fully ready for an ensemble-cast horror with gothic flair and some meta fun. My biggest hope? That it wouldn't play the same old tropes straight. My biggest fear? That it might.

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✶ POST-READING ✶

As I thought... This book gets horror. The atmosphere is lush and cinematic - every creaking floorboard and flickering candle feels like it belongs in a classic black-and-white chiller. The ensemble cast is rich with personalities, egos, secrets, and rivalries - just begging to be picked off one by one. The set-up is smart: a mystery within a ghost story wrapped inside a puzzle box, all oozing with tension.

It surprised me by... How twisty it got. Every time I thought I had the shape of the story, it morphed into something weirder, sharper, or more emotionally charged. There’s some real commentary under the scares - about legacy, authorship, and who gets to tell the story. And despite the gothic vibe, the prose is modern, quick, and funny in places without ever undermining the horror.

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✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦

📖 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Both books are sly, self-aware takes on their genres with unreliable narrators, nested clues, and a keen sense of storytelling structure. If you like your mysteries clever, layered, and just a little bit tongue-in-cheek, you’ll feel right at home here.

📺 The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix)
The Queen manor feels like it could be a cousin to Hill House - sentient, sinister, and brimming with unresolved trauma. The horror here isn’t just about what jumps out of the shadows; it’s about the way the past festers, and the way grief, guilt, and secrets warp reality.

✦ MUSIC PAIRING ✦

Because sometimes, the heart of a story plays out like a song.

🎵 Featured Song: “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish
(Creepy, playful, and full of quiet menace - perfect for a house that’s always watching.)

🎶 Vibe Album: Midnight by Set It Off
(Dark, theatrical, full of drama and deception. Basically the house's playlist.)

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Ghost - because this book also dresses horror in glam and asks you to dance with it.

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✧ VIBE CHECK ✧

Colour Palette: Dusty maroon, flickering candlelight, ink black

Soundtrack: Spooky strings, crackling fires, distant whispers

Season: Late fall, that precise moment when the last leaf hits the ground

Mood: Suspenseful, slippery, and always one twist ahead of you

Scent: A library gone sour - old paper, pipe smoke, and something that shouldn’t be rotting

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★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★

Tarot Apokalypsis, Seven of Swords

This is a house where nothing is what it seems, and the Apokalypsis Seven of Swords nails it. A man struggles inside with more swords than he can carry while another outside holds a fake blade - mirroring the duplicity, mind games, and performative masks at the heart of this locked-room literary horror. It's a card that warns: not all weapons are real, and not all threats come through the front door.

How to Survive a Horror Story publishes on the 8th of July, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.