How to Survive a Horror Story

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. Agent: Courtney Paganelli, LGR Literary. (July)