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This book is such a brilliant read, one that is hard to put down. It follows two timelines – one where we meet a group of ruthlessly ambitious investment bankers who are brought to an ‘escape room’ on a team building exercise that turns out to be way more than they could have ever thought. We also go back in time and follow a new member of their team as she tries to find her place and settle in. Seeing the characters through her eyes as she gets to know them, and then later seeing them in the elevator is so good. We really get to know who these people are and how they are who they are. I did find this book waned a little after the opening chapters but it did pick back up again, and the second half of the book was impossible to put down. I was desperate to know how it was all going to end! This is such a fun read and I recommend it.

This book may be utterly ridiculous and unbelievable, but that’s what makes it great. You don’t go to watch an action film for the realism!

The characters in the book are all awful, which means you don’t have anyone to root for (or worry about) so you can just enjoy the story. The story itself is pretty fast-paced, especially in the second half.

There are no real twists and turns, or mysteries in this book. You will figure out the outcome pretty quickly, but that’s a good thing. The story isn’t here to make you second guess everything, but instead to enjoy the absurdity and the drama.

A great read if you are looking for something uncomplicated yet enjoyable. Just don’t read it in an elevator.

The Escape Room is a very modern and stiflingly claustrophobic mystery thriller.

The prologue is absolutely heart-pounding and with it Megan Goldin sets the scene for the rest of the book. The tension rises with each passing chapter and as the links between the present and the flashbacks become clear the revelations come thick and fast.

While some of the high finance and investment banking-speak was sometimes a little over my head, the characters were clearly defined, in all their hideous complexity. Their age-old emotions, motives and machinations vie for centre stage with an original concept, a very modern setting and cutting edge technology.

Although, for me, after all the development, the book came to a slightly abrupt end, it was a hell of an enjoyable ride and I would definitely read more from Megan Goldin.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion for my copy of The Escape Room and to Tracy Fenton for my spot on the blog tour.

Unfortunately the copy of this book that I received on my kindle was poorly edited, all the “f”s seemed to be missing.

That aside it was a really good read, gripping, great suspense and an original idea. Loved the characters and didn’t want to put it down, devoured in one weekend. Highly recommend, looking forward to more of the same from this author.

Firstly, I appreciate that this was a proof copy but the amount of half finished words I had to decipher made this a complete pain in the ass to read. Irritated me no end but I have not taken this into account when rating the book.

So many power-hungry, greedy, selfish, thoroughly unlikeable characters in one book yet somehow I still managed to enjoy it. I enjoyed the twists and turns along the way but feel the ending could have been developed a bit more. It would have been interesting to see how the aftermath of it all played out.

4 stars

I loved the plot of this book, it was very exciting the way it unfolded. Highly recommended reading!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Megan Goldin for the advanced copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

A brilliantly tense thriller that drags you in and won’t let you put it down.
I don’t want to give spoilers but the title is the clue but with a deadly twist.
5/5 on goodreads.

I'm a huge fan of escape rooms so was so excited about the idea of a thriller set around one - this was chilling and thrilling, unputdownable!

Oh my goodness this a gripping read! I absolutely loved this book. Very well imagined, gripping and completely unexpected twists at the end! Thank you very much!

Slick suspense, an intriguing premise, deftly plotted. Four individuals, Wall Street traders - who want for nothing in life, high egos, high rollers - become trapped in an elevator (the escape room) - but this is no team building exercise. A tension building read which becomes addictive with plenty of twists and an original premise which, I felt, delivered. Very enjoyable reading.

In The Escape Room we meet four co-workers who find themselves invited to join a team building exercise when I say invited let’s just say it is pretty much mandatory. In no time at all it becomes clear that this is not your average escape room and things turn dark! While I was reading it felt as if I could have been watching a film mainly because there was an extra dramatic edge to the story. If you are looking for thrills, twists and a slightly out there plot then look no further. The pacing is pretty much full on throughout and it is a story that kept me entertained from start to finish. With lies, secrets and revenge being the main themes you know that you are in for a crazy journey! For the most part the characters in this book are let’s just be honest and say pretty unlikeable. Now this doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I couldn’t wait to see each of their personalities and flaws come to the surface. Behind the expensive suits and sly smiles these characters are at a complete loss as to how they ended up in this situation which makes things even more compelling.

I loved how I was shown two stories in one, with the mystery of the people in the elevator along with another character Sara Hall. Both were equally thrilling although I will say that Sara’s story always left me wanting more just because I was trying to piece everything together and I enjoyed how her story unfolded. The Escape Room is one giant puzzle that needed all those pieces putting together and I loved discovering every single piece. The chapters were to the point and often ended on a cliffhanger which easily kept me on edge along with making me ask question after question! The idea of an escape room really interests me so add in the twist that one becomes a trap and you get an exciting and dangerous experience. I easily became lost in this story with all the tension, intriguing characters (even the despicable ones) and a plot that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. The Escape Room is twisty, thrilling and very entertaining!

one of my favorite books this year. Sadly the formatting was bit sketchy, but once I got past that, the story its self was gripping- a real fast paced atmospheric novel, that really sucked me in. It was a real thriller in every sense of the word- claustrophobic and full of tension. Awesome read!!

Four co - workers from a high financial firm in Wall Street are summoned to a meeting that is supposed to be a team building exercise, a challenge that they've been told is compulsory. Even though it's after hours and they have their own plans they actually know that something like "after hours" doesn't exist in their world and so they all show up. So now they are all about to enter an elevator that in a matter of seconds is going to turn into an escape room, but not an ordinary one. Locked there over the next few days they are slowly working out why they are here but still have no idea who has entrapped them.

The author has created really well - developed characters, with Sam, Sylvie, Jules and Vincent being your typical Wall Street financiers, even if they're not likeable characters. In fact, they are simply awful. They're intelligent and hardworking, and while those are not bad things, they're also ruthless, selfish, greedy and liars. They always put work first, no matter what's happening in their private lives and they can't, in fact, really make a use of their luxury apartments because they don't have time, so sucked by the adrenaline that comes from making those billion - dollar deals. I didn't like them, but I liked that we were slowly allowed into their lives and learn why it is them that found themselves in the escape room, as the story is alternating between the present day chapters in the elevator and past, told by Sarah Hall, a former employee in the same firm as our four Wall Street wolves.

Slowly we get to learn who is controlling the elevator and why and I really liked this reveal - the author has managed to outmanoeuvre us and even though I had my suspicions, they seemed impossible. The final confrontation is made impossible by the author and I think that maybe I would like to have it? But then the end should be totally different, and here I think that maybe, just maybe, Megan Goldin has simply chosen the easier way to finish the book. Personally I think that I'd rather see the characters somewhere else, held accountable for what they've done.

My copy was unfortunately almost impossible to read and I thought I will have to simply put it down but I preserved, as the plot kept me interested, and then I discovered what it was - all the "fi" and "fl" were missing, and it took me some pages to understand that "y" means "fly", "rm" means "firm" and "gure" means "figure" (figure. Really. I think that figure was every second word in this book. Everybody has been "figuring" something all the time and I thought I'm going to start to shout when I see this word once more). I know it's not the author's fault but when I receive a review copy I'd rather expect it to be readable.

It was a read with a difference, and as much as mostly it seemed unrealistic, I totally enjoyed it and I've read the first half in two hours - would read further but life got in the way. It was provocative, but also thought - provoking and I think you simply have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy this novel - then it's going to keep you glued to the pages.The author has brilliantly captured the atmosphere of distrust, the toxic environment and ghosting in the world where money and power is everything, and she described all those power games in breathtaking way. The feeling of anticipation and something hanging in the air (and no, I don't mind the elevator) is ever - present, and the events that start as a small snowball begin to take the size of an avalanche. Megan Goldin has created a novel that brings to life the real world of corporate finance, a world that I never could be a part of, full of greed, lies and secrets. Highly recommended!

Just brilliant. Even though there were serious problems with the formatting making this at times irritating and difficult to read it didn’t stop this being an awesome read. I really can’t believe that this is a debut novel! Great premise excellently executed. A clever, tense, claustrophobic read. I started this at 5pm and finished it before I went to sleep - genuinely could not put it down

What an amazing book
This is a brilliant thriller and is exceptionally well written
I didn’t want to put this book down

A twisted tale of revenge this was a brilliantly intriguing read.
Set in the cut throat world of finance one begrudged worker plays the long game to get her own back.
This was a thrilling mystery with high stakes and plenty of twists.

Four Wall Street high flyers. They are used to playing a cut-throat game. They work hard and in their very sparse downtime, spend just as hard. They threaten, bully and cajole, and though one of them is a woman, misogyny rules in this team.

Vincent, Sam, Jules, and Sylvie are a close knit team, but of late their legendary success has been failing them; they’ve lost a couple of contracts; their golden touch has become tarnished and they are beginning to fear for their jobs.

The four are summoned via an HR e-mail to a Friday evening meeting at an office building under construction and find themselves trapped in a steel elevator, which has been kitted out to emulate an escape room. At first they think this is some kind of harsh ploy to make them bond more closely as a team, because of their recent lacklustre performance.

But as the clues start to appear, it is soon apparent that this is no ordinary team building exercise. These four have secrets that someone clearly knows about – but who and what do they intend to do about it?

Fabulously atmospheric and horribly claustrophobic, this is a thriller that engages from the beginning and never gives up its vice-like grip.

The story is told in part through the eyes of Sara Hall, a new analyst at the firm. We learn of her background and struggles to find a job and what she is prepared to put up with in order to keep it. Then we are also up close and personal with the four in the elevator as their thin veneer of respectability turns to a tense animalistic desire to get out when they realise they are well and truly trapped. With alternating chapters set in the past and then the present, the reader learns the background to this nightmare scenario as the four try to work out what’s happening.

The Escape Room is immensely entertaining and very readable. It takes the classic locked room mystery and gives it a contemporary outing. It’s exactly the kind of book that I’d want to take on holiday with me. Entertaining, full of larger than life characters and with more than one moment to bring a tear to your eye, this is great entertainment, nicely plotted and well written.

There are no stunning twists or revelations, but that’s not a problem; rather this is a story where characters get their comeuppance, which is always satisfactory, though I did find the ending a little flat.

Verdict: Top notch enjoyable, escapist entertainment that’s perfect for holiday reading

This was a fantastic, tense and gripping thriller which is based around one of my worse fears of getting stuck in a lift! The characters go through every emotion as they try and figure out how to get out. From fear, claustrophobia, thirst, hunger to greed and lust their emotions are so intense that they seem almost palpable. Gone are the polished high flying people that they normally present to the world and instead the author allows us to see the people they actually are and it was quite fascinating to see the stark contrast at times.

Wall Street isn’t a place I’m likely to inhabit so I found it very interesting to learn more about it in the behind the scenes glimpse the author gives us. It’s a very tense, competitive environment which I’d not enjoy with everyone just out for themselves. It makes the characters seem very unlikeable and it did take me a while to feel sorry for them.

This was a very fast paced read which gripped me from the start. The high pressure atmosphere the five characters find themselves makes for fascinating reading, particularly when the riddles start getting personal and everything gets a little nasty. I must admit I got a bit caught up in the situation, wanting to keep reading to see what happens to them and to see if they get justice for their awful experience. The ending was brilliant and I felt a fantastic way to finish the book.

This unbelievably is the author’s debut novel and I can’t wait to read more from her in the future. I think this would make a fantastic film, which is not something I say often about books!

Huge thanks to Tracy for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Orion for my copy of this book via Netgalley.

This is a psychological thriller with a claustrophobic feel.

Told in chapters that relate to Sara Hill and the four people in The Elevator…

Vincent, Sam, Sylvia and Jules are called to a last minute meeting….as they enter the elevator it ascends to the 70th floor but the doors do not open….the message on the display tells them the goal is to get out alive…at first they find it fun, an Escape Room game, but as they solve the first clues, the name Sara Hill is mentioned….

Sara was an employee of Stanhope and Sons, working in a toxic, sexist and pressured environment ….and a lot of the story is told from her perspective, the work at a prestigious investment company, the money, perks and rivalries……

What links the two women, Sara and Lucy?

This is a marvellously claustrophobic, atmospheric and twisty thriller, it shows the sheer greed of the money hungry employees, just what should they do for money? would they kill? And will they all escape the elevator?

None of the characters are particularly likeable, all driven by money and appearances, but this is a totally gripping thriller, with some real gasp inducing moments….I loved it..

Thank you to the publishers, the author and NetGalley for a free copy of the ebook. This is my honest, unbiased review.