This was such an intense character study. I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and publisher.

This book was very character focused, there’s not a huge amount of plot and not a lot happens. Yet, I was completely and utterly fascinated. I couldn’t look away from the way some of these characters toed with disaster. Our story takes place when a group of people all connected to a writer and professor travel to his home in the Cambridge countryside for a writing retreat. Friendships will be tested, secrets will come out and people will rub each other the wrong way. Some of the characters are so deeply flawed, and others are wounded due to the proximity to the central character. I say central rather than main, because the book is told from multiple perspectives. Central because he connects all of the retreat attendees, but not main because the author skilfully gives the other characters the spotlight, making it so this is not just one person’s story. This felt deliberate to hold a mirror up to the central character and how he feels he should be the centre of everyone’s world. Indeed, his friends and families have hopes, dreams and desires that do not involve him and frustrations that grow due to his behaviour. Connections abound in this week long retreat and new relationships are formed and others fray.

The author manages to explore the characters flaws and hypocrisies so cleverly, whilst injecting subtle humour and without ever feeling preachy. This felt like such a deep psychological study as characters are presented with opportunities to learn and grow and we see some embrace it, and others bristle. By the end of this retreat we have such a clear picture of who each of these characters are and who will change for the better, and who will stagnate.

Fascinating, clever, gently humorous , I thoroughly enjoyed this.

I wanted to like it but it was not my cup of tea. The writing was amazing but at half past the story we were at the same point that the start, it was slow for a mistery book.

"But someone is playing a game the others don't understand, meddling with their work and appearing to lurk on the edges of the retreat."
This is the blurb describing a mystery that drew me into reading this book and I waited for the crunch to come but it never really did. Yes, there was deceit and desire as promised in the blurb but it is never really brought into the light and it left me hanging on until the end for people to get their just deserts.
A group of people are pulled together by university lecturer, Lawrence, for a retreat at his and Claudia's house in the Cambridgeshire countryside. As the week unfolds we learn a great deal about all the characters and they certainly all have plenty to hide but I was left waiting for the main event which never really happened.
The book was quite readable and I enjoyed the style and characterisation but I was let down by the blurb and felt it didn't have enough mystery to fit with the build up.
With thanks to Netgalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

The description of this novel had the promise of a devious event that changed the lives of all involved. I finished the book and had to check I had read the blurb right!

This novel meanders and feels ultimately hollow. The characters are outlined in quite a superficial way, so you get the impression that they won't be the major players in this deceit. The property gets a brief outline, with more weight being provided about a cemetery, an old folly, and a pond. So you start to think these areas might be more important, while waiting for the main event to get going. It feels like quite a slog, someone drinks, someone swims, games are played, food is eaten. Just too bland to hold meaning.

Only it doesn't, it just whimpers to a halt. Then the ending implies it has all been about the old house, which didn't ring true as the house hadn't been painted to be prominent in this tale.

The characters were only ever superficial and the story was too plain. Sorry, but I really don't see what the novel was trying to portray and the description really doesn't fit!

The Book Game is an immersive, intelligent, in depth story of eight friends, brought together for one week at a writing retreat. Lawrence and Claudia, the hosts, are ostensibly the richest and most fortunate of all the friends, and yet as the week pans out deep cracks appear in their seemingly idyllic home life. The reader is drawn into each character's life, with their links to Lawrence and Claudia played out slowly and carefully, to a tumultuous conclusion. I especially admired Frances Wise's ability with the characters' speech, making it seem so natural, a real masterclass in dialogue. I think other writers and bookish people would especially appreciate this novel.

Although I wouldn't call this a thriller, I really enjoyed this suspenseful read, with an ensemble of characters with their own personalities and issues. Great Academia book and the vibes of the house were immaculate! I'll definitely read more by Frances Wise!

An interesting ensemble mystery that gives insight into the lives of 8 individuals, intertwined with deceit, adultery and plagiarism. I usually love literary thrillers but this just didn't have enough mystery and intrigue for my taste. While I enjoyed the writing style and characterisations, the mysteries it did hold we're predictable and too easily revealed. Enjoyable overall but not a exciting read.

Really enjoyed this literary thriller.A story with so many twists and turns so many characters it kept me guessing till the last page.#NetGalley#4thestate

A literary thriller with an excellent cast of characters. I really enjoyed reading this one - felt a little lost at times with lots of characters all talking in a conversation but enjoyed overall!

#TheBookGame #NetGalley
A good read.
In August, eight friends gather at a house in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a week-long writers' retreat. There is reading by the pool or writing in the shady corners of the garden and inside the spectacular 18th-century home. In the evenings, there are communal drinks, dinner outdoors, midnight swimming, games. But someone is playing a game the others don't understand, meddling with their work and appearing to lurk on the edges of the retreat. As tensions rise over the seven days, desire and deceit rise to the surface and all their lives will change forever…
Thanks to NetGalley and 4th State and William Collins for giving me an advance copy.

Eight friends are invited to a week-long writers retreat in the Cambridgeshire countryside by Lawrence, a Cambridge academic. But someone is playing a game the others don't understand, meddling with their work and appearing to lurk on the edges of the retreat.
There were secrets and old grievances come to light and there were a bunch of unlikeable characters, which I actually enjoy in my novels. Lawrence was definitely one of them. While this one wasn't thrilling for me, it was an intriguing mystery and the character development and writing were fabulous. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the author's next novel.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for the gifted review copy.

What happened to opening with some action with which to draw the reader in and make him want to read on? Minute yawn-inducing scene-setting, however lyrically expressed doesn't cut it. Next come a multitude of character vignettes, hinting at relationships that may or may not be firmly established, without telling the reader who they are or how they are connected or know one another. Any real action is well ..... missing in action. A hundred pages in and nothing of any significance at all has occurred. None of the characters are likeable or relatable. There are several instances of disjointed conversations around a dinner table which do nothing to move the 'non-story' forward either. On page 90 the narrative suddenly morphs from third to first person without apparent rhyme or reason. It goes on jumping between third and first person POV, sometimes even within the same paragraph. Is this poor writing, poor editing or both? I couldn't possibly say.

As an independent scholar myself, I enjoy academic-related fiction, so the premise appealed to me and I was looking forward to an enticing read, but this novel reads more like a blog post, newspaper article or even a court report. It lacks any tension, plot changes or story arc. Its poor execution and writing mean that this book is not for me. Sorry!

Many thanks to the publishers and to Netgalley for the ARC.

The Book Game by Frances Wise draws you into the interactions and interplay between the ensemble cast of issue-laden characters.

I'm afraid this just wasn't for me, although other readers may enjoy it more. I'd expected a literary thriller about a writing retreat but got more of a novel about middle-class, middle-aged people and their relationships, with a side of social satire. For me, the writing wasn't good enough to lift this into literary and, despite being a middle-class, almost middle-aged person myself, I wasn't interested in the subject-matter of careers, affairs and old grievances. It reminded me of the kinds of gently ironic bourgeois novels written by people like Amanda Craig or Clare Chambers, so if you like those writers, you may find more to interest you here.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Set over a five day week during which time guests congregate at the Manor House of Lawrence Ayres a Cambridge University professor for a writing retreat. Not much seems to happen during the week but under the surface there is a bubbling up of tensions and it is the author’s handling of this that makes the novel so readable and engaging.

The Book Game follows a group of academics who gather at an old house in the countryside for a writing retreat. The book focuses on their personal issues and how these affect their relationships.

While the story is advertised as a thriller, it’s more of a slow-paced literary fiction about a group of characters. As such, if you're looking for a fast-paced mystery then this is perhaps not the book for you.
If however, you enjoy slow-burners and books where the characters' flaws take centre stage, you’ll likely find The Book Game a satisfying read.

This is my favourite type of mystery classic old house a bunch of friends who are not quite friends full of secrets. Prefect read for fans of classic crime. Really enjoyed the writer aspect of the book it's literally a cut throat business

3.5 stars. With thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the arc.
A group of Cambridge scholars (ex and current) come together for a week long, idyllic writing retreat at a beautiful old house in the Cambridgeshire countryside. What could possibly go wrong?
This is one of those books that is quite hard to pin down to any specific genre. It isn’t really a mystery or a thriller, doesn’t quite fit as ‘literary fiction’, and isn’t ‘dark’ enough for dark academia. The writing is excellent. I found myself very quickly being drawn in to the claustrophobic environment of the retreat and enjoyed the interplay between a group of frankly egotistical, mainly unlikeable, characters. My main problem with the book, and the reason it didn’t get a higher rating, is that it felt like story didn’t really go anywhere. There are lots of plot twists and turns, but a lot of them are just left hanging, or fizzle out. The main (to me) arc of the story, which revolves around the central character Lawrence and the stripping away of his thin veneer of moral and academic respectability, is one of the major casualties of this tendency. Does he get his comeuppance? Who knows? Things are hinted at, but personally I prefer a more definite ending to a story. Unfortunately the Epilogue, which romped through several decades of what happened after the retreat, just added to the frustration. I think it was trying to tie into the epitaph on a gravestone in the nearby churchyard “We are what you will be, we were what you are”, showing the inexorable march of time and how these small, intense human dramas, are actually of little consequence in the grand scheme of things, but the effect was just a rushed jumble of events and people who had nothing to do with the rest of the book.
A solid read but a disappointing end.

This is not a literary thriller. I felt misled, and found nothing thrilling about it. I had somehow made an assumption that there may be a death or murder...if only.

Set in a rambling family house near Cambridge this writers retreat is a story of academia, self importance, grudges and taking liberties. Whilst this could be the source of intrigue, I found instead a cliche (which does not detract from it being life-like) of tedious character interplay amongst a cast of differently dislikable protagonists. The philandering one, the one with unfulfilled ambition, the head girl trope, the lesbian artist, the gay marriage, the stalker, the one holding the moral high ground etc - most of them drunk, most of the time. A creative retreat to me conjurs up many things but what we saw here was none of those.

Whilst the writing that captured these caricatures was engaging for the most part, the way the story concluded felt as though it hadn't been written for the right book nor written by the same author. There was a very obvious end but instead we were thrown the curved ball of a rambling looking into the future and what happened to the house.

I was disappointed

With thanks to #NetGalley and #4thEstate #HarperCollinsUK for the opportunity to read and review

I've never actually read any books by [author:Elizabeth Jane Howard|113328] but this is what I imagine her books are like - with a sceptical C21st eye cast over the narrative. Written by two literature academics, this features an ensemble cast gathered together by the risible Lawrence for a 'writing retreat' in his gorgeous, old, Blue Plaqued manor house (inherited from his wife's family, natch) complete with folly, swimming pool and orchard. Inevitably, it has the kind of troubling colonial history highlighted by Colonial Countryside but Lawrence doesn't see himself as at all complicit with power hierarchies, historical and contemporary, and gamely wears his <i>This is what a feminist looks like</i> t-shirt, utterly oblivious to his own rampant misogyny and toxic masculinity.

I guess one of the troubling things about the book is that all the characters are essentially intellectually privileged: they're academics (some ex-PhD students of Lawrence), a popular historian, and a literary agent. They write books, appear on TV and on podcasts, write for the <i>Guardian</i> and review in the <i>TLS</i>. Ash is the most politically aware given his ethnic background and opinions on race and diversity but he's also benefited from a Cambridge education and a lifelong friendship with Lawrence - one which seems only recently to have come under pressure.

In typical ensemble way, all the characters are dealing with issues: stale marriage, divorce, professional stasis but this still feels pretty rarefied. I can't help enjoying a book where people have literary conversations about John Donne, early modern printing, and joke about the Tudor Court - but, at the same time, this feels like a kind of Sunday supplement life where everyone cooks like Ottolenghi and the wine is always excellent - no buying the supermarket deal of the week in this world!

With issues around adultery, academic plagiarism, and who owns the power there's a pacy story if this is your thing. It is all terribly bourgeois - and a lesbian sexual encounter as a breakout moment of transgression feels a bit on the nose (if not old fashioned). There's some nice wit in the first half but that rather falls off later.

Overall, I'd say this is a holiday read for <i>Guardian</i> readers (of which I am one!) - kind of middle class soap opera and a fun, interesting page-turner.