An autumn 2021 pick for New York Times * Observer * Esquire * O Quarterly * Chicago Tribune * Shondaland'[A] gripping piece of storytelling' GUARDIAN'Brilliantly conceived and unsettling' SUNDAY TIMES'Clever, insightful and unnerving' OBSERVERMost people didn't make it to Cell Six, he said. Most called out the safe word – reprieve – after the first Cell. It was that intense.When Bryan, Jaidee, Victor and Jane team up to compete at a full-contact escape room, it seems simple. Hold your nerve through six terrifying challenges; collect all the red envelopes; win a huge cash prize.But the real horror is unfolding outside of the game, in a series of deceits and misunderstandings fuelled by obsession and prejudice. And by the end of the night, one of the contestants will be dead.A startlingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism, and seamlessly threads together trial transcripts, evidence
In raw, poignant alternating first-person narratives, interspersed with e-mails, gay chat-room exchanges, and other fragments of a youth laid bare in the age of social media, The Lost Prayers of Ricky
