Izzy Miller
and her twin brother, Noah, settle into their new creepy house, Glenbat Manor.
Izzy isn’t happy about it. She left all her friends behind and it’s all her
brother’s fault. He’s been accepted by St. Alberts Academy for the Gifted. Only
thirty kids a year are accepted. Now
she has to start seventh grade at a new school as his not-so-clever twin and her parents expect her to be
supportive!
Izzy volunteers
to sweep up the layers of dust in the living room and sticks her brother with
the job of tackling the basement. He has no problem with it, as long as she promises
to take part in the family’s Friday evening game night. Playing a game with
Noah is the last thing she wants to do. Luckily the box with all the board
games is nowhere to be found. What she doesn’t know is that sending Noah to the
basement is something she will regret.
With Mom
making dinner and Dad setting up his studio, Izzy sweeps dust from the
spacious living room, texts with her friends, listens to music, and stews over
the fact that she won’t be seeing her friends. A noise startles her. It’s
a pale kid staring through the dirt-crusted window. He waves. She opens the
window a crack and asks what he’s doing hanging around her house. He is
surprised she actually would move into the Terror Shack and introduces
himself as Walter Parkinson, a neighbor.
She invites him in out of the
cold and Izzy's mom is
happy to see she’s making a new friend and invites him to stay for dinner. Then
Noah walks into the living room announcing game night is saved. Izzy introduces
Walter as the kid who came over to warn them that the previous family had disappeared
without a trace a hundred years ago.
Walter asks
what Noah is holding. He shows them a game he found in the basement. Izzy is
not thrilled as her brother sets up the game carved with strange symbols and
designs. Walter thinks it will be fun. With no other real options for something
to do on a Friday night, Izzy agrees to play for half an hour.
The game has
no instructions and no game pieces. Noah opens his hand to show two dice but
without instructions, no one knows what to do. Noah tosses the dice on the table
and starts to talk about something else. A tiny silver skull materializes on
the board at “start” and it moves along the spaces! Izzy figures it’s some kind
of parlor trick and takes her turn. Instead of another game piece appearing,
the silver skull moves again. Time freezes. If they ever want to see their
family again, they have no choice but to finish the game.
L. G.
Cunningham’s Game with No Name is book 2 in the JITTERS series following Pretty Perilous Parakeet (Book 1). It’s a thrilling
adventure that centers around a mysterious game with no name. Some turns whisk all
players away from Glenbat Manor into dangerous life-threatening quests where
they must work together to solve a riddle. If they don’t, they could die. When
Izzy finds herself on a pirate battleship the first thing she does is blame her
brother. But to solve the riddle they must get along and work together.
This entertaining
spooky adventure story is a perfect choice for young readers and tweens who
like stories with danger, uncertainty, and magic. It’s scary but not too scary
and it builds on how working together to solve the clues is important on the
ship, in a jungle swamp,
in a creepy castle, and more. I give this book 4 stars. In some ways I thought
it predictable, but in others, it delivers unexpected twists. I recommend The
Game with No Name to those who enjoy Zathura
or Jumanji: Picture book of children's
growth, or who like reading ghoulish stories with a happy ending.
As Book
Hookup, I am a longtime book reviewer, and I received this book as a free
review copy and have not been compensated for reviewing or recommending it.
This review is posted in collaboration with #BookTasters. Some links in this
post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC
Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a
means for us to earn fees by linking to amazon.com and affiliate sites.
About Author L. G. Cunningham
LG Cunningham loves to write scary,
spine-chilling, monster filled, ‘my-child-is-not-able-to-sleep’ stories.
This term of endearment could be as a result of growing up in an Irish
town filled with ghosts, being able to communicate with (and actually
see) the dead or more than likely because his family used to rent him
horror movies (pre-Netflix and pre-DVDs) when he was very little which
had the affect of twisting his brain to the extent that he was - and
still is - afraid of his own shadow.
Head on over to
the author’s website (www.LGCunningham.com) or Twitter page
(@LG_Cunningham) to keep updated on future releases in the series...or
to simply have a chat!
.png "Crystal Shards")
.png)
