The Grimlore Game by Kalyn Josephson (Ravenfall series) is a cozy gothic mystery with a clever protagonist who masks her anxiety and grief over her parents' deaths with eccentricity, insouciance, and love for a pet tarantula named Gregor.
Thirteen-year-old orphan Kit Devlin's family is under a curse. Every three years on April 13, "like clockwork," a Devlin dies. This year it's Kit's wealthy and renowned Grandfather Amos. Rather than a simple will distributing his apparently vast wealth, he leaves instructions for the family to gather at his Scottish home and compete in a series of puzzles and games; the winner will inherit his estate. Kit, along with cake-eating Gregor and her extended family, dives into the challenge but, unlike her relatives, doesn't take part in subterfuge and sabotage. She soon understands that she may be the only one who can break the Devlin curse--and, after a crimson-eyed cat in a bow tie talks to her, that her family has significantly more magic than she suspected.
Josephson writes compassionately about how greed and ambition can devastate a family. Kit eventually realizes the curse doesn't just take "the people themselves, but what it means to be a family." A map of the house and black-and-white spot illustrations by Alla Khatkevich (Helga the Fair) add whimsy and provide images of many of the novel's puzzles. The Grimlore Game's wordplay, riddles, scramblers, and artifact puzzles are likely to captivate fans of The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin and The Swifts by Beth Lincoln. This first volume in a planned series is chock-full of magic, mystery, achingly authentic family drama, and ultimately, hope. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor