Darkly by Marisha Pessl

The Darkly role playing games created by cryptic inventor Louisiana Veda aren’t just entertainment—they are a way of life for the gamers who are hooked on their creepy, addictive appeal. That’s why it’s an international sensation when suddenly, thirty-nine years after Veda’s death, The Louisiana Veda Foundation invites high school students from around the world to apply to become interns in a mysterious summer program with very few details. Only seven will be chosen.

Acadia Gannon, who runs her mom’s antique shop, wears box pleated skirts and is called “Nana” by her peers, knows she has no shot. Sure, she’s a huge fan of the Darkly games, but so are millions of other people. She can even confirm that she’s blown it—one of her cats sat on her laptop and accidentally sent off her application before she could edit out the desperation.

So when Acadia gets the call that she is one of the lucky seven, she is flabbergasted. And thrilled. Before she knows it, she is being whisked away to London where she and six others: Poe, Mouse, Franz-Luc, Cooper, Everleigh and Torin are about to discover their Darkly fate.

Once there, they are shocked to find out that there is no internship. Instead, they are being tasked with finding a 15 year old player named George Grenfell who has gone missing. The Darkly game George was playing is called Valkyrie. It was stolen decades ago and assumed lost forever. But now it has resurfaced and it seems like winning just might be fatal. Whoever finds George first will receive a million pounds and “the exclusive ownership of an original Darkly game,” which are priceless.

The risk is huge, the reward immeasurable. Do Acadia and co. have the strength, wit and skills to play and win one of the most complicated and deadly games ever created? They’re about to find out.

This was a strange book, and I didn’t love it overall. While I was deeply intrigued by the premise (even though I am not a role-playing gamer) I was disappointed by the lack of character development. The seven teens, despite their colorful physical descriptions, just moved through the pages like game pieces and never really developed into rounded, complex characters that I could care about.

But the more I read, the more I felt like I was in the game. The meticulous descriptions of the craggy, gothic island setting, the photos and scraps of letters carefully placed within the text like bread crumbs, the cliff hanging chapter endings, all worked in perfect tandem to make the reader feel like they were right next to Acadia as she falls into the confusing, murky world of Valkyrie. The incredibly imaginative invented background and history of Louisiana Veda and the Darkly empire is especially impressive, to the point of where I found myself Googling, “Is Louisiana Veda real?”

It’s definitely worth a read, as long as you keep your atmosphere expectations high, and your character bar low.