(My note for my regular blog visitors. Yes, you have seen this post before. I mistakenly signed up for the book in two different review teams. Fortunately, it’s such a great book, it deserves a second go-round!! Sooooo… here we go!!)

About the Book

Book: The Escape Game (The Game Masters Book 2)

Author: Gina Holder

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release Date: May 5, 2026

20 years ago, the world’s leading enigmatologist disappeared…

Demi Kayne, owner of a popular puzzle shop, has spent years searching for her father, who vanished without a trace. When she cracks the code he left behind, the trail leads her to a secluded mansion—and straight into danger.

Liam Shepherd, a missionary with a passion for puzzles, is desperate to find his missing sister. His investigation brings him to Silver Falls, where his path collides with Demi’s in ways neither of them expects.

Drawn into a deadly escape game designed by a brilliant and vengeful mind, Demi and Liam must unravel twisted riddles and confront buried secrets before time runs out. Losing could cost them everything. Their faith and each other may be their only means of escape.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Gina Holder is a Christian award-winning author of romantic suspense and cozy mysteries filled with faith, intrigue, danger, romance, and epic twists you’ll never see coming.

She’s had an infatuation with books for as long as she can remember. She loves sharing uplifting messages from God’s Word and introducing readers to new and new-to-them authors on her blog.

When she’s not writing, Gina enjoys playing the piano, cooking, reading, watching Hallmark mysteries, and solving “escape room” puzzles. She loves growing in her craft as an author. She published her debut novel in 2017. Gina lives in Wyoming with her husband and daughter.

More from Gina

The Book I Almost Gave Up On

When I turned in the first full draft of The Escape Game last September, I hated it.

Not in a playful, self-deprecating way. I really, truly hated it.

I had that awful, hollow feeling in my stomach. The one that whispers, This isn’t good enough. You aren’t good enough. Why did you ever think you could pull this off?

Honestly, I believed this book was beyond my abilities.

And it was.

But I forgot I have Someone on my side who can do all things.

Back in 2022, this story idea was supposed to be simple. A shorter novel inside a collection. I had a fun premise, a few intriguing characters, and a basic plot: a second chance romance with the two main characters locked in a deadly mansion.

Easy peasy, right?

Wrong.

I realized the story needed space to breathe, so I wrote something else for the collection, and put this story back on the shelf until the right time.

Fast forward to 2025. The Escape Game was proposed as book 2 of The Game Master series.

I started writing. Characters pushed back. They wouldn’t talk. Inside my head, there was silence.

Some books flow. This one fought.

I wrestled with tone and pacing. I rewrote entire sections only to delete them again. Scenes that sparkled in my head fell flat on the page. I second-guessed everything.

My heroine was supposed to be the faithful Christian girl who wins the bad boy to the Lord.

She wasn’t.

And my hero? He was all wrong.

So, I did something terrifying.

I replaced him.

Completely.

I created an entirely new character—Liam Shepherd.

On the surface, Liam was perfect—kind, protective, devoted to the Lord, close to his family. Every Christian girl’s dream.

But fiction doesn’t work that way. Perfection isn’t compelling.

I asked God to show me Liam’s wound.

When it came, I cried.

No, I bawled like a baby.

Liam wasn’t abused. He didn’t come from a broken home. He had love and stability. Then tragedy struck, and he faced a choice.

He chose wrong.

And it haunted him.

But the troubles were far from over.

This wasn’t just a tricky plot or a stubborn manuscript.

This story touched some deep places in my own heart—places I didn’t expect to have to revisit. Writing it meant digging into tender, uncomfortable emotions, facing truths about fear, grief, and courage that I hadn’t fully confronted. It hit a little too close to home.

Some days it felt less like writing fiction and more like surgery.

And surgery is exhausting.

By the time I reached the end, I wasn’t excited. I was just tired. I turned it in because it was due, not because it felt finished.

Then the editing began.

If drafting this book was wandering through a dark forest, editing was finally being handed a flashlight. Sentences tightened. Motivations clarified. Scenes I thought were essential were cut, and others grew stronger. What felt hopeless started to feel possible.

Slowly—painfully at times—the story started to come into focus.

My editor asked hard questions. I rewrote the entire book. (Not completely, but it felt like it.)

Each round of edits chipped away at the parts I disliked and revealed the story underneath—the one I’d been trying to tell all along.

Somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened.

I stopped hating it.

More than that, I started to like it.

Everything clicked. The story finally had the depth—and the heart—it had been missing.

And now, sitting on the other side of the process, I can honestly say something I never imagined saying last fall:

I’m proud of The Escape Game.

Not because it’s perfect—no book ever is—but because it represents persistence. Growth. The courage to dig into hard places and stay long enough to find the heart of the story.

And that heart is what I hope you feel when you read it.

What started as a small, simple idea grew into something deeper than I expected. Something that required more from me than I thought I had to give.

And in the end, it became something God and I built together.

This book reminded me of something important:

We’re all first drafts.

God is shaping us, molding us … and we fight back. We look at our lives and wish things were different. We replay our wrong choices. We feel regret, frustration, and fear.

Sometimes, we even hate what we see.

But hating your draft doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” Philippians 1:6 (KJV)

It just means God isn’t finished yet.

And sometimes, the stories we struggle with the most end up being the ones we’re proudest to hold in our hands.

My Impressions

“Something in his gut warned this would be unlike anything he’d ever faced before. Were they up to the challenge?”

Whew! I am never going to be able to do another escape room! The Escape Game, bk 2 of The Game Masters series, by Gina Holder, kept me spellbound and enthralled. This gripping, romantic suspense novel of chilling proportions stands well on its own. I had not read the first book, but now, of course, it’s on my TBR pile!

I was reminded of a Shakespearean tragedy set in current times as I read through this nail-biting suspense. Poor grown-up Demi, puzzle solver extraordinaire with an IQ off the charts, desperately seeking the love and affirmation that she missed all her life. Her father disappears when she is younger, and she feels abandoned by any who may get close to her. Her intelligence level and social awkwardness allow her few friends. Then her best friend, Maddie, gives her unsettling news. As she meets Liam, a daring missionary and escape room solver expert, she develops a tenuous bond as they search for his sister. Yet, she realizes as their dangerous search of an unknown real-life escape experience escalates, Liam, too, has future plans that don’t include her, should they be so fortunate to escape alive.

“Trust—the word hit like a gut punch. It hurt to trust—people always let her down. Abandoned her when she needed them.”

Liam is a great, noble, selfless, brave, daring, and handsome young man who is frantically searching for his missing sister. Joining forces with Demi, the two form an attraction which Liam realizes will not last, given Demi’s lack of true belief in God. He shares his faith with Demi whenever he can, but Demi has learned to protect her heart and believes her intellect and self-sufficiency will eventually save her.

My Rating

There are some great twists involved in the story, that threaten to rewrite the narrative. A great look into different kinds of relationships and how they affect the human behavior. And how God is willing to step in and re-direct our stories, forgiving the unthinkable, IF we will let him!

Don’t miss this book!! I know I won’t miss another of Gina Holder’s in this series!

I received a copy of the book from the author through CelebrateLit. I also bought my own ecopy. No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own.

Notable Quotables:

“This was not the lost-and-found box. These were trophies. And someone was still collecting.”

“You can’t win by playing smarter. You need a Savior, not a strategy.”

“Pride is the monster; humility is the key.”

“My IQ would make Einstein jealous.”

“The eagle does not fight the snake on the ground. It changes the battlefield.”

“Because forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t hurt.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Superior!! If you’ve never read this author’s romantic suspense, you’ll be in good shape if you start with this series!