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The Gameshouse

The Serpent, The Thief and The Master

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The Gameshouse

By: Claire North
Narrated by: Peter Kenny
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About this listen

From the author of the word-of-mouth phenomenon The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August comes a mesmerising tale of a mystical gambling house whose deadly games of chance and skill control the fate of empires. Everyone has heard of the Gameshouse. But few know all its secrets.

It is the place where fortunes can be made and lost though chess, backgammon - every game under the sun.

But those whom fortune favours may be invited to compete in the higher league...where the games played are of politics and nations, of economics and kings. It is a contest where Capture the Castle involves real castles and where hide and seek takes place on the scale of a continent.

Among those worthy of competing in the higher league, three unusually talented contestants play for the highest stakes of all....

From Claire North, author of word-of-mouth best-seller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and one of the most original new voices in modern fiction, comes the mesmerising tale of the Gameshouse, where games of chance and skill control the fate of empires.

Originally published as three digital-only instalments: The Serpent, The Thief and The Master.

©2015 Claire North (P)2015 Hachette Audio Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Fiction Game Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"Utterly readable, utterly believable and compelling...one of the fiction highlights of the decade." (Judy Finnigan on The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)

"Beautiful and gripping." (Guardian on The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)

"North's talent shines out." (Sunday Times)
All stars
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I'm a fan of Claire North's writing in general, but I think these interrelated novellas are her best work so far. Tightly written, engrossing, thrilling, each novella can stand on its own, but the plot arc also carries satisfyingly across from the start of the first to the end of the third.
Special mention for Peter Kenny's excellent performance, perfectly matching the slightly mystical, slightly weird tone of North's writing. He gets the delivery dead right, capturing the all-powerful but troubled characters of the games players as they compete with each other, using the world as their board and humanity as their pieces.
I don't really understand why this is audiobook/download only, but you lose nothing by listening rather than reading.

Just excellent!

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Entertaining but not fully engaging. struggled to buy into the belief system that left the characters in thrall, that somehow might justify to them such carnage in the narrative. Limp in contrast to her great book The Disappearance of Hope, but without having checked I'd imagine it's an earlier
work.

Not north's best

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What an interesting idea! I really loved the concept of our lives as pieces in a huge game and in places , very compelling but the pace flagged a few times and I found the narrator 's breathy delivery quite irritating

A really good idea for a story.

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What did you like most about The Gameshouse?

I enjoyed listening to all 3 books individually and how they intertwined with one another.

What did you like best about this story?

The character development - you felt like you were privy to the game, and the characters developed in a way that you only saw what was relevant to the game at that time

What about Peter Kenny’s performance did you like?

I thought Peter Kenny was wonderful - he has a captivating voice and he made each character sound/feel different without being cheesy

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Its all just a game!

Riverting listen

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Claire North has a knack for uncanny plotlines but the execution is superb. The story had me gripped throughout and even though there are a lot of things happening, it does leave you wanting for more, in a good way.
The idea of the Gameshouse is brilliant, and without giving any spoilers, it did have me thinking if I myself would enter it if I ever saw a door with a lion's head.
Peter Kenny does a wonderful job at the narration too making the whole experience a delightful one.

An amazing story that is wonderfully read!

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The story is good and the narrator works hard and with great success to bring the characters and the moment to life. My only quibble is that when a character is soft spoken and then is talking quietly, the narrator talks so quietly they can be hard to hear in the car over background noise.

Very good but hard to hear in places

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I love Claire North's books and I love Peter Kenny's narration. If I was rich I would walk through the world and visit all the places brought out in this book, but as I'm not I feel enriched by the journey these two have taken me on.

An excellent read, excellently read

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I struggled to get into the first instalment of this trilogy, perhaps the shadow cast by the sublime 'Harry August' was too great. However I persevered and was duly rewarded. Peter Kenny is peerless, able, with the slightest adjustment of his tone, to slip in and out of accents from around the world (though I always think his American is a bit weak). North writes beautifully and having powered through the somewhat convoluted machinations of the first instalment, parts 2 and 3 delight in their use of prose, immersing the reader in a world fantastic but all too real at the same time. An excellent listen.

A slow starter...

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Narrator was great as always.
Very interesting premise as always.
I enjoyed this although the last story didn't captivate me as much as Claire's other works.

Two out of three

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This series of novellas is another tour-de-force from Claire North. I found myself rewinding several times as I, perhaps like a Player in the Gameshouse itself, fought to keep on top of the complexities of the labyrinthine plot and the myriad locations.

Starting off as a seemingly simple piece of historical fiction, the novellas tantalisingly unwind to reveal something much bigger. The whole world becomes the canvas of a game to end all games.

The narration is spot-on, Peter Kenny manages accents for all kinds of nationalities and keeps up a relentless pace.

Having listened to all 3 of Claire North's audiobooks I'm convinced she is an immortal, time-travelling character from one of her own novels. No wonder she uses a pseudonym! How else can somebody so young be so seemingly well-traveled, knowledgeable and smart? Her prose convinces that she's intimate with all the places she evokes so effortlessly. Speaking as a mere Piece in her game, I can't wait to hear what's next...

Another tour-de-force.

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