The Serpent

ebook / ISBN-13: 9780356504490

Price: £1.99

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The first installment of the Gameshouse, a mesmerising tale of a mystical gambling house whose deadly games of chance and skill control the fate of empires.

In seventeenth century Venice exists a mysterious establishment known only as the Gameshouse.

There, fortunes are made and fortunes are broken over games of chess, backgammon and every other game under the sun.

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

Not everyone proves worthy of competing in the higher league. But one woman who is about to play may just exceed everyone’s expectations.

Though she must always remember: the higher the stakes, the more deadly the rules . . .

The three installments of the Gameshouse are also available in a single edition.

Reviews

Simply brilliant. The trilogy is comprised of three novelettes... each with a different narrator, setting and - wonderfully - tense. All three feature players in the enigmatic Gameshouse - a location/organisation for those that gamble, and gamble to win...The Gameshouse, as a whole, is one of the best books of the year - a subtle masterpiece that deserves to sweep all the chips from the table.
Pornokitsch
Beautiful and gripping
GUARDIAN on THE FIFST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST
An astonishing re-invention of the time-travel narrative. Bold, magical and masterful
M. R. Carey, author of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS on THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST
Beautifully written and structured . . . a remarkable book
BOOKLIST on THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST
Utterly readable, utterly believable and compelling . . . one of the fiction highlights of the decade
Judy Finnigan on THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST