Cole and Lorraine have play-tested board games before for a little extra cash and the fun of seeing a game few people have played before. The Ship of Death is nothing like they have ever seen before, and that’s an understatement. Despite a strange NDA, a company that doesn’t seem to actually exist, weird people showing up at Cole’s bartending gig, and the need to use blood to mark your player page, the two shrug things off with the promise of some extra funds to put towards buying a house. The game starts off creative and exciting enough that soon Lorraine has turned the entire kitchen into their base of play. She becomes obsessed, finding herself identifying more with her character in the game and less with reality. Cole find himself encountering strange men in his bar, one of which defends him from an attacker and then comes to play the game. The stranger is accompanied by a mysterious and addictive liquor and a surprisingly cruelty streak. As their sanity unravels and neighbors are put in tangible danger, Cole and Lorraine realize the only way out is defeating the game.
This epistolary horror novel is told through game feedback reports, emails, private notes on a cellphone, personal journals and police reports. If at first you found yourself recoiling from that, be not afraid. Author Kyle Winkler has created a horror novel that flows beautifully well, even with so many different styles, that you won’t be distracted from the Eldritch horrors.
There haven’t been too many books as of late that intrigue me to reading into the wee small hours of the morning, but Ship of Death certainly did.
Ship of Death is available September 29, 2026 from Avon and Harper Voyager.
