Synopsis:
Big Brother meets Black Mirror in this high-concept thriller in which six strangers take part in a mysterious medical experiment in an isolated mansion.
After winning the popular reality talent show Searching for a Star and a subsequent record deal at the age of nineteen, Amanda Pearson was the hottest thing in the UK. But as her short-lived fame began to fade, the cracks began to stumbling and mumbling on stage, slurring during live TV interviews, suspicious photos of her at nightclubs with powder around her nostrils. The dream was over. Amanda Pearson would forever be a one-hit wonder.
Six years later, after cleaning her act up but failing to reestablish her career, her ex-manager informs her of an unexpected opportunity that will help alleviate her dire financial situation and potentially thrust her back into the spotlight. The proposal is Six strangers alone in a mansion, under constant observation, for the duration of a week. Every day they take a pill. Five people are taking a placebo, but one person will be taking an experimental drug, which they are assured has no side adverse effects.
The other participants – a dinner lady who moonlights as a comedian, an eccentric theatre actor, a popular YouTuber, a dance choreographer, and a car salesman – all seem normal at first. However, as each day goes by, cracks begin to show in the group. Paranoia leads to violence. Who is taking the real pill, and what does it do? Amanda realises that this is no normal she is trapped, the old mansion is rigged, and there is no way out.
Can she find a way out of this nightmare with her sanity in tact?
Review:
I received a copy of Honeycomb in exchange for an honest review.
Honeycomb had me HOOKED. Wow. It took me by surprise so many times and I couldn’t put it down, I thought I knew what was going on but there were still moments that really caught me out.
This is a great high-concept thriller with a central plot that utterly hooked me. The idea of putting six people together in a locked house and giving them an experimental drug is such a great concept and S.B. Caves pulls it off so so well. It’s hinted from the very start as to what the experimental drug is doing. You start to see the effects of the drug subtly from early on and it ramps up to an utterly insane experience by the end of the book. It gives off the feeling of watching something horrifying that you know you should look away from but you just can’t.
Amanda is a great central character, a pop star fallen from grace you can empathise with her now-normal life, but yet she still has this edge of stardom that explains why she’d put herself in this position in the first place, and maybe why she doesn’t realise things earlier. She’s manipulated by those around her and she doesn’t even notice. I really liked her as a character but I was definitely frustrated by her inability to see the insanity that is unfolding in the earlier parts of the book.
Honeycomb is the perfect binge read. It’ll reel you in and keep you until the very last page.
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