House Rules

Description

Inherit the debt, play the game. Refuse the game, and the people you love start paying the interest instead. The dealer is very sorry. He really is. House rules.

Kasimir Bell never knew his estranged father owed anything to anyone — until a polite courier delivers a deed, a key, and an invitation to settle accounts at a remote stone house with no road on any map. Inside, a soft-spoken host explains the terms: a series of games of chance, freely entered, where the stakes are flesh and the odds are honest. Win enough and the family ledger clears.

Walk away and the host simply waits, smiling, for Kasimir’s sister to receive her own invitation. So Kasimir sits down. He cuts the deck. The first hand is just to teach him the rules.

A vicious, escalating nightmare with a heart that isn’t where you’d expect, this is horror about inheritance — the debts and the cruelties handed down whether we agree to them or not. Walton makes every roll of the dice feel earned and awful. The house always collects.

Take a seat at the table. Ante up. Pray.