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WesternSFA

Puzzles & Perils: The Crystal Quest
by Laura Jayne Ayres and Gareth Moore
St. Martin's Griffin, $19.00, 320pp
Published: March 2026

Book description:

100 Puzzles. 2 Unlikely Heroes. 1 Epic Quest.

For fans of high fantasy and brain-engaging analog puzzles comes an interactive quest like no other.

Join Miralda and Orien on a perilous journey across their homelands to reclaim a stolen artifact from a power-hungry sorcerer. There’s just one catch: they need your brainpower to survive.

Inside you’ll find:

-100 Fantastical Puzzles: Mazes, logic puzzles, sudoku, and more woven directly into the story.

-Mind-Bending Variety: Decipher secret symbols, navigate treacherous mazes, and solve intricate logic traps.

-A Vivid World: Journey from bustling medieval streets to sparkling elf cities in a high-fantasy adventure.

The path ahead is fraught with danger, from menacing goblins and fearsome dragons to power-hungry sorcerers and tricky illusions. Will you help our heroes succeed, or will the world be plunged into darkness forever? Grab your pencil; your quest awaits!

~~~~~~~~

I have read many Choose Your Own Adventure type books over the years, but this one is of a different nature. Instead of choosing which path to take, we must solve a puzzle to figure out what is next for our adventurers and, as the blurb above mentions, there is quite the selection of puzzles to boggle your mind.

In the introduction, the authors inform us that this book should be read and the puzzles solved in the same order as we would read a story, as key parts of the story are revealed through the puzzles. They also mention that there is no shame in having a friend lend a hand or even taking a peek at the solutions in the back of the book, since some puzzles are trickier than others and that even heroes need backup sometimes.

I found some of these puzzles engaging while I worked them out, to figure out what inn or path Miralda and Orien would decide upon next.

Other puzzles were trickier because I wasn't familiar with their types, so it was a bit frustrating not knowing how to even begin them. Therefore, I called upon my husband's help. As he worked through them, he also explained to me how he was figuring them out. I won't lie: I did peek at the solutions on more than one occasion so that I could proceed with the story when he wasn't around to lend me a hand.

If you are a fan of challenging your mind and working through many different puzzle types, then this is the book for you.

If you like the challenge but are like me, not as good at some types of puzzles, then I'd recommend having a friend or two on standby to lend a hand with the style of puzzles you find trickier. It was fun having my husband lending a hand, making it interactive fun as well.

Overall, I enjoyed the book as I worked my way through the adventures of the story.

 (I will mention that I didn't want to write in my book, so I used a notepad to work the puzzles out.)  ~~ Dee Astell

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