Test Subject

Escape

By: A.V. Ray

Narrated by: Boise Blue, Kat Riley

She has breached containment, and she's coming for him.

When Jack Hammond gets locked up in a top secret facility, he thinks he's finally stopped the nightmare that's been following him.

But she isn't the only thing that goes bump in the night.

As the newest inmate in a co-ed prison, Jack must conquer beauties and bullies alike. There's just one problem: the facility holds far worse things than he can imagine.

He might have a tenacious tomboy and bold bombshell in his corner, but he has to escape if he wants to keep them.

Even if it means helping his worst nightmare...

©2024 A.V. Ray (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

A novel that restored every concept of the genre

At a time where harem fantasy and adjacent genres are flooding with new talent and we see both the rise of monoliths and the changing of the fixations with the seasons a lot of quality can be placed to the wayside in favor of churn and burn.

I don’t mean farms either. Any author can become ensconced in a fortress of semi success, settling to find they are above adequate with a few star studded sellers to their name.


A V Rays Test Subject Escape is everything I ever expected from this genre. It was a return to the roots that I did not know I was being jaded from.

I wanted to preface my normal lengthy reviews with that.

Now to it:

Story:
Absolutely astounding. As someone who lives and breathes novels like House of Leaves I can give this the full stamp of eldritch and strange approval. They do excellent work at not overly explaining phenomenon that takes place while sometimes breaking it down as far as one can. It never gets rid of the sense of wonder or fear of the subjects even when they may become friendly or the literal monster in the mirror reaching to skin you alive. On top of that you get some of the most realistic moments of a character being among this insanity. Jack being afraid, panicking, second guessing, but never so much that it makes him seem sniveling. No, he is a real man with a wild story placed among the unreal and unknowable. This was something and is something you rarely find in any kind of fantasy and when you do it is rarely pulled off correctly.


VA: okay, BB absolutely took this job and decided he wanted to leave his mark on the genre forever, right beside him in lock step was Kat Riley. You want to talk about range? Look no further than Kat being able to distinguish three women in the same room and make them all unique enough to know exactly who’s talking. Not enough? Try the few scenes where it’s four women in the room with constant dialogue. Absolutely stellar.

Not to mention Boise Blues voice work on differing characters. The first moment you hear the director, Arte, and some other characters (can’t spoil things) you know this man has put the hours in.



Of course: the smut

Excellent. Doesn’t happen too fast, isn’t too frequent and does include a few FTB so that it’s not clogging up the story. A masterful use of the scene work and relationships.


What else could be said? I’ll be buying the second one asap likely within a few days to listen to it. This renewed my zeal of writing and reading and I couldn’t be more thankful.

Interesting start for a new series. A desperate man who will do anything to escape his nightmare!

You know your life sucks when you believe going to jail is the best way to improve your life!

Learned a lot about myself from this book.

The key take away is apparently I love crazy unhinged women. We all know the saying “Don’t stick it in the crazy.” Well the new counter argument js “an unhinged door is more welcoming.”

SCP Prison

this book is an absolute banger from the mystery it presents and how crazy the world they are in and the emotions between all the characters are perfect and my man must be taking his venom to keep up😂

a good first book

a good first book for waht i hope is a great series. some eldritch story with lots of action and spice

Interesting premise

This book has an interesting premise in that there are numerous test subjects in a prison setting and some of them are ghosts or spirits

5 stars

🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷I hope there are more books to come in this series! The MC is great along with a really good supporting cast! The story is captivating! The narrators also do a good job of bringing the story to life! Great job A V Ray!

Great but odd in a great way

Odd beginning and it only gets stranger from there. The MC is relatable as an underdog, who becomes the alpha & and the supporting cast brings it together and makes it work!

over all a good book

over all a very fun book, I also love the scp and containment feel/inspiration. I only lowered it slightly in rating because it felt like it was missing....something.
none the less if you love scp or heram stuff you will find good company here.

SCP / Prison Slice of Life

First off, I thought it was a good story. Definitely a different take on the harem genre with a dash of horror, but nothing too scary...yet??? I'm interested to see where this goes. My ONLY gripe is the once or twice times where the wording / voice repeated itself. Still worth a listen.