An extreme game of hide-and-seek turns deadly in this riveting new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Lisa Unger’s Close Your Eyes and Count to 10, which is out February 25th 2025.
When the real game begins, who will make it to the count of 10?
Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be.
Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.
“Oh, hell no,” Hector said from the back seat of the Ranger Rover.
Maverick, at the wheel, could see Hector’s worried expression in the rearview mirror. His old friend ran a hand over his thick mop of dark hair, a thing he did when he was stressed, his doughy forehead moist and crinkled. Hector was often stressed. “That’s a hard pass, Mav.”
Maverick brought the SUV to a stop in front of a towering graffiti-covered sign very clearly warning them away. PELIGRO! DANGER! GO BACK!
“Aw, come on,” said Mav, looking back at Hector with a smile. “Don’t be such a baby.”
“Why is it that when something says danger or go away, you view that as invitation?” asked Hector.
Riding shotgun beside Maverick, Gustavo was loose and easy, tattered hiking shoes up on the dash. Gustavo laughed and held out a fist which Mav bumped with his. “Because he’s Maverick.”
“One of these days you’re going to get us all killed,” complained Hector.
It was their shtick, their routine. “But not today,” Maverick answered. Hector grinned at him in the mirror.
As they passed the towering sign and rounded the bend in the road, the abandoned hotel rose before the vista, windows yawning black, overgrown foliage leaking from the roof, deep fissures in the concrete walls. It was a great shadow looming at the precipice of a steep cliff overlooking a glittering volcanic lake.
The last light of the day glinted on the still water.
Maverick felt that familiar excitement, that electric current through his veins. His whole body vibrated with it.
The dark structure hulked, a huge concrete dare. Man, how he loved the broken thing, the jagged edge, the crumbling ruin. It thrilled him to see how things broke down.
“Holy shit,” said Gustavo, dropping his feet and leaning forward. He was lean and muscular, with a square jaw, and long black hair that he pulled back into ponytail, a bandanna over his head. That toothy smile, a wide arc of mischief and joy. It always connected Mav to his inner adolescent boy. “This is going to be extreme, brah.”
“This is going to be nothing if we don’t get a permit from the town council,” said Angeline from beside Hector in the back seat, tapping on her phone.
“We’ll get it,” said Maverick. They locked eyes in the mirror. “Trust me.”
“Like Mav doesn’t always get what he wants,” said Alex from the too-small third row of the vehicle. He’d been mostly quiet on this trip, except to chime in with something negative. “In the meantime, he’s going to bankrupt us if we keep having to pay everyone off.”
“It’s not a payoff,” said Maverick. “It’s a donation to build a library for the town. Just trying to grease the wheels.”
“Hmm,” said Alex. “Okay.”
Mav looked for Alex’s indulgent smile, the one that made him feel like everything was okay, but his friend was staring at his phone. Frowning. His vibe was off. Trouble at home, maybe. Alex and his wife Lucia had a new baby, and Mama was not too happy about this outing.
“I can’t just pick up and go at a moment’s notice anymore, Mav,” Alex had complained before the trip which he had vigorously opposed.
And that was exactly why Mav was never having kids or tethering himself to a woman who wanted to settle down. Angeline had an adventurer’s heart. He glanced at her in the mirror again. She and Alex had identical postures, heads bent over their respective screens, faces glowing in the light. If Angeline thought about marriage and kids, she’d never said so.
He pulled the vehicle to a crunching stop and stepped out. The air was so fresh that it made his lungs ache, everything around him a dripping, fecund green.
Maverick held up his phone and tried to frame the view before him on the screen. But there was no way to capture any of it, its beauty, its drama. The deserted structure sucked in all the light. The mineral green of the water, the hyperorange and gunmetal gray of the sky, and the rolling mountains beyond were made flat and dead by two dimensions. Even his eyes could barely take it in. You can’t squeeze the whole world into that rectangle in your hand, his dad, who refused to carry a smartphone, liked to say.
That’s not what he was trying to do. The phone—it wasn’t a box. It was a portal. He was trying to give something to his followers, many of whom rarely left their gaming chairs.
“It’s perfect,” Mav said, the silence swallowing his words. But it wasn’t really silence. The movement of the trees, the wind, the calling of birds, the rustling of undergrowth wove a chorus of whispers, a landscape of sound.
No one answered him.
Angeline was on her phone again. Having exited the vehicle, she moved purposefully toward the tilting gate at the grand entrance. Her form was a slim shadow, tiny against the towering old-growth forest.
Though he had the urge to call after her, bring her back closer to him, he stayed quiet, watching her. Her voice, but not her words, carried on the night. She sounded angry. But then she was usually angry, or at least annoyed. As the chief operating officer of Extreme, she was constantly in the middle of his circus, cracking the whip. Making sure things worked, that the haters stayed at a safe distance, that his plans came to life.
Gustavo and Hector already had the gear and were moving toward the open corpse of the hotel, laughing, their voices echoing. Gustavo Bello, or Tavo as they mostly called him, with Hector’s reluctant help would rappel down the empty elevator shaft to inspect the foundation. Extreme’s social-media director and main sidekick, Tavo could and would climb in or out of anything with agility and grace. As thin and powerful as a galvanized-steel cable, his body was seemingly not beholden to the laws of gravity that others had to obey.
Hector Cruz’s role—his official title at Extreme was producer—was to stay on the sidelines telling them to be careful, identifying potential threats, managing safety. He was the one holding the rope, pulling them out when things went FUBAR.
Alex Tang, number cruncher, was still in the vehicle.
“You coming?” Mav called.
But Alex gave him a wave, pointed at his screen. Maverick pressed down a rush of annoyance, their last conversation—fight, really—still lingering.
The numbers don’t work, Mav. We’re in major trouble.
It’s your job to make the numbers work, isn’t it?
I’m the CFO, not a fucking magician.
Mav hesitated another second, then followed Hector and Tavo, watching the beams of their flashlights dancing around the near darkness.
When he was closer, he spun around and flipped the camera so that it was his own face he saw, turned to put the hotel and the vista behind him. He knew that he should tell Angeline that he was going live, but instead he just pressed the button.
“Hey, guys.”
He was supposed to say folks or y’all. Guys was misogynistic or at least neglectful of the fact that not everyone in his vast following was male. Though, most were. Most were boys to be honest, teenagers, young adults. But he had his passel of teen girls, too. Apparently, he even did well with the ClickClackers who skewed a little older. According to Tavo, who knew about all things web and social, the ClickClackers were hot for Mav.
The likes and comments started streaming in.
ManSplain: Mav, where are you dude?
Kittycatxxx: You’re so so hot
Fairywings: I luv you mav
Glittergrrl: Marry me
Joshwuzhereyo: Douchebag
“Behind me you see the shell of what used to be Enchantments, a resort here on beautiful Falcão Island that sits in an archipelago the middle of the Atlantic.”
That wasn’t the actual name of the hotel. It’s original name was Esperança. But Mav kept stumbling over the right pronunciation, so he changed it—against Angeline’s wishes. But no one would care, right? The hotel went out of business long ago, and there was barely anything about it online. The word Enchantments sounded better to Mav than Esperança, which meant hope. And that had clearly died here long ago. It was depressing. Enchantments was optimistic, magical.
Pokemaz69: Looks like a dump
Climbergirl: Holy shit that’s scary
Bloxman: What are you doing there, man?
He usually didn’t read the comments, too distracting. But lately he’d been keeping his eye on them, looking out for one person in particular. Someone he kept blocking but who kept popping up under different accounts.
Maverick went on, walking backward, the hotel growing larger behind him.
“Built in the 1980s, this place was supposed to be the epitome of luxury, an isolated, hundred-acre paradise for the very wealthy with a grand ballroom, spa, stunning suites, private casitas, trails, tennis courts, three swimming pools.”
He paused, panned the camera around so that his viewers could catch the whole vibe—dusk, the decrepit hotel, the isolation. He lowered his voice an octave.
“But because of outrageous debt and poor management, the inaccessibility of this tiny island, and a series of, um, unfortunate incidents, Enchantments went out of business in under five years. So this place has stood empty for four decades. Ravaged by time and by looters, Enchantments is a ghost of its former glory.”
There were ten thousand people watching now. He watched as a flood of hearts streamed up the screen, name after name, a full rainbow of comments from praise to trash-talking. The whole mess of humanity scrolling by. It wasn’t long before he saw the comment he was waiting for. This time it was MavIsALiar with three skull emojis. Formerly it was MavSucks or FUMav. That’s how Maverick knew: those three skulls with their gray, menacing faces and holes for eyes.
MavIsALiar: Liar, liar.
He ignored it and continued.
“This is the location for my next challenge. The contestants are already on their way, and the game begins tomorrow. The winner will walk away with—wait for it—one million dollars, our biggest prize EVER.”
Alex was in his head again.
Mav, we do not have a million dollars to give away. You can’t promise people that.
We’ll have it when the challenge is a success. Trust me, brah.
We’re running on fumes.
But Mav shook off the negative vibe. He knew something that Alex didn’t seem to. Money was magic. You could manifest it from the universe. If you asked it to come, it would come. And he was asking.
Pokemaz69: Holy shit.
Wildonez55: A cool million!
Byteme$$: I’m so there
Climbergirl: Where do I sign?
MavIsALiar: He never actually gives the money he raises for charity.
Truthteller09: Aren’t you being investigated for fraud? Unfollow this loser.
ExtremeHottie: Ignore the haters, Mav. We know you’re a good guy.
Violenceisblue: Love you, Mav.
Eleven thousand people now.
What a rush. He pressed a button on his phone, and people from all over the world tuned in to hear what he was saying.
Him. A kid from New Jersey, a college dropout. He’d tried to explain that to his father. But the old man just didn’t seem to get it.
“What’s a follower?” his dad wanted to know. In his language, follower wasn’t a good thing.
Fifteen thousand people now.
“We have some sick sponsors for this event,” he said.
Over his phone, he saw Angeline marching toward him, tiny but mighty. A furious pixie with close-cropped jet hair and a face of hard angles: high cheekbones, arched brows, big heavily lashed dark eyes.
“What the fuck, Maverick,” she mouthed, lifting her palms. She wouldn’t screw up the live broadcast, though; he knew that. He gave her a grin, and she shook her head, put her hands on her hips.
“And I’ll be announcing those sponsors and our players soon.”
He moved in close, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“This place is crazy, you guys. The locals say it’s cursed. And you know what?” He made a show of glancing around. “I think they may be right. The energy is electric, and this is the perfect place for Extreme Hide and Seek. More to come. Peace and love.”
He cut the live, but not before he saw the comment from MavIsALiar:
Keep playing, Mav. But you will pay for what you’ve done. Where is Chloe Miranda?
Excerpted from CLOSE YOUR EYES AND COUNT TO 10 by Lisa Unger. Copyright © 2025 by Lisa Unger. Published by Park Row, an imprint of HTP/HarperCollins.
