Tamara Moss majored in Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia before going on to work as a primary school teacher. In 2017, she published her debut book in the Lintang series. The series was shortlisted for the Readings Children’s Book Prize in 2018, before Moss won the West Australian Young Readers Book Award the following year.
Now, in 2026, Moss has collaborated with #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer on a thrilling YA murder mystery that has spent more than 14 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Published by Penguin Random House, ‘The Escape Game’ follows Season 5 of a game show where teams race to complete escape rooms. It is filled with puzzles, red-herrings and plot twists, perfect for escape room fans.
But there’s an added dimension of drama — the Season 4 finale saw contestant Alicia Angelos murdered. Now her sister Sierra, a fellow contestant and the prime suspect, has returned for justice.
An Unlikely Collaboration
Moss first met Marissa Meyer through the Sailor Moon fandom, and the pair have been friends ever since.
Both writers would critique each other’s work. Moss was among the first people to read Meyer’s hit novel ‘Cinder’ before it was published in 2012.
After co-writing a Sailor Moon fanfiction, they pair realised they worked well together and it was only a matter of time before they collaborated on a novel. “But the timing had to be right, and the idea had to be right,” said Moss.
Then Meyer came up with the idea for ‘The Escape Game’ and Moss said, “I was fully on board.”
The Writing
While Moss is normally a ‘pantser’ — someone who writes by the seat of their pants, with the story developing as she goes — given the novel’s intricate mystery and numerous puzzles, Meyer insisted the novel be carefully plotted. “She was pretty insistent that we don’t just wing this one,” Moss said.
Meyer mapped out the major ‘beats’ of the story, establishing when key events, including the escape rooms and murder clues, needed to occur.
“We knew when the escape rooms had to happen, when murder clues had to happen…” Moss said.
The process relied heavily on spreadsheets, with the authors continually adjusting the story as it developed.
“It was a lot of trial and error, as it always is with writing. And continually updating the spreadsheets,” Moss said.
The novel is told through the perspectives of four characters, with Moss and Meyer each writing two. Their sections followed a regular rhythm, with the authors writing during opposite time zones.
“She would write during my nighttime, and I would write during her nighttime.”
Between the collaboration and this rhythm, the novel was finished in no time.
During the editing process, both authors worked on each other’s writing so thoroughly, their voices blended perfectly. Moss said even people who know her writing well couldn’t work out which character perspectives she wrote; and after a time, even the authors forgot which lines were theirs.
Out of Escape Rooms and into ‘The Escape Game’
Moss’ first experience with an escape room was a pirate-themed room in honour of her Lintang series. Despite having a lot of fun “shoot(ing) a kraken with a nerf gun,” she does not usually get the chance to participate in escape rooms.
Meyer however, “does them all the time,” according to Moss. “She’s got twins, and she’s been doing it with them since they were, like, 4 years old,” Moss laughed.
In 2019, Moss went to visit Meyer in the U.S, and they did a wizarding escape room together, which was “lots of fun”.
Moss said they talk about their experiences to help shape the escape rooms in the book, but Meyer designed most of those featured in the first book.
Moss laughed, “She plots out her escape rooms so meticulously, and I just… winged it.”
Despite their different approaches to writing the escape room scenes, their voices are indistinguishable. “I’ve got people to guess, ‘Which escape room do you think I did’,” said Moss, “and nobody’s ever gotten the right answer.”
Throughout the novel, there are escape room maps as fun visual aids, and further delighting escape room fanatics. Publishers sent the book to a designer, who created the graphics with input from the authors.
“I think it’s good to have, visually, for people who struggle to picture stuff in their head,” Moss said. “But it was really exciting — we were so happy to hear we were going to get maps!”
Reflecting on the “Whirlwind” Experience
For Moss, the publication of The Escape Game has been vastly different from her previous work. From the collaboration, US-based publishing process and growing popularity of the novel have all contributed to what she describes as a ‘whirlwind’ experience.
“I was having Zoom meetings at midnight to meet with the publishers who were trying to pitch why their publishing house was the best for the book,” Moss recalled, “and people were wooing us… they were so desperate to have this book.”
The experience has included extensive marketing, digital design work and U.S. tour.
“I had really lofty dreams for being an author,” Moss admitted. “This went so far beyond them.”
Advice to Aspiring Writers
Despite her success as an author, Moss does not recommend studying writing at university.
“Anyone who asks about being a writer, I always tell them, don’t do writing at university,” Moss said.
Instead, she encourages aspiring writers to focus on gaining life experience.
“You’re always going to learn how to write, as you’re writing. But the life experience, getting out there and having things to write about, is more important.”
Moss said her own experience studying Asian Studies and working as a teacher influenced her first book series, Lintang.
A Hint at Book 2
The novel’s sequel, ‘The Traitor Game’, is slated for release in April 2027.
Moss said the second book will still have escape rooms, a murder mystery and the same band of characters, while expanding the range of challenges.
“The escape rooms are bigger, grander, (and) more epic,” she said.
The sequel will also introduce more physical components in the escape rooms and compared it to ‘Ninja Warrior’.
What’s Next for Tamara Moss?
Before ‘The Escape Game’ sequel, Moss’ next novel ‘Five Voices’ will release in September of 2026.
Set In Perth, the murder mystery is perfect for fans of ‘One of Us is Lying’, ‘We Were Liars’ and ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’.
With Moss planning to focus on YA murder mysteries for the foreseeable future, we can expect many more thrilling reads from Tamara Moss.
