I enjoyed this book. It was very fast paced and I didnt want to put it down. Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this.

Author: Cameron Ward
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Age Range: Adult
Format: E-Book (arc)
Published: 23rd June 2022
Pages: 403
Rating: 3 Stars

Goodreads Synopsis

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A luxury superyacht. And a killer picking you off, one by one...

Pre-order now! A twist-filled summer thriller, perfect for fans of T.M. Logan's The Holiday and Lucy Clarke's The Castaways

When ex-marine Sarah French joins a luxury superyacht as on-board security, she's excited to get her life - and career - back on track.

Surrounded by crystal waters, it seems like the perfect place to start over.

As they head into open water, though, tensions between the crew quickly build. And when someone goes missing, Sarah has a terrifying realisation.

One of them is a killer. All of them are suspects.

To protect the other passengers, Sarah needs to uncover the killer's identity, and return the boat safely to shore.

But there's a storm on the horizon - and not all of them will make it out alive...

Cameron Ward had the good fortune to be born to a teacher and an editor in a house full of books. A philosophy graduate with a professional background in IT, he has worked in both publishing and the public sector. His previous published works, under the name Adam Southward, include the Kindle-bestselling Alex Madison series. He enjoys beach walks, paddleboarding, and stealing superyachts.

Review

Trigger Warnings: Addiction, Suicide, PTSD, Loss of a Loved One, Death and Murder.

This review may contain spoilers.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, however, this in no way influenced my opinion. Thank you to the publisher Penguin Michael Joseph UK for providing me with a copy.

After reading the synopsis of this novel and being intrigued I decided to request this on Netgalley and I was approved. I will say I did expect to enjoy this a little bit more than I did. My main issue with this novel was the pacing, the prologue intrigued me and pulled me in, however, this book was incredibly slow-moving and hard to get into so I was motivated to actually pick it up. I will say that I didn’t expect Camilla to be the person behind everything so that took me by surprise and I thought it was a great twist. Although I did know that Arno was going to be the one helping Camilla, in my opinion, it was quite predictable.

Overall, this was a decent adult mystery/thriller with a great twist however, I found it to be slow-moving at the beginning and hard to get into.

I love plots that only have a certain number of possible villains, in a remote place, cut off from the world, slowly killing off characters one by one. This had all of that plus more. It ranks well in the drama stakes, keeps the reader guessing and has a great build up of drama. I read it over a few days so lost a bit of the suspense that I would have had if I’d binged it but apart from that it was a great read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I really enjoyed this with the building tension in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a superyacht setting. Good characters and writing made it a very good read!

Couldn’t really get into this story. It interested me as I am a fan of the Below Deck series and thought it would be similar but with a thriller angle. Sorry author, I really tried to persevere but life is too short to read a book that I’m not invested in!

Ex marine Sarah seems to be suffering from trauma from a past event, but wants to get her life back in order. She accepts a job on a luxury superyacht in charge of security. The job was supposed to be easy. Babysitting a yacht and its crew for rich clients. However things quickly start to go wrong. When someone sabotage's the ship and people go missing, it's up to Sarah to find out who is responsible.

Although I found the marine and the superyacht setting interesting, the story was rather slow and didn't pick up until the end.. Sarah overlooked some obvious clues and it wasn't a surprise when it was all revealed.

I’ve never set foot on a super yacht but I’ve wandered alongside the lovely Mediterranean marinas with a touch of the green eyed monster. So the setting of the story was perfect. Sarah is an interesting character on the whole but I couldn’t get interested in the love story side plot involving her.
The plot seemed to move on quite slowly until about two thirds way throug( and then it became an action thriller which isn’t my favoured genre.

What a gripping tense story from the beginning about a x-marine Sarah French joins a luxury superyacht as on-board security, she's excited to get her life - and career - back on track.
When members of the crew goes missing and things start to go wrong with the superyacht tensions mount and Sarah has to try to stay calm while fighting her own demons.
I was totally hooked and could not put it down and read it in 1 sitting.
Loved the characters and the way the story had lots of twists to keep you guessing.
Highly recommend this book and cannot wait to read more books by this author.
Thanks to NetGalley & Penguin Michael Joseph UK,

I enjoyed the book and read it very quickly staying up late to finish it - always a good sign. Being drip-fed Sarah, an ex-marine's back story was a bit annoying; the reader could have been told at the beginning. It wouldn't have made any difference. I also thought the feminist angle was overplayed. I had assumed the book was written by a woman. It was still a good read with an actioned packed ending.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

A locked room mystery aboard a luxury super yacht. Sarah is a marine who is aboard the yacht for insurance purposes as a crew of pretty unlikable people are delivering it to Antigua. The crew are odd and have secrets and stories of their own, some simmering away.

Very tense, very claustrophobic, despite the story being set on a luxury yacht. A real page-turner.

Thank you to Net Galley and to the publishers for the advance copy.

I really enjoyed this book and absolutely loved the main character - a strong, independent female who has her own issues but gets on with it. The constant feeling of impending doom and that something wasn’t quite right made me feel unsettled and on edge as I was reading it. The twists and turns kept me guessing until the end which was a bonus. Thoroughly recommended.

The premise sucked me in and I couldn't resist the superyacht setting - perfect for a locked-room whodunnit. I'm more of a psychological suspense reader which is probably why the Die Hard reference went over my head
but would recommend this to fans of plot-driven, action-based thrillers with a kick-ass female main character.

Great book, a little bit different from the usual. Some strong female characters who made the story for me.

I’d like to thank Jen from Michael Joseph for contacting me to take part in this blog tour.

This story follows the journey of Sarah, an ex-marine who is struggling following a traumatic event, who is hired as security on board a super yacht. Whilst trying to fight her inner demons Sarah befriends the different crew members and sets to work. I liked Sarah and was intrigued by her back story, her combat skills were also very impressive and I liked how quick thinking she was.

This one did start off a little slow for me, I was waiting for the first passenger to disappear and started to question when it would happen? However when it did happen the whole book seemed to take off and the action just kept coming.

I honestly didn’t know who to trust on the yacht. Everyone seemed to have an agenda and motive, each one as unreliable as the next. Sarah certainly had her work cut out for her, trying to figure out what exactly was happening onboard The Escape. I did have a few inclines along the way which turned out to be correct but I loved following the breadcrumbs left by the authors.

As everything was building up the ending proved to be as explosive and dramatic as I had hoped. Each scene played out in my head like a movie so I’m pleased to see the movie rights have already been secured.

If you love a thriller that keeps you guessing and has you more twisted than a game of Twister then this is for you! Entertaining, engaging and explosive!

This is a fast paced and different murder mystery. I really lived the setting; onboard a luxury yacht en route to Antigua. Plus, there’s a very strong female lead in the ex marine who’s aboard as a favour to a friend. She’s providing security, but she’s anticipating a bit of relaxation and down time to recover from past events. Things start to go wrong aboard very quickly and Sarah realises that she’s going to have her work cut out when there’s a death.

The passengers are, by and large, an odious bunch, but very well depicted and the real intrigue in the story is the locked room mystery. Someone on board is a killer and it’s a race to find the culprit. The plotting is detailed and with twists and an explosive finale, this kept me gripped right from the first page. A cracking thriller which I really enjoyed.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

A fabulous fast-paced read that will keep you guessing till the end.

Sarah, a former marine, takes on a job as security on a superyacht. She takes on the job to help out a friend, in the hope, that it will be an easy job and provide some recovery time for her. The yacht is on its way to Antigua, a drop-off for the millionaire owner.

The ship sets sail ahead of schedule with a number of maintenance issues. Then things start going wrong and people start to disappear. Sarah has her work cut out to work out what is going on and to try and save the day.

I loved this book, it keeps the tension up to the end.

Thank you to #NetGalley for my advance copy of #AStrangerOnBoard by CameronWard
Ex marine Sarah French is employed as security for a super yacht sailing across the Atlantic with a skeleton crew to its new home.
No one really knows why a security detail is required until strange things start happening, equipment going missing or being damaged.
Then the first death, but who is behind it and who is next.
Hugely enjoyable, another author to add to my must read list.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a difficult one for me to review as I very much found it to be a book of two halves. One half of which I didn't really enjoy.
When I started this book I was completely invested and transported onto this super yacht (which I had a very clear picture of a certain Russian Oligarch's yacht in my mind!) Whilst I have no interest in boats and/or sailing I found it to be interesting and I was really enjoying it.
I liked the characters, who came across as real.
Then this book took a turn and I didn't enjoy it. First off, does it need to be 400 pages? NO.
I didn't enjoy the small sub plot of romance which felt shoe horned in and it really didn't need to be there as I felt there was no connection between the characters it involved.
I also felt like I was reading and reading but not really progressing through it. The pacing needed to be a bit faster for my taste.
Then came the final third of the book in which I lost all interest. The story turned in a way I wasn't expecting and I think this is what spoiled my enjoyment. It felt like it went from a mystery to an action film.
I also found it hard to care about Sarah's backstory and found myself skipping over those parts.
Overall, this started off great and I was loving it but then it unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a let down

This story got off to a slow start and I wasn’t sure I was going to see it through…

That being said I did really enjoy the main character, Sarah. She was a reason why I kept on reading, she had some depth and I was interested to see where it was all going.

What is the story line had picked up, it was very fast paced which kept me reading. However, the plot is very unrealistic to me.

I also guessed one of the largest twists, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it didn’t shock me.

I’ve gone with a 3/5 for this book. Didn’t laugh it didn’t hate it… I probably won’t go around recommending it.

Interesting setup, the whole thing is very atmospheric set at sea and I enjoyed our protagonist. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the BBC show Vigil. Unfortunately it just took so long to really get going that I wasn't as invested by the time it did. But it's nice to see such a well developed cast of characters, considering there are quite a few. And it certainly did build up some decent tension.