What a thrilling read! THE DRIFT is a no holds barred, action packed, frightening, gruesome, brutal and utterly compelling read.

From the first chapter I knew I had something special. But I was not prepared for how much this book dominated my life. I couldn’t put it down, I could stop thinking about it and I couldn’t wait to pick it up and read more! I was hurtling towards the ending and forgetting to breathe and at the same time trying to slow down and not let it be over.

CJ Tudor has recently written a book of short stories called A SLIVER OF DARKNESS and having read that, this book is a like a penultimate ending, a full story, the finished masterpiece that all the others were hinting towards.

Set in, what I presume is a not to distant future / or alternate reality. This story plays close to home, pre pandemic, it’s what could’ve been - or is it what will be? That alone makes this book so terrifying. Having survived a pandemic, you as a reader, can’t help immediately feel the terror and fear that Tudor’s characters are living amongst.

CJ is on top form with this book. I feel that her skills as a storyteller have become more and more incredible each year. And she has/is finely honing her own personal stamp as a crime fiction writer. Her words are dark and brutal, and yet they delight in the insightful and ugly. Her style is horror and supernatural mixed seamlessly with psychological crime fiction. She creates characters that aren’t likeable, aren’t perfect, are not heroes and are unreliable - and yet I’m always rooting for them and completely obsessed with them.

What can I say other than what has already been said? I never regurgitate the back cover and I hate spoilers. So all I’ll say is, this is the book to watch out for! If you haven’t heard of it yet - you will do very soon because everyone will be reading it. And if you don’t read this book, spoiler alert… you’ll be the only one!

Thanks to NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I lost an entire nights sleep to this book as I literally couldn’t put the book down.

The Chalk Man is for me still her best ever book, but….. The Drift almost knocks it off it’s pedestal!
Three groups of people, locked inside three different locations but with one thing in-common, The Retreat.
As they all fight to stay alive a heavy snow storm threatens to kill them.
Told from the view points of a member of each group.
Hannah, a young medical student and her group find themselves the only survivors of a fatal bus crash. Trapped inside with the dead and the dying as the bus begins to be buried under the snow, with no way of calling for help.
Meg wakes up trapped inside a cable car that has broken down close, but not close enough to the top of a mountain with five other people, that is, if you count the dead man! With no means of contacting anyone, no food and water, all their lives hang, quite literally, in the balance.
Carter and his group are already at The Retreat and have been for several years but now with the ferocity of the storm the power has been cut and the backup generator in its last legs, unless they can fix it their world is about to turn black and whatever security they did have will die with the warmth and the light.
Nothing is ever fully black and white and as everyone struggles and fights to stay alive their lives are about to burst into Technicolor!
Full of twists and turns aplenty especially as it seems everyone has their own secrets and everyone is hiding something!
Blood and guts galore, what’s not to love 🖤

I normally love C.J. Tudors books but The Drift doesn’t seem as good. The characters are really unlikeable and the story seems all over the place. It’s a great idea for a book but didn’t grab me like her previous novels have.
Thanks to Netgalley and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.