I really enjoyed this, maybe not as much as CJ Tudor's other novels but it was still a read good read. The multiple perspectives was interesting and i liked how it was used effectively. The characters were generally written well but i found after a while that a couple of them blended together and i was confused by who each one actually was. The atmosphere in the book was good and the snowy setting made it feel even more bleak, tense and oppressive. I found how it wrapped up to be done fairly well and thought that it was a solid and interesting conclusion.

I must admit The Burning Girls is the only book that I have read by CJ Tudor. I loved it that much I couldn't wait to get my teeth into The Drift….And wow what a book! It sure as hell didn't disappoint.

What can I say but this book is brilliantly written. I felt right there in the story when she sets the scene when Hannah is trapped on a coach.Meg wakes in a cable car above the snowy mountains.Then you have Carter in an isolated ski Chalet. A storm is moving in. You can feel the coldness, the atmosphere, the tension it will send shivers down your spine. I for one would not have liked to have been in that situation.

I was hooked from start to finish. It is scary, addictive, proper on the edge of your seat reading. I feel like Tudor is the millennium's Stephen King. She is known for that supernatural element in her stories. So there I am waiting for that and boom I am thrown sideways with something I totally wasn't expecting.

It is fast paced and makes you question the characters and want to know what is going to happen next and who is the killer!

The Drift would make a brilliant film. I loved everything about it, giving it all the stars!

I was not expecting this. i struggled to put this down.
The story starts with Hannah being in a coach crash. She is one her way to "The Retreat" from her posh school. The pupils that were in the crash were allegedly being moved to safety after there is an outbreak of "The Virus". At first they are baffled by the crash, some are dead or injured, but they figure out that everything is not as it should be.
We also get Meg's story. She has woken up on a cable car which is stuck and hanging above the snow. The passengers all appear to have been drugged and when they wake up, one of them is dead. They are also heading for the retreat, but as willing participants in a trial to find a cure for the virus.
The story then switches to the Retreat and what is happening there. They are having problems with power outages. This in turn is compromising their security as they need the measures they have to keep out the Whistlers - people who are infected by the virus.
As the book progresses the connections between the stories start to become clearer and the story gathers more pace.. It is a really good read.

Wow just wow!
What a gripping read.
I've seen that some reviewers have said they found the three different scenarios/narrators confusing but I didn't find that in the slightest. I couldn't see the link between then initially but then all became clear. Until then it was like reading instalments of three separate stories - all compelling in their own way.
This book has a big impact following the last few years with covid restrictions etc, how different it could all have turned out.
It would make an amazing film as long as you could stomach the more gruesome parts.

During a deadly snowstorm Hannah awakens to mangles metal and shattered glass as the coach on which she's travelling has careered off the road.

Meg wakes in a cable car suspended high above a snowy mountain.

Carter is marooned in an isolated ski chalet with a dodgy generator. Outside as the storm rages a killer lurks.

Straight away I was confused by this story. Three different scenarios with three different groups of people. It makes it difficult to know who is who as all the characters have little backstory. I have loved the previous books by this author but this one just didn't hold my interest at all. Whilst it's well enough written I didn't feel anything for the characters. Sorry, but it just didn't work for me.

Interesting postCovid story. Is this how we would have been living now has vaccines not been discovered. Lots of interesting characters.

A great read with the story being told from three points of view which at the end all tie in nicely.
Whilst reading I was not sure which way the book was going to go and how the three stories would all join at the end but it did and came to a satisfying conclusion.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book was addictive reading for me!
It was almost like reading three stories in one book to start with, they had common themes but other than the link of where two groups were heading, it was difficult to see what tied them together. This did make it easy to switch between each of the voices telling the story as each had a different part of the story that needed to be told.
The way the author conducted all the parts to merge and blend into the finale was masterful and makes me want to hunt out more of their books!

I really enjoyed this one!

This is going to be difficult to review without spoilers, but imagine if The Walling Dead was set in snowy mountains and you will be getting the right vibe!

There are three main perspectives throughout the book -

- Hannah who has just come round to find the coach she was travelling on has crashed and she is determined to get the survivors to safety.
- Meg who is stranded in a cable car after a power cut with a group of strangers who have no idea how they are going to get down.
- Carter who is based at a mountain retreat where everyone is just trying to survive.

Set in a dystopian future world that has been hit by a plague-like virus, the three storylines follow the survivors in their missions to get to safety and remain safe for as long as possible.
It is brutal and probably not the most enjoyable read, but it is certainly very entertaining and almost cinematic. I could definitely see it making a great film or series.

Not my usual read and I was quite shocked at the bleak telling of the tale. However I did keep reading as I wanted to know where it was going and how the three different scenarios all fitted together. The story was almost believable after the recent pandemic but it was quite brutal and didn’t really give much hope for human kindness.

A claustrophobic chiller thriller set in the not-too-distant future, The Drift is a suspenseful and exhilarating survival story chocker block full of tension.

The story is told over three timelines, and each begins in a brilliantly impactful way. As they each follow a different set of characters in very different situations, you can feel a link running through them as we are slowly fed more information about how they came to be in this situation.

What kept me so gripped is because of how well Tudor managed to explore three so different catastrophes in an already catastrophic world. There's a bus crash, a broken-down cable car, and an abandoned ski chalet. All would have been fascinating stories on their own. But without giving anything more away, the way these stories came together completely blew my mind. It was incredibly clever, and I was not expecting that at all.

We all encountered a lockdown due to a fast-spreading virus recently, so the events of the story felt all too real at times. But I love how Tudor has used our experiences of how a virus spreads and how it is handled to influence her story. There are moments you can relate to, but then she brilliantly takes it up a notch to show the extremes of such an event if that virus were more deadly.

The only reason I haven't given this a full five stars (4.5 rounded up here) is that I expected it to be... dirtier... for a CJ Tudor book. I wanted it to be a little darker, a little more gruesome. I was expecting the skin-melting horror of The Thing, but the gore was very mild, so it didn't make me squirm in my seat as I had hoped.

The Burning Girls terrified me, and I always get a chill when I think about The Chalk Man, but the same level of fear was missing for me to rank more highly for me. However, the atmosphere is still very strong, and I'm happy that this will appeal to a more mainstream audience, so I hope that it gets more people reading this amazing author!

C.J.Tudor is a must read author for me. Like many authors I've enjoyed some of her books a lot more than others, The Chalk Man, The Burning Girls and A Sliver Of Darkness (her recent creepy / dystopian short story collection) have been my favourites.

I'm pleased I read A Sliver Of Darkness which prepared me for The Drift.

In a dystopian post-plague world there are three separate groups stranded in the snow.
There's the crashed coach, the stranded cable car and the Retreat.

We aren't told much at the start, and that's the way I like. There's a drip feed of information and reveals, and ever present threat and risk in each of the three strands.

All three of the strands keep moving, but as there is quite a lot going on I didn't find it a particularly fast read.

I'd class it as a dystopian survival novel with plenty of action, it's fairly bleak. Think Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but with a lot more going on and less navel gazing.

It's definitely not one of my usual genres but C.J.Tudor does it very well. It's clear how the impacts of the Covid pandemic could have inspired and informed this novel.

I hope finds it's readership, it's original and very well executed.

Thanks to Netgalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House

Wow, this was phenomenal!
It’s ‘I am Legend’ meets current-day coronavirus with more survivors than the former but fewer than the latter!
I love apocalyptic films and TV shows, but I think this is the first book I’ve ever read of this genre.
This is a tough review to write without giving away any spoilers, so I’ll keep it short and sweet!
I enjoyed all three perspectives throughout the book and how they all had parts of the story, and without all three, you wouldn’t have a whole. We have Hannah, who wakes up on a coach after it has crashed. She has a take-charge personality and tries to get the survivors to safety.
Then there is Meg, who wakes up thousands of feet in the air in a cable car with a group of strangers and a dead body. It’s every man/woman for themselves to survive this perilous situation.
Finally, we have Carter, who is a mercurial character. He has a facial deformity, but it doesn’t seem to faze him; all that matters to him is his mission. He is based at the ‘Retreat’ where everything starts to fall apart, and if Carter wants to win, he needs to do everything to survive.
Everything is superbly knitted together as the story ends, and nothing is left unravelled. It was very well done, and I was gripped until the end. I wasn’t too keen on the very end but enjoyed the book too much as a whole to let it bother me too much as I’m not sure what other way it could have gone. I didn’t want to stop reading; I felt invested in this world and wanted more.
I loved this book, and I’m going to be telling everyone about it, and I think I’ll be remembering it for a while to come!
Best book I’ve read in a while!!!

The Drift by C.J. Tudor

A huge fan of Tudor, unfortunately, I found the Drift boring and pedestrian.

Set in a dystopian world after the planet has been ravaged by plague, we follow 3 main characters all caught in a snowstorm on route to the retreat one of the last safe havens.
The story flips back and forth between all three characters as we slowly peel through the layers of each character's story.
This is the problem. I found all them very similar and none of them likable. How many times can I be told it's cold before it gets really boring? Also, the story was so underdeveloped.
What is the Academy?
Why were said people there?
Who was chosen to go to the retreat and why?
I could go on trust me.
This is a complete departure from Tudor's other books where we get that Stephen King vibe and it wasn't for me.
An OK read.
I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishing house for the ARC.

The multiple POVs in this book were great and kept me intrigued the whole time. I was never quite sure where the story was going to take me. I loved how it all wrapped up as well. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one!

This is a story set in the not too distant future. It is about three groups of people, all with complicated backstories, dealing with the aftermath of an apocalypse and trying to survive in very inhospitable conditions.

I can't say I enjoyed this book. It is sad and upsetting with little let up in the general downbeat mood of the story. But then I guess no one expects an apocalypse to be a bundle of laughs. This book is probably the author's most brutal to date, for me at least, and she did a fantastic job of making me feel absolutely miserable throughout. Having said that, this is an incredible story with very well drawn characters and plenty to think about for some time to come.

What a thrill of a ride, thank you so much for the advanced reading copy.
This story follows three groups of people, all of whom are trapped one way or another, on a snowy mountainside. There’s been a deadly outbreak and humans are being infected and left to roam the wilderness.
The story skips between each group of people which sounds confusing but it was really easy to follow. In fact I couldn’t put this book down. It certainly got me out of my reading slump. CJ Tudor is the master of a mystery thriller novel and she hasn’t disappointed with this one. Every chapter left me wanting more. Highly recommended.

Three different situations but each with similar problems, all hoping to avoid a deadly virus. I enjoyed the storyline and thought the characters well described..
I have to say, however, it’s not for the faint hearted and it does get a bit complicated towards the end but it is worth a read, nonetheless

I will firstly say I have read almost all of this authors books and do really enjoy her writing and how she creates characters/atmosphere. So I do look forward to her next books and this one was no exception. The book surrounds three different groups of people and it is tense tense tense.

Carter and crew are in an abandoned ski resort, they call home and work on the vaccine to deal with the deadly virus that has swept the globe. Meg wakes up with strangers in a cable car suspended in the air, they are all knocked out and start waking and trying to recall how they got there. Hannah and her travelling companions are on a coach after escaping from the boarding school when they end up trapped, danger all around and no way to call for help!

Ooft the atmosphere and tension, some of it gave me The Things vibes, you know something bad could be in someone next to you and it is life threatening. Also the isolation all the group have, the guys at the retreat/chalet can come and go but there is still immanent threat about so they are effectively stranded although maybe not as bad as the cable car and bus guys.

There are a lot of characters and three separate scene settings which I don't always love as it can be distracting however Tudor writes it well you keep track no problem and when something kicks off on one group you don't want to leave to the next chapter. Then you are with the other group and its the same thing, I just wanted to know everything already.

Tudor keeps you on your toes and absolutely immersed in the carnage that follows as each group tries to survive. I had no idea where we were heading or what each endgame was going to be, that isn't always easy for authors especially when you have voracious readers. Yet she keeps it fresh every time and in this book we get three separate groups/happenings/stories that keep you hooked and guessing.

I think I only have one more story of hers to read and I so look forward to it, I think Master King gave a favourable quote to one of her works and he wasn't wrong. Exciting, shocking, horrific scenes, a deadly virus and in amongst trying to survive some humans will still be awful and some will show amazing feats of strength, loyalty and character, 4/5 for me this time.


****I will add the review to my blog closer to publication date****

I have to confess that this is the first book by CJ Tudor that I've read ... and it did not disappoint!
A fast paced thriller full of twists, turns and gruesome bits set in a post apocalyptic world where a virus has taken hold .. I really liked that the story was told from three different people who are in three different situations and although none of the characters felt overly likeable you can't help but want to know what's happening and who is responsible.
I don't want to say much because the story is quite involved and complicated and it would be so easy to spoil it for people .. so go read it! An ideal wintery read for people who like gory apocalypse thrillers!