The Drift: The spine-chilling ‘Waterstones Thriller of The Month’ from the author of The Burning Girls

Product Information

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. After she was evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors. They’ll need to work together to escape—with their sanity and secrets intact. While writing the Chalk Man she ran a dog-walk C. J. Tudor was born in Salisbury and grew up in Nottingham, where she still lives with her partner and young daughter. Tudor realistically captures the horrors of a deadly pandemic through depicting a fictional society that cleverly mimics our own. If you like high body counts, hopelessness, despair and the Walking Dead, this one may be for you. I'm sorry I wasted my time! This marks a change in direction from CJ Tudor's usual fare, a chilling, dystopian, nightmare of a thriller that ventures into horror territory with a world devastated by a dangerous virus. There are 3 storylines with 3 separate groups in a frozen mountain scenario with the heaviest of snow blizzards. Hannah finds herself trapped, awakening as one of the survivors amidst the dead on a overturned bus with a missing driver, and no means of getting help. They need to work together with the each other if they are to stand any chance of survival. Meg, a former detective, is on mountain cable car transporting 6 volunteer 'recruits' heading to a research institute working on a vaccine, called The Retreat, knowing next to nothing of the experimental trials. The cable has broken, and the group of strangers are in the most precarious of situations, with no idea of how it happened.

Unfortunately, even though I generally love Tudor's work, this one fell flat for me personally. It hurts me to say, but I actually feel like my 3-star rating is a bit generous. Cut to a coach crash. Hannah, a medical student, comes around after a road accident. Though she’s not seriously hurt, some of the other passengers have been killed. The survivors help the wounded and assess their dire situation. They were en route to the Retreat, but its location was kept secret from them. They are all participating in a research project and are without phones. When the snowstorm hits they are completely cut off from the outside world. Hannah realises one of the dead has signs that the virus had got hold of him – he was already dying. If the rescuers know this they may not come at all. Was the crash even an accident…? C. J. Tudor was born in Salisbury and grew up in Nottingham, where she still lives with her partner and young daughter. As with Ms. Tudor’s earlier books, The Drift is intricately plotted. There are the mysteries you know are being slowly revealed, and then there are the ones you did not even know were mysteries until the answers were presented. It is essentially three separate mystery/survival stories, although connections between the three stories are slowly revealed. The story is a bit of a slow burn, all about the small group dynamics and shifting alliances, but it definitely builds momentum. I liked how the three stories ultimately came together, even though I found the ending a bit unsatisfying.A survival thriller set during a snowstorm? Yes, please! Never mind that it’s a dystopian future during a pandemic, because the virus is not the focus of the story. We are talking about survival.

All three groups have been facing life and death with a horrible virus that has changed life as they used to know it. The virus is on everyone's mind all the time and surviving it might be some people's worst nightmare depending on how a person is left to "survive". Maybe facing death and getting it over with is better than facing what horrors life has to offer. Why is no rescue coming? What are they trying to escape from? And who are the terrifying Whistlers? Suffice to say, I continue to greatly enjoy C.J.'s books. They definitely put the fright in all who read her stories. This book provided more than a scary story, it also provided so many ways in which to discuss the events and the outcome of the story. Definitely a wonderful story of survival and the ways in which we challenge Mother Nature who will "always find a way."I don't want to get into too much more to avoid spoilers because this is best going into blind but I'll say two things: the relation to Covid scared me and I'll never let my cat kiss me on the face again. Ok I will, but just saying. I can't wait to see what else this author has up the sleeve! This one will have me terrified for a few more days! Hannah is a medical student on board a bus leaving an academy with fellow students. They've taken to the icy highway in a snowstorm. After some time, the bus hits an ice patch and it's hurled over a cliff and into a dense snow bank. The doors and windows are jammed. Escape doesn't seem likely. Hannah takes charge only to meet unspeakable challenges. Students begin to show symptoms..... What exactly is The Academy, what was taught there, why were certain students selected to go to The Retreat? Why did they choose to participate?

Interestingly, the people in the coach and the people in the gondola were all trying to get to The Retreat. It's unclear exactly what this Retreat is, but it's definitely viewed as a safe haven against a dangerous world. A highly contagious virus with a 75% death rate has wiped out civilization leaving just a few survivors. Those who caught the virus are either dead or become something else... Meg awakens out of her dream or nightmare that she can't quite remember to a room filled with windows and all she can see is a blizzard of wind and snow but No, not a room though, she is on a cable ski car hundreds of feet up high in the mountains with several other people bundled in heavy snow suits fast asleep. But why? Meg has no recollection of getting on the ski lift or even leaving her room.There were so many things I did not like about this book but I'll just touch on some of them. You all have read the blurb and know that there are three groups of people, one hanging from a cable car on a mountainside, another in a bus that has crashed on the same mountain and a group at The Retreat itself that is running the whole operation and having problems with the generator and power outages.

Clark gazes out the immense windows with the most beautiful scenic view from the resort known as "the retreat". A snowstorm is building and it's his turn to travel to the village for new supplies, one of the duties he despises the most. Clark knows another storm is brewing at the retreat but he is unsure of everything involved and knows he must be very, very careful of the next steps he takes or one of them may be his last. Meg wakes disoriented, gradually realising she is one of six people in a cable car suspended mid-way to a mountain top with no power. Four others remember nothing after their respective breakfasts in the hotel that morning. Were they drugged and brought here, is this the way to the Retreat? Eventually they turn over the sixth person, apparently still asleep on the floor, but he’s been stabbed to death. Was the killer one of the them? A truly terrifying, ice-cold chiller from the master of macabre. C.J. Tudor should be on everyone's must-read list' CHRIS WHITAKER There are A LOT of characters to keep straight and I struggled with that. In addition, I found the two main women, HANNAH and MEG, to be interchangeable with little to distinguish one from the other.London-based Buccaneer has been on a roll recently. Last week, its Irvine Welsh drama for ITVX and BritBox International bagged star Dougray Scott a best actor win at the International Emmys, and it is making a pair of shows for Paramount+, Tudor’s The Burning Girls and The Doll Factory. Halcyon, meanwhile, counts Hunters and Disney+’s The Mysterious Benedict Society among its credits. C.J. Tudor may well be on her way to becoming this generation’s Stephen King. Since making her debut with 2018’s The Chalk Man —which won the Barry Award, the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel, and the Strand Critics Award for Best Debut Novel—she has earned a legion of fans who will snap up her books by virtue of the name on the cover. Tudor’s suspense novels have always had an element of horror, often straddling the line between this world and the otherworldly—a style notably evidenced in last year’s stop-gap short story collection, A Sliver of Darkness . Now, she makes her much anticipated return to full-length form with The Drift . This book is in the horror apocalypse thriller genre. It did not scare me at all. Everything that happens in this book happens during a pandemic. The pandemic is so different. Also in hazardous conditions is the group of characters trapped in a gondola lift after a power loss. And finally, we follow a group of individuals who live in a large mountaintop estate known as The Retreat, as the estate's defenses begin to fail due to inclement weather and power issues. I LOVE survival stories and this one is that. Not only is the virus so deadly, but also the cold element comes into play. There are wild animals, the "infected beings" and other humans that are out there to get you! LOVE the reveal, how it came together was very clever and probably the best part. If I didn't sit on it, I would have given this two stars. I was kinda mad to tell you the truth. I guess I do care after all. 3.5⭐