Another brilliant book by CJ Tudor! Once again, she transported me into a twisted, tense world, and I wasn't able to put the book down until the last page (and also at that point, I tried to keep scrolling because I didn't want it to end).

The drift is such a compelling read, slowly unraveling itself with tiny revelations suggesting the links between the three storylines, until it finally all becomes clear, and WOW! I don't want to say too much to avoid spoiling the magic, but all I can say is that at some point I had a headache trying to figure out how the characters were related to each other. I had my suspicions, but the book was so well thought out I kept changing my mind and had new theories after each chapter. Exactly what I love!

Recommended to everyone who loves a thriller, this book is the perfect read for this cold season.

Thank you NetGallery and Penguin Random House for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge fan of C J Tudor and couldn't wait to read The Drift. It did not disappoint. An incredibly nail biting, distopian thriller/horror that had me hooked from the first line. I could not put it down. So many twists and turns and a killer ending.

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.

Carter is part of a disparate group working on a vaccine at the isolated chalet housing The Retreat, there are matters of concern happening here too. None of the groups are aware of each other, and in this thrilling narrative, a locked room mystery, everyone has secrets and little is as it appears, and can anyone be trusted? Not only is there the threat of the virus, other dangers lurk, inside and outside, dark and murky activities, a killer, the wilderness, and the terrifying 'whistlers' in the woods. What could possibly connect the different groups? With the survivors tested to the limits of their sanity, will they make it through and survive? This is a atmospheric, highly suspenseful and nail biting chiller of a thriller with a wonderful sense of location, with numerous surprising twists and turns, and adversarial group dynamics, will they only look after number 1 or look to save others as well?

I can see many readers loving this shocker of a novel. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This is a fine example of a bait and switch. Although the information in the blurb is technically correct (the best form of correct, as we all know) it's actually completely misleading for the actual story. This reads like a man-vs-nature story, but there is actually an apocalypse going on in the background that we only learn about as the story goes on. The information we get is quite bitty and it wasn't until about 75% in that I felt I fully understood what was going on - and even at that, there were small points that didn't matter to the story but that I wasn't clear on and would have liked more information about. (How intelligent are the Whistlers? How do they survive when there's noone around to eat?)

However, leaving that out of the equation, I really enjoyed the story. It's well written and moves fast. Tudor has a few habits in her writing that show up - two different characters, in different groups, had 'a shadow of an idea flick(ed) across (her) mind' for example - which can make it tricky to remember which group we're with, but overall I didn't have too much trouble.

I caught on to the big 'twist' just before we started being told about it. It was clever, I'll say that, but I don't want to spoil anything (more) so I won't go further than that!

Overall I enjoyed this, and I recommend it - just be aware that what the blurb says is not exactly what you're getting!

This is a fabulous twisting, turning book, which keeps you guessing all the way through. Three intertwined plot lines weave together cleverly. It is gripping, and full of surprises. I haven't read this author before, but I certainly will be getting more books by her now. Highly recommend.

CJ Tudor seems to get better and better!
This one's a bit of a departure from her previous books, but no less chilling ... literally!! The action plays out on a mountain, in the midst of a horrific snowstorm, in a world that's been ravaged for over 10 years by a virus that makes Covid look tame. Tudor has taken the idea of a global pandemic and turned it into the stuff of nightmaresxworse than any of the horrors that the Corona virus put us through.

So ... at the top of this mountain is the mysterious Retreat, the remaining team are all wary of each other, enclosed in The Retreat, surrounded by forests that hide wild animals and the dangerous "Whistlers". They're unaware that there are equal dangers lurking within the walls where they find safety.

Down on the middle of the mountain a cable car that was transporting 6 'recruits' to The Retreat has snapped and is lying precariously in the snow - literally hanging by a thread (well, a cable". Who are these recruits and why were they all willing to participate in a trial at The Retreat when very little was known about what they would need to do?

Further down the mountain, a bus-load of students, also on their way to The Retreat, has crashed and overturned in a snowdrift. Many of the occupied were killed on impact, but some have survived. They're all from the elite Invictus Academy, selected to be removed to the safety of The Retreat, remote and isolated so that no harm can reach them and they cannot be infected by the still rapidly spreading virus.

Every single one of these people, at The Retreat, in the cable car and on the bus, has a secret. What those secrets are, and how they connect each of the characters and their stories makes for absolutely riveting, page-turning reading!!

CJ Tudor has written a fascinating, gripping story about what a group dynamic looks like when strangers are thrown together in dire circumstances, hoping to rely on each other, only to discover shocking information that could jeopardize all of their lives. Can they work together or are they only willing to save themselves?

This has all the wow-factor elements of another bestseller for this author who puts her all into ensuring that her readers get NO sleep as they keep reading "just one more page"!

I am a big fan of C J Tudor so jumped at the chance to review The Drift. I was hooked straightaway and spent too long trying to figure out how the storylines would linkup. There were plenty of twists & characters who weren’t what they seemed but this definitely added to the suspense. A thrilling read that I highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for the advanced copy.

I just reviewed THE DRIFT by C. J. Tudor. #CJTudor2022 #NetGalley
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An immersive and thrilling post-apocalyptic novel full of pressure, great characterisation and suspense. At times chilling and genuinely unnerving, this edge of your seat read is probably Tudor’s finest book to date.

CJ Tudor has done it again, this is a brilliant thriller! It is really three stories, firstly there are a group of people in the mountains at a place called the Retreat, higher up the mountain there’s a broken down cable car suspended in the air with people on their way to to the Retreat and further down the mountain there’s a crashed bus full of students who had been destined for the Retreat, it is full of twists and turns just like all of CJ’s books.

All this is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has killed or has infected the majority of the population. The wilderness around the three groups is full of wild animals on the hunt for food and the feared Whistlers.

This is close to home after what we’ve all been through the last few years and gives a frightening vision of what humans would do to stay alive and survive in the midst of a virus that either kills you or turns you into the walking dead.

This is a horror thriller, there are deaths from the outset and violent murders throughout and the paranoia amongst the survivors in the three locations is palpable The three stories are told from the perspective of three narrators. On the coach is Hannah, in the cable car there’s Meg and at the retreat is Carter, these three and the other survivors with them all have secrets they want to keep hidden. Who is the killer amongst them?

This is a suspenseful dystopian read and I loved the revelations as the book hit the final third ending with a very satisfying conclusion, I could not put it down, The Drift is out on 20th Jan 2023. 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Excellent read with great characters and a really good storyline. I would recommend this book.

Every bit as dark and twisty as I’ve come to expect from CJ Tudor. Very claustrophobic at times and one that I ploughed through in two sittings!

Three sets of survivors - a group of students in a crashed coach, a group of volunteers in a stranded cable car and a group of people keeping the mysterious Retreat running. All caught up in a deadly storm but also trying to survive while a deadly virus is infecting the population. The students and the volunteers were on their way to the Retreat but someone doesn't want them to get there. Those at the retreat are trying to keep the supply of plasma going so that a vaccine can be made for the infection. Can any of them survive?

A brilliant read from start to finish - told through a survivor from each of the group the story keeps you gripped from the start. Loved it!

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House and C J Tudor for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

This book is getting a lot of positive buzz, so I seem to be out-of-sync with my fellow readers, as it didn't work for me.

I was vaguely aware of C.J. Tudor as a popular writer of thrillers, and thrillers ain't really my thing, but the blurb for this suggested it was more of a horror, so I thought I'd give it a go.

First up, I don't really see it as a horror. I guess the intended horror creds are:
1) there's an apocalypse due to a COVID-style outbreak
2) ...leading to some infected survivors who could be seen a zombie-ish if you squinted a bit
3) characters often casually enact brutal violence like shooting each other in the face.

But those elements do not a horror novel make. There was nothing remotely scary throughout.

The book focuses on 3 main characters who are all in tricky situations during the outbreak - one stuck in a cable car, one stuck in an overturned bus in a snow drift, and one in a mountain-top "retreat" where people are experimented on in the new of finding a vaccine. For most of the book, these 3 stories don't intersect. Instead, we have short choppy chapters, often ending on cliffhangers, flipping between the 3 leads. The structure became very dull quickly and there were several times when I, ahem, drifted off.

I can't deny I was compelled to continue and find out what happened following these cliffhangers, but, much like my experience of Dan Brown novels, each cliffhanger was quickly resolved then 5 pages later the next cliffhanger is dropped and on we go to character B. At some point, I realised there was no real depth to the story and I was just chugging through it trying to reach the end and get answers.

The biggest problem with the book, for me, lay with the characters. They were just so samey. I genuinely got confused between two of the leads, Meg and Hannah, because they read like exactly the same person. Yes, they had individual backstories but the way they spoke and acted made them seem identical to me. There are similar problems with the supporting cast of each of the 3 narratives - Sarah and Cassie are both the "annoying whiny/snarky woman who tries the patience of MegHannah", and Lucas seems to be Miles but German. Other members of the supporting cast are utterly forgettable and no more than names.

There is a plot twist near the end which is a nice idea but by that point I was beyond caring really.

Fans of light-weight, fast-paced thrillers may enjoy this but the flat characters ultimately meant it was not for me.

I have been a fan of C.J. Tudors books for a while now and was excited to receive her latest offering. The drift by is set in a post-apocalyptic world this is a twisty thriller/horror.
The story is written in three different scenarios. A coach crash in a snowstorm Hannah and a few other students are trapped. They were on the way to ‘The retreat, Meg and others are stranded in a cable car in a snowstorm and Carter is an employee at ‘the retreat ‘and looking for his friends which are all sheltering and surviving from a deadly virus that has wiped out most of the world and the ‘whistlers’ who are the people who are infected.
Thank you, Penguin Michael Joseph, for a copy of ‘The Drift’. I was really looking forward to this and it is quite different to other books the author has written. I like the concept of this story of the three different story lines and each character fight for survival. But I would have liked more of how the pandemic came to be. But it had been raging some years before the storyline started in this book. It was fast paced and twisty and sensed that each character had their own agenda. But when the three sides of the story came together I found it quite flat and a bit confusing, 3.5 stars from me.

Wow. After being teased earlier in the year by her excellent short story collection, I jumped at the chance at reading The Drift and I wasn’t disappointed. A violent, fast paced thriller inter-twining three stories set high in the mountains during a snow storm. Add to this mix, murder suspects, paranoia, a deadly virus and whistling walking dead and you truly get an unforgettable, action packed page turner.

"You are either a good guy or you're a survivor. And the earth is full of dead good guys."

This quote very well reflects the tone of the whole book. Set in an apocalyptic world where deadly pandemic kills mercilessly, we follow 3 groups of people fighting for their lives. A group of students trapped in a crashed bus buried in a snowdrift, second group stranded in a cable car and last group in a remote challet where things start to go wrong. No one trusts anyone as everyone is hiding a secret and not all can survive.

The Drift is different from the author's other books but it's very good. It's an intense thriller full of twists and dead bodies, and I loved it. It's way better than I described it and I highly recommend it. Perfect for the spooky season and winter months.

Many thanks to the publisher for my review copy in exchange for an honest review.

A very messed up story which is gripping. It takes a bit of time to truly understand exactly what is happening, when and where but such a different tale!

Great pacy outbreak thriller, as you’d expect from CJ Tudor, with shades of 28 days later and the like from the infected (not zombies, but dangerously close!).
With a clever splitting of focus across three main characters and settings (all in presumably close geography), you have the usual fun in trying to work out how the individual stories will link up - and I didn’t see the eventual reveal coming. I grant that I read most of the book jet lagged so may have missed some early clues but when it clicked I was genuinely surprised which is always a joy.

Great holiday read.

My word, what a book this is! Three locked room mysteries in one with compelling characters and an overarching storyline that was just incredibly clever. Some real horror moments in here that I absolutely loved - highly recommended.

Another chilling read by this clever author who repeatedly has the ability to produce gripping thrillers. Set in the freezing snowy surroundings this story has elements of horror and mystery that had my nerves rattling throughout. The plot of this novel really made me think as I tried to fit the pieces together and decipher the links.
The Drift is almost three stories in one as there is a coach crash, broken down cable car and a secret scientific building all in an unforgiving mountain region. The surrounding scenery may be beautiful with its sparkling snow but its occupants are not to be trusted.
Be prepared to be shocked as you unravel this exciting story.
My thanks to publishers Michael Joseph and Net Galley for the advance copy.