Please ensure your seat is in the upright position and buckle up because you are in for one hellva ride! I was pumped to be approved for Clare Mackintosh's newest thriller as I love her other novels especially I Let You Go. This heart pumping thriller does not disappoint and that ending!! WOAH! WHAT!?? Seriously do yourself a favor and read this book. It was a perfect companion through my quarantine.

I absolutely love Clare Mackintosh! Hostage is an edge of your seat tense thriller - just don't read it on your next flight! Mina is a flight attendant and is given an impossible choice on a non-stop flight from London to Sydney. What would you do in her situation??
I recommend this book to anyone!

This is such a fantastic novel.
Mina is a strong woman who is faced with a horrific choice, actually we moms would not even view this as a choice...your. child or something else? no question.
I loved the format of the two storylines, Mina dealing with the crisis at hand in the sky, while Adam is at home, dealing with relationship with their daughter and his gambling addiction.
This couple has marital problems and the very real issue of attachment disorder with their child, Sophia,, who was adopted.

I just felt this suspense novel was excellent, good suspense, family drama and the dual viewpoints make this a winner.
Can't wait to see what this author writes next!!

Mina is a flight attendant on 20 hour inaugural flight from London to Sydney. Leaving behind a husband and five year old daughter, she reflects on her troubled marriage and daughter. Shortly after takeoff, she receives a note telling her she must risk the everyone on board if she wants to save her daughter.

Switching between the situation on the plane and her husband and daughter at home, slowly the story comes together. With several twists and turns, the tension builds and builds. I found the ending of the novel to be a huge surprise but just right!

Wow! Hostage is unlike anything I’ve read before. There are 2 stories going on and it was easy to flip back and forth. Little Sophia being only 5 yo at the time of the hostage situation sure seemed smarter than any other 5 yo I’ve ever known lol. This book is so full of detail and it’s very tense at times! She really did her research!! Another great book by Clare Mackintosh. This is my 6th book by her and she never disappoints. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review. To be published June 2021.

Hostage tells the story of a plane hijack from the point of view of many passengers, Mina (a flight attendant), and Mina’s family. As the pieces slowly came together I found myself being drawn in deeper and deeper as I wanted more.
Recommended for all.

*I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark.

Good storyline about a hostage situation on a direct London to Sydney flight. Good development of the characters with Mina as one of the flight attendants with her adopted daughter at home being looked after by her estranged police officer husband. Interesting narrative in terms of how far activists are willing to go for their cause and how easy it is to persuade vulnerable people to join a cause. Good page turner with a few interesting twists at the end.

Fast-paced, action-packed, suspenseful psychological thriller— what else could you ask for? The author has definitely hit all the right spots in this novel.

I am absolutely, positively Z E R O fun to watch crime shows with because I usually figure out what’s going to happen within the first ten minutes - and it’s pretty well the same with books. Clare Mackintosh is one of the few (very, very few) authors who has completely blindsided me with a twist in the past, so when I saw this latest novel of hers on here, I didn’t even blink before requesting it.

This book was a thrilling good time. With a current events take on domestic terrorism, this novel does a great job of holding you in suspense. The added context of Mina and Adam’s relationship, I found, does a lot for character development and really helps pull the reader into the story.

Now, as it is my nature, I did figure out one of the big ending twists before it was revealed, but with that being said, I absolutely could not put the book down, and the author aptly lead me down a few stray paths along the way. But, as she has done in the past, Clare Mackintosh definitely caught me by surprise with the last chapter, sending those little shivers down your spine that come from a good book with a great ending. Well done.

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Thank you for the ARC of this book.

This book fell a little short for me. I tried getting into it multiple times and just couldn’t do it. The characters were one dimensional and very hard to connect with.

Please fasten your seat belt because you are in for a RIDE!! This one was so good!! Already added to several reading radars!
Fast paced, thrilling read and the ride does not stop until the very, very end of the book.
Faced with an impossible decision 35000 feet in the air, Mina makes a choice that most mom's would understand. Meanwhile, her husband Adam is battling his own deep deception...but how deep does it go. And are the two incidents connected? And just who is pulling the strings?
It's such a thrilling ride. Easy to recommend!!

I love a good hostage situation (in fiction, of course) so this book sounded right up my alley. It was slower paced than I expected, taking a while for the main plot to pick up. The chapters offered individual vignettes of the different passengers, discussing issues from domestic abuse to fat shaming. I actually quite enjoyed many of these perspectives. As the story itself, I found it to be a bit underwhelming. I have come to expect more twists and turns from this author and this one just felt straightforward and fairly simple. Personally, I would recommend starting with one of the author's backlist titles, which I feel are much stronger. 

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

I am a huge fan of this author. I was not disappointed and think this may be one of her best! Kept me reading late into the night just to find out the ending! Thanks to publisher and NetGalley for ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Pub date: 6/21

First, MASSIVE thanks to SOURCEBOOK Landmark and to NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC. I didn't expect to get this permission, but I am so glad that I did.

I did not enjoy reading this book. It was harrowing. I felt trapped. I had to put it down and take breaks from it. That said, it deserves the fullest five stars because Claire Mackintosh, one of my top 5 favorite authors, is a f***ing brilliant writer.

As you'll know from the blurb, this is a story about tragedy unfolding mid-flight for flight attendant Mina, but it is SO MUCH more than that. I felt a full range of emotions for every major character in the book, including Sophia, the young, innocent child at the center of the story. Even she is imperfect, in a most delicious way.

Immediately after finishing this book late last night, I took an hour to speed-read through the entire thing again to catch a couple of crucial moments. I NEVER do that. But in this case, I had to.

Will enthusiastically recommend this book. 5/5 stars!

LOVED Hostage! It is crazy intense and so exciting! Loved all the twists and turns and couldn't wait to grab a few minutes (which turned into much longer!) to read! Clare Mackintosh never disappoints and this one might be my favorite!
Thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

Clare Mackintosh is a a genius. I devoured this book in 2 nights, and I am sad it is over.
Mina and Adam have an adopted daughter named Sophia. Adam is a police officer and Mina a flight attendant. In the midst of marital issues ( Mina thinks he had an affair with their babysitter,) Mina agrees to work the first non-stop flight from England to Sydney , Australia. Once the flight takes off and Mina begins helping the passengers , she notices something odd, her daughter’s Epi-pen is on the counter in the flight attendants work area. She is then given a letter from an unknown passenger giving her instructions that she must do if she ever wants to see her daughter Sophia again. What is a mother to do.....?. This BOOK is a MUST READ....

What a ride....I can really see this as a movie! Without giving too much away, flight attendant Mina and husband Adam are buried in their secrets. When Mina’s plane is hijacked, with her help, will they come out of these alive? Oh, and the ending!!! Turns out daughter Sophia has her own secrets!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

I was on the fence for the rating but the ending pushed it up to a five.

Mina is a flight attendant on the inaugural London to Sydney non-stop flight, leaving her five year old daughter with severe separation issues and a troubled marriage at home. Terrorists have infiltrated the flight and have threatened Mina’s daughter if she doesn’t help them.

The book goes back and forth between Mina and her husband, policeman Adam. There are also short chapters introducing different passengers.

Hostage was a fantastic and engaging read with tons of tension. Plenty of mysterious threads to follow as you figure out who is in on the plot and also what happened with Mina and Adam’s marriage. I didn’t see the ending coming. I highly recommend reading the latest from Claire Mackintosh.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Hostage is a "closed-room" thriller about a flight attendant named Mina who has to rescue the rest of the plane during an attempted hijacking. She's doing her usual job one day when she gets a note from an anonymous passenger. If she doesn't follow the instructions exactly and help them gain access to the cockpit, they have threatened to harm her daughter, who is at home with her husband. But who is this passenger? What does he want? How is this hostage situation connected to her cheating husband?

Here is an excerpt from the first page of the book: (This is not a spoiler because it's from the first page.)

"OPERATOR: Emergency services are on their way, caller.
CALLER: But it's going to be too late - it's {inaudible}. It's going to crash, it's going to crash...
OPERATOR: Can you confirm you are at a safe distance?
CALLER [inaudible]
OPERATOR: Caller, are you okay?
CALLER: It's crashed, it's really crashed..."

After reading that on the first page, I flew through the rest of the book. I couldn't put it down. The book uses alternating perspectives between Mina on the plane, her husband Adam, who is with their daughter Sophia, the perpetrator of the "hostage" situation, and various passengers on the plane. The pacing was a bit slow until just before the halfway point, when the action suddenly ratches up. I found the chapters from the perpetrator to be the most scary and thrilling.

The highlight of this book, though, is the protagonist Mina. Although it's not explicitly stated, she's coded as Arab/Muslim, and I am so happy to support a PoC protagonist. It's a fact that most thrillers are about white women, and there just aren't enough thrillers about women of color. In addition, Mina is a great protagonist. She struggles between saving everyone on the plane or saving her daughter. She is strong, makes good decisions, and is a good person at heart. I found myself rooting for her through the book, and I'm sure you will, too.

Overall, Hostage by Clare Mackintosh is a great thriller that will appeal to readers of The Last Flight or The Flight Attendant. To be completely honest, I have read a few mediocre domestic thrillers by Clare Mackintosh before, but I enjoyed this one more than the others. It's not a typical domestic thriller. It's set in a plane! There's a lot more action and adventure. If you're on the fence because you haven't enjoyed one of her books before, but you're intrigued by the description, I encourage you to give Hostage a try when it comes out in June!

Another great book by Clare Mackintosh! "Hostage" is a wonderfully tense thriller, with not just one, but rather scores of hostages, in great danger. I loved the dual storylines, with life or death situations taking place simultaneously in two settings. There are many moral dilemmas and "what ifs" to ponder: if this or that character had behaved differently, how would that have changed things? In addition to the chapters concentrating on the main characters--Mina, who is being held hostage along with a plane full of passengers on a hijacked plane and her husband Adam and daughter Sophia, who are locked at home in the cellar and in equal peril, there are chapters giving the background stories or thoughts of secondary characters. Rather than detracting from the flow of the narrative, these chapters read like little gems of short stories. A reveal towards the end had me going back to reread some of those chapters and appreciating how cleverly they were crafted. For a moment, I thought I was going to hate the ending, but the last page was just masterful and added to my love of this book. Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an e-ARC of this wonderful book!