This was a very compelling story with great writing. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you to the publisher for an ARC!

Finished review coming soon! Review will be posted to Netgalley, retailers, Instagram, and TikTok!

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest thoughts!

This novel is Science Fiction and, I believe, Fantasy. Both are genres I do not normally read. It is the story of Proctor, Prospera and the people who are part of it. It is also the story of a Utopian society that evolved into a police state. There is so much to this remarkably well written novel that it is hard to select portions of the many plot twists to talk about. It is also filled with spoilers. My recommendation…read it. It is amazing. Thanks to Net Galley and Ballantine Books for an ARC for an honest review.

Just finished reading Justin Cronin’s newest book “The Ferryman “, courtesy of NetGalley. In the past I read Cronin’s Passage series and loved them. I was so excited to hear he had a new book coming out!
The story is about two classes of people who live on an island. There is a lot of dislike and distrust between the two classes of the society. The story focuses on a man named Proctor and his wife, Elise, who are members of the more privileged class. In this dystopian society, couples do not give birth to children but adopt an adolescent child that comes from the “Nursery” on a neighboring island. Proctor’s job is that of a Ferryman who takes the elderly to the island, where they undergo some type of process that allows them to come back as adolescents and start a new life with a clean slate. There are many layers to this story and it takes some unexpected turns. I thought the story was well written and a bit creepy. I enjoyed the characters, both good and bad. If you are a fan of Justin Cronin or the synopsis sounds intriguing, I think you would enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Cronin takes today’s divide between the have and have nots and bumps it up a notch and moves it to dystopian world called Prospera. Set on an archipelago, Prospero is a haven hidden in a world that has descended into chaos. In a Logan’s Run scenario,the citizens of Prospero have a limited shelf life, when the monitors in their arms go off, they are taken off to “retire”, their bodies are refreshed and their memories wiped clean. Proctor is a ferryman, his job is to take retirees to the island where they are “reborn”, but lately, he’s been questioning what he does. It may have something to do with the fact that his own monitor has been speeding up, or the fact that he’s heard it’s time for his father to retire, but either way, Proctor is having serious doubts. Further threatening the stability of Prospero is an uprising in the Support Staff, the people tasked with making sure that everything runs smoothly for the entitled residents. They are tired of being taken advantage of and the resistance is growing. Cronin is a master craftsman, and he creates a terrifyingly realistic view of a future where money and position hold even more sway than they do today

This was an amazing book. It follows the key character, Proctor Bennett, who is the Ferryman. In this future world, the people living in Prospero have a good life living apart from the rest of the world, which has been pretty much destroyed.

The Ferryman brings people who need to "retire" to the ferry which will take them to an Island known as the Nursery where they will be rejuvenated and with memories wiped, will come back as teenagers to live with their new guardians and this keeps the population going.

However, there are those who live in another area and they are not subject to the same physical rules or way of life. They are basically the serving class. They live their lives in service of the ruling class.

Something is quite wrong though and Proctor starts to investigate it which is definitely not allowed. Hell breaks out all over. I have to say that at one point here I was feeling as lost as Proctor and his friends, not knowing what was going on. It all gets resolved in the unusual and brilliant ending. All is revealed. (almost all)

This was a great story and I am so happy that I was invited to get an early read. Thank you Ballantine Books and NetGalley.

Many thanks to Justin Cronin, Random House, and Net Galley for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel.

The Passage Trilogy ranks among my all-time favorites, and so it is not an exaggeration to say that I could not wait to read Cronin’s new novel. I inhaled this book — could not put it down and could not stop thinking about it whenever I did have to put it down. The Ferryman tells an intriguing, captivating story in Cronin’s signature style: gorgeous writing and authentic characterization, all with moving emotional resonance. Even though it is very different in subject matter from The Passage, The Ferryman has a similar depth, complexity and impact.

This novel is another triumph from Justin Cronin and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to read it early. It is truly not to be missed — mark the release day, May 3, 2023, on your calendar!

What a ride!

My head is spinning!

I will try to form some coherent thoughts as this is a review lol but I’m reeling. The journey I was just on was DELIGHTFULLY DISORIENTING and I need to be carful to not give any clues away that would dampen the wild ride everyone who picks up this book will go on.

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Welcome to Prospera! An island home…a sanctuary where inhabitants get to live to their full potential. Illness is almost entirely eradicated. Skills are honed to perfection. Poverty is but a notion…not a reality for the people or Prospera.

Meet Proctor. He is a resident of a Prospera and he has a very challenging but rewarding job: he’s the ferryman. His job is to ferry the elders of Prospera to their next iteration…their next journey when they return anew. He takes his job duties solemnly but when he is ordered to ferry someone close to him, his entire reality is shaken.

The person utters words to him that appear, at the time, as dementia twisting sense to nonsense. But he can’t let the words go. Do they have meaning? Can he uncover the meaning?

What follows is an absolute WILD ride into the genius that is Justin Cronin. He’s created a new world…one that has echoes of The Matrix and In Time (movie with Justin Timberlake) but is, at its core, wholly new and inventive.

This really is a book you WANT to go in to blind. Trust me folks! It’s dystopian and sci-fi and has a human heart of many great literary works. It’s asks painful questions about what it means to be alive. Is pain something from which beauty and purpose spring? Is good/great art made from such pain? What is art or life without pain? Is a world without pain heaven-like or its own type of hell?

I could go on and on. It’s exciting! It’s riveting! It’s fast paced and sucks you in! It’s deeply sad and poignant too.

It’s a fantastic book and I recommend it to anyone who likes Cronin’s work (you’ll be in familiar hands with this one), who enjoys dystopian fantasies or sci-fi, or anyone who wants a few hours of immersive escapism!

It comes out May 2023. Mark it on your calendars folks!

Scheduled for May 3, 2023, publication, Cronin’s “The Ferryman” is a boundless science fiction fantasy that will spin your head around in circles. You may feel that you are at first revisiting Logan’s Run, the Matrix, 1984, Lathe of Heaven, Stranger in a Strange Land, and the TV series Lost. That is because you will literally fall down through several rabbit holes as you journey through this novel.

The heart of the story is of course a dystopian fantasy as seen through the experiences of Director Proctor Bennett. It is a utopian paradise known as Prospera where art and science flourish and the ferryman leads those whose monitors have expired to the ferry for retirement or, at least, a return to the Nursery for a new iteration.

The beginning is ushered in with poetic license, leaving the reader to gasp at the wonder of this world, although later we learn that someone has to make things work and there is an underclass that is exploited and resentful. With revolution seething below the surface, Proctor begins to see that all is not as it initially seems and that things are not quite right for all. That is, his world shatters when he learns a secret and learns about Arrivals. As a Ferryman, he only really knew about Departures.

Of course, Proctor eventually is red-pilled and begins to see the world differently again and again. He understands that there are possibilities beyond the horizon and that there might be an escape. The question as always though is what can you achieve through revolution or flight and will it be a better world or just a new design of an old one.

What makes this work is that the world of Prospera is believable and the storyline changes are slowly fed to the reader so that nothing is quite jarring although there are points where a reader might be confused for a bit. All in all, it is a compelling tale that this reader could not put down before finishing in one long evening.