The Drift was one of the most tightly plotted books I have read. Hard to put down despite the many horrid things that happened. I am hoping that this is the first of at least two books since there are plot threads left dangling.

Lots of authors are writing pandemic fiction, but CJ Tudor ratchets it up with her new novel, The Drift.

"Hannah wakes up to a mangled bus that had been headed to safety. It crashed during an escape from an elite boarding school. Many are dead and there are rumors that a couple of students may be infected.
Meg awakens in a cable car that has stopped traveling up the mountain. A snowstorm rages while the car sways. One of the group is dead. They are trapped with a the killer and no sign of rescue.
Carter and companions wait it out at a ski chalet, trading vaccines for supplies. But danger lurks outside the fence.

The very survival of humanity is at stake."

Tudor has a different approach than most of the previously published pandemic fiction. There's no mention of the current virus and no politics. And this story is a worst-case scenario.
There are three POVs and CJ leaves clues on how they connect. When you get to the end there's an A-ha moment as they come together. CJ has great pace in her writing and this moves quickly.
There's a Chalk Man reference (We know what happened to the head)

More great fiction from Tudor.

Thank you @netgalley @cjtudor and @randomhousepub for an advanced copy of The Drift! 🤩

Wow what a page turner, you guys!! I, as always, went in blind and was surprised about how much I enjoyed it, considering it focused on surviving a pandemic.

« Humans didn’t like being reminded of death, even when we brushed cheeks with it every day of our lives. »

This was such an unexpected action packed thriller – I got hooked right from the start! Three POVs, each had its own setting but all centered around the outbreak of a deadly virus. I definitely did not see it coming how they all ended up connecting. The multiple POVs were equally intriguing, but my favorite one was Hannah’s! If you’re looking for a snowy, isolated, apocalyptic read with some scary creatures, this one’s it! It has similar vibes to The Shuddering (which I loved).

📖 read if you enjoy:
•action packed thrillers
•twists you won’t see coming
•locked room, isolated, snowy settings
•suspenseful, tense reads
•post apocalyptical elements
•bigger groups of characters

Latest nap time read and wow it was great! Very intense and scary! 🫣

I love all of CJ Tudor’s books and this one did not disappoint! Very creepy, dark atmosphere, graphic, and lots of death. I wasn’t able to read it at night - this one really freaked me out. 😳 This one is marketed as a thriller but definitely more of a horror in my opinion. There is a dystopian element to this plot but still recommend for horror fans!
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#bookstagram #booklover #bookobsessed #thrillerbooks #horrorbooks #thedrift #cjtudor

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for gifting me a digital ARC of the new thriller by CJ Tudor - 4 stars!

Three distinct storylines: Hannah and her fellow students from The Invicta Academy awake after a terrible bus crash in the middle of a snowstorm with no way to escape. What's worse, some of the passengers may be infected with a deadly virus. Meg, an ex-police officer, awakens in a cable car, suspended over the ground, trapped, with a group headed towards what is known as The Retreat. Carter works with a group at an abandoned ski chalet, manufacturing vaccines, trying to eke out an existence.

CJ Tudor has again created a scary story, this one veering more towards the horror, although you'll find dark humor moments as well. However, in light of the scary world we now live in with viruses and pandemics, this dystopian world seems a little too close at times. The snowstorm and bleak environment are as much a story as the characters and definitely heightens the tension. I had a bit of trouble switching between these three storylines and different characters, but that was probably just me. A great ending even though not everything was resolved. Another winner by this author!

If you like dystopian novels with horror and gore, then this book is for you! This book is told from three separate storylines.
Many thanks to the author, Random House Publishing- Ballantine and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Would C.J. Tudor's The Drift be as claustrophobic and unsettling if the world wasn't still dealing with Covid-19? I don't think so. Now readers are more familiar with a pandemic and its far-reaching consequences. The driving force behind this book is a disease that has blindsided the planet's population. How far would we go to safeguard our children and ourselves? How far would we go to combat the disease? How far would we go to find a cure?

In the world of The Drift, euphemisms have sprung up like mushrooms. In this world, lies are the grease that oil daily life. This world is stricken with an airborne virus that has many (even deadlier) variants, and survival has become a solitary business. Even though the world is reeling from one blow after another, people still want to believe that everything will return to normal. But there are realists amongst them. Realists who know that "normal" is in the past. Realists who know that you're either a good guy or a survivor... and dead good guys far outnumber the survivors.

The storytelling in The Drift is non-linear, and that may cause a bit of confusion from time to time, but that confusion blends well with the feelings of claustrophobia, paranoia, and doom. As I read the stories of Hannah, Meg, and Carter, I found myself wanting them to survive, and I found myself wanting to know not only what had happened but what was going to happen. 

The Drift is compelling and unsettling reading that drags you right into its frozen heart. Thinking about it now still makes me shiver.

Hannah is on a bus of university students, being evacuated to a virus free retreat, except the bus crashes, rolling over in a bad snow drift during a raging storm, leaving them trapped and some of them dead. Can they survive the extreme cold...and each other?

Meg wakes on a ski lift cable car with several other passengers. They were on their way to The Retreat, a place of testing for a cure. One passenger has been murdered and the car is stuck, who is the killer and will there be a rescue?

Carter is living in a repurposed Ski Chalet, known as The Retreat. All the others there with him are strangers, each with their own secrets pasts, the power is failing and the residents don't really trust each other. Cut off from government support, how much longer can they survive?

A virus has been raging for years, it effects the minds of the infected, Whistlers, because of the sound that comes from their ravaged lungs. The virus is extremely contagious and vaccines are not any protection. The story alternates chapters from each main character perspective, building towards a surprising connection between the three of them.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House/Ballantine for the opportunity to enjoy this exciting e-ARC.

This was so good. Loved the three different groups which the author switches back and forth with. Fun journey to understand how they are connected. Some really great twists with a big bomb near the end. Title has more than one meaning which was neat. Really great mystery and reflection on humanity.

This is a dystopian end of the world story due to a virus that is very contagious and very deadly. Hannah is involved in a coach bus accident in a snow storm on the way to the Retreat where her and several students are trapped inside the coach. Meg is an ex-cop who wakes up in a cable car 1000 feet in the air, stuck with several strangers and a dead body. Carter is trying to survive with others in a ski chalet high in the mountains during the storm. They provide vaccines for supplies to survive. Each group is trying to survive and save themselves while someone in the group is a killer. Almost everyone has secrets of their own.

This started out strong and I was pulled in trying to put the puzzle together. It was a little close to home with the virus and vaccines and I didn’t like some of the quips made about vaccines and science or some made about God. I think overall it was well done in how the stories and characters all ended up coming together but I felt there was too many characters. I also didn’t love the end. Lots of questions left open and a lot of doom and gloom. I think if you like locked room type mystery, snow storms, a little horror and many characters, this may be for you:)

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for an arc for an honest review.

The Drift by CJ Tudor is a wonderful blend of survival horror, thriller, post-apocalypse, and dystopia that makes a fast paced edge of your seat read. The story follows three different points of view about being stuck in a snow storm. There is Hannah who has been involved in a serious coach accident, Meg who is stuck on a cable car when the power goes out, and Carter who is a resident of an isolated Retreat when danger seems imminent. If that's not enough excitement, there is also a deadly global outbreak of a virus that makes COVID19 look like the simple common cold. This is an easy 5 start read with a satisfying conclusion, although I will say that I would love to read a sequel.

📚 The Drift by CJ Tudor
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow! What a ride. This thriller is unlike any of I’ve read before. Totally unique-which is really hard to find these days. The Drift is three stories set in an apocalyptic future where a virus has upended society. There is a huge snowstorm: Hannah is stuck in a bus full of students that has careened off a cliff. Meg is trapped in a cable car with a group of people bound for some center called The Retreat. Carter is at The Retreat and must go out in a supply run in the storm. Three people, three stories, and a total page turner. It starts with a gripping prologue. Ominous and foreboding. I couldn’t put it down. If you liked No Exit, Falling, or The Hostage, this book is for you!

This is the last ARC in my stack on NetGalley and I had a lot of fun reading them this week. The Drift comes out of Tuesday, 1/31. Definitely read it! A big thank you to @randomhouse and @netgalley for this advanced copy to review. It was great!

I would love to watch this as a movie! Fast paced and enjoyable right up until the very end. I usually don't like stories with a lot of characters in it but it worked well here as they were divided into three distinct groups and very easy to keep separate. I shivered the entire time I was reading this not just the chilling story with the virus but the descriptiveness of the cold environment all the characters were in. and Wow when everything began coming together....pure genius! Would have easily been a 5 star read but the ending left me wanting a bit more......

Thank you to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy of The Drift which ia post-apocalyptic horror thriller. We see the world from the perspective of Hannah who comes to after a bush crash in the middle of a blizzard after trying to get from a boarding school to safety while a virus is brewing. Our second main character is Mego who awakes in a cable car suspended above a snow storm, surrounded by strangers, with no memory of how they got there. Finally, we have Carter who works at an abandoned ski chalet with a small group of other survivors as their generator starts to fail. The book is a puzzle and it was fun to see it come together. But there is a bit of gory scariness. So be warned. I thought it was a fun read though and what I thought might be too much ended up being just enough.

The Drift by CJ Tudor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A big thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for this eARC. This one is expected next week!

This one was grotesque in all the right ways. Gory, graphic, all around explicit. Any of those is the perfect adjective to describe this one.

This one made me cringe a few times. It also kept me on the edge of my seat. I wanted to figure out what the heck was happening, and I was more than surprised when the connection was linked.

People will definitely draw parallels to COVID, but I didn’t feel like it was too in your face. I don’t want this review to say too much for fear of spoiling anything. The book is worth the read - just maybe don’t read it when you’re eating!

I Loved this!!! This is exactly the kind of book I like to read. Fast-paced, intense, mysterious, action-packed. I loved it from the very first chapter. The three POV’s kept me intrigued. I liked them all equally and didn’t find any of them unnecessary. At the end I found myself getting a little confused because there are a lot of characters to follow, but things clicked and I was good. I have to go back and check out some of this authors backlog now!

I'm going to start by saying that C.J. Tudor is, and will continue to be, an auto-by author for me. Having said that, The Drift just wasn't for me. I've come to expect a strong psychological thriller from C.J. Tudor, and this one just veered too far into the dystopian/sci-fi realm for my taste. There was also more violence than I'm comfortable with, even though I don't consider myself just a popcorn-thriller reader. The violence felt more just for shock factor than for furthering the story line. I'm still looking forward to whatever C.J. Tudor has coming up next! Thanks so much for the opportunity to review!

Book Summary:

Would you take it if you were given a chance to redeem yourself? What about the potential cost – the risk of such a decision? Would you think it through, or just dive right in and hope for the best?

Three tales. Three stories. Three sets of people, all doing everything in their power to survive. One set is trapped in a mangled boarding school. The other is a cable car suspended over nothingness. The final races against time, fighting to find a vaccine before it is too late.

My Review:

So this should go without saying, but don't read The Drift if you're looking for a pick-me-up style story. This is a post-apocalyptic tale, with some strong survival elements thrown in for good measure.

I really enjoyed that the story is comprised of three different series of events. It added to the tension, obviously. But it also allowed the pacing to bend and flow as things went on. I won't say that it gave readers a break because the whole thing is intense, but it helped.

If you enjoyed C.J. Tudor's The Chaulkman, you will love The Drift. Trust me.

Highlights:
Multiple plots
Dystopia
Mystery/Thriller
Horror Elements

Trigger Warnings:
Trapped
Intense survival situations

I am a bit torn about this book. I have loved all the previous books I have read from Ms. Tudor but this one felt different. For one, it was a lot more violent. I am usually not upset about violence but it was such a strong thread throughout the entire book that it was hard to not feel it. Also, while the summary doesn't mention it, I think it is important for potential readers to know that the story is set in a pandemic world. A virus, with no cure, is highly contagious and all the characters are dealing with different scenarios related to it. Similarly to what we have gone through, socioeconomics, politics, and anti-vaxxers come in to play. However, it makes what we've been going through seem a bit tame. Or maybe it is a look at what we might have coming up? I did really enjoy how each of the central characters were developed. The story is told from three points of view and each one offered a very different perspective as well as background and secrets. I did have a bit of a lightbulb moment at one point that helped and expect that most readers will probably get to that point a bit earlier than me. But whether you do or don't won't ruin the overall enjoyment of the story. Which I did enjoy. I just wasn't prepared for some parts but I'm still thinking about it.

I did not really expect this type of book from Tudor. It seemed to be a little out of what they normally do. However, the story and the way it came together was quite interesting. You have some unreliable narrators for sure. Although the ending was both twisty and slightly predictable, I have to say it was an entertaining journey.