*Thank you to Random House/Ballentine, NetGalley, and C.J. Tudor for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

“I had started to notice how careless people were; like they didn’t realize how important it was to hold on to things or they could be gone forever.”

― C.J. Tudor, The Drift

Welcome to DRIFT, otherwise known as The Department or Research into Infection and Future Transmission. Likely inspired by the Covid pandemic, a Choler infection turns deadly but also turns survivors of Choler into “whistlers”, named after the whistling sound they make through their lungs. We follow storylines of Hannah, trapped in a Coach bus on the way to the “retreat”, a protective facility for those who do not have the virus, and Meg, trapped on a cable car descending the mountain that leads to the retreat, and Carter, one of several residents at the retreat who have been there for a long time. When traditional vaccine trials fail. Scientists extract plasmas from the survivors who volunteer as guinea pigs for free food, healthcare and housing. Trial Centers, like the retreat that Carl is at are mostly used to imprison those who are infected so they can extract more plasma.

Hannah, daughter of an evil Fauci like character, who created vaccines for the sick through evil means, is on a bus that has careened off the road with other students, including a young sarcastic girl, a german soldier, a short boy infected with the virus, and a brother and sister, who is injured and not expected to survive. All of them are hiding secrets but must band together to get out of the bus before Hannah’s father finds them and kills them.

Meg is an ex-police officer, who was intent on committing suicide after her young daughter died from the virus, after they promised everyone that the virus didn’t affect children at all. It sounds familiar. She volunteers for the testing center but on the way; she becomes trapped in a cable car 1000 feet in the air, when the power grid dies. There is a dead man in the car with them, who happens to be her ex. But this also means someone who is trapped in the car with them is a murderer.

And Carter, who has lost half of his face to frostbite, works at the retreat with a bunch of survivors who have been there for several years. They all serve a purpose and have their daily tasks. When he returns from a grocery store trip, Carter realizes the power has gone out but also that two of his mates have been slaughtered. He knows there are sick people locked up in the basement. Has someone set them free? And why?

Reading like Stephen King’s thriller The Stand, three different storylines connect with many unique characters. But please pay attention because there is such a huge twist towards the end of the book that it will make you want to go back to the beginning and read it again. The last chapters of The Drift will make you question everything you have just read. This book is a nail-biter but also an atmospheric thriller, with notes that may seem too familiar to us, having just gone through a pandemic. Who is a good guy and who is a bad guy? Is everyone who they say they are? This book kept me reading well into the night.

CJ Tudor backs so much into her latest novel: non-stop action, secrets, lies, an unstoppable virus, and more. The Drift is not a genre I usually read and had the writing not been so compelling I surely would have put it down before getting very far into it. The book is not for the faint of heart. People are extraordinarily cruel, people are killed without impunity, and bodies are everywhere, even as walking infected "survivors" of the virus. Many readers will lap this up and be looking for more.

The setting is the middle of a dystopian viral armageddon: a disease has slowly decimated the world and people will do anything to escape it.
   Escapees are caught in a raging blizzard that causes a bus to flip, a cable car to snap and a mountaintop retreat to loose power and supplies. But are these accidents the result of bad weather or bad blood——really bad blood? It’s everyman for himself out there.
   There is a collection of characters in each hairy situation: all attuned to the cough, sweating, and bizarre behavior that would indicate the someone in their midst has the infection.  They are quick to judge and hand out harsh discipline if anyone gets in the way of their staying alive.
   This is nightmare of horror, blood and gore mingled with so much deception it’s hard to keep the players straight. The icy setting is well depicted by the author along with vivid descriptions of the various attempts to escape from their unfortunate situations.
   A feasible insight as to the reaction of humans when faced with an insurmountable plight.

A survival of the fittest horror story. stranded in a crashed train car in the middle of snow storm. who will make it out alive? and how far will they do to make sure its them?

A little too much scary reality for me in this one. So many things happening and so many things that made me feel uncomfortable. I did enjoyed C.J. Tudor's writing style and may check out more from this author.

Not sure what the hell I just read but talk about a horrific post apocalyptic hell scape! This book centers on a deadly virus that runs rampant through the world, leaving very few immune and the cruel scientists that are set on curing it at any cost. Told from multiple perspectives on different settings - you have to wonder how the main characters are all tied together. Not my usual C.J. Tudor fair but definitely a quick read.

C.J. Tudor has officially entered the horror space!! This book is gory, chilling (literally), and edge-of-your-seat addictive.

In a post-apocalyptic, The Stand-esque book, The Drift has 3 POVs that are seemingly unconnected. Hannah, a medical student who wakes up after a bus crash to The Retreat - a safe haven from the virus and Whistlers (those who have been infected but survived the illness). Meg, an ex-police officer who wakes up in a stranded cable car and Carter, a man with a traumatic past with unclear motives of revenge. Did I mention all of this takes place during a blizzard????

Pros: Weaving storylines that fit together shockingly, extremely atmospheric (perfect winter read), super interesting post-apocalyptic world

Cons: Looooooong - I wish this book would've been 50 pages shorter.

Overall, The Drift is another hit from C.J. Tudor and I'm so excited to read their next horror!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for sending me an ARC of The Drift in exchange for an honest review.

Imagine a world in the grip of a pandemic. Okay, that’s too easy.

Imagine a world in the grip of a pandemic that feels suspiciously like a zombie apocalypse. Yeah, that’s better. And in this world ravaged by a zombie apocalypse, people still have other problems, like getting trapped in a snowstorm—which, it turns out, is even worse during a pandemic.

The Drift follows three groups of people trapped in a snowstorm. Hannah and six others are trapped in a bus that crashed while they were being evacuated to The Retreat from an elite boarding school. Meg and five others wake up to find themselves trapped above the mountains in a cable car that was also on its way to The Retreat. Finally, Carter and a handful of others are already at The Retreat, working to keep the power on despite the storm, desperate to keep whatever is in basement from escaping.

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.

At this point, Ms. Tudor is on my list of authors I’d read without even bothering with reading the book description. The Drift isn’t my favorite of her books, but it’s a solid, spooky, survival/horror thriller. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Recommended.

“You’re either a good guy or you’re a survivor, someone had once told him. The earth is full of dead good guys”

Solid 3.5 star read for me! Honestly, had I known this was an apocalypse type book, I may not have ever read it. But I’m a huge fan of CJ Tudor and after reading it, I’m so glad I didn’t know what I was getting into. In The Drift, the world has been taken over by a virus and it follows three different characters. I was pleasantly surprised how everything came together. At times I felt the book could have been shorter and that may have been my biggest gripe. Overall, a good solid read that you should consider taking a chance reading even if you think it’s not your typical read!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing- Ballantine Books for the ARC!

“You’re either a good guy or a survivor, and the earth is full of dead good guys.”

The year long break between The Burning Girls, and Sliver of Darkness somehow only made @cjtudorauthor more razor sharp and brutal than ever!

Drift involves three separate sets of characters (hence the multi-casting) in their own nightmarish and somewhat interconnected survival scenarios.

What do you do when you’re trapped with a group of people you’re forced to rely on but don’t know if you can trust? If that thought alone isn’t terrifying enough, add in a mysterious, rapidly mutating disease that might just be the end of the world as we know it.

Strap in for a ride that’s as shocking as it is emotional!

This book is terrifying on so many levels.

First off, what may have been (and still might be) the social order after a global pandemic and secondly, how we, as humans, deal with it.

In the dead of winter, a van and a cable car are headed to the Retreat, supposedly a safe haven, but neither makes it. Instead, the passengers are stranded and forced to survive not only the elements, but each other. Alliances are formed and broken, secrets and motives are revealed and just when you think you know what’s going on, everything is upended.

I have no fingernails left after reading this.

Highly recommended.

Not for me - there were too many characters, many of whom felt like the same person. The writing style also wasn't too my taste and much of the book is fatphobic. No thanks.

I finished “The Drift” by CJ Tudor in less than a day. I’ve loved every book she’s written and this sci-fi thriller is no different. The survivors of an apocalyptic COVID like virus wake up in 3 different settings where they are fighting for their lives. It’s best to go into this book with as little info as possible. Highly recommend.

Tudor’s earlier thriller works always teetered on horror with little elements sprinkled in like ghosts or hauntings, or a little more blood and slightly more chilling than the mainstream thrillers. It’s like she was destined for that final jump to horror. Her collection of short stories, A Sliver of Darkness, was markedly more horror than her other books and it was good—really good. It also felt like the precipice before the jump. The Drift is Tudor’s jump.

The Drift tells the story of three strangers stranded in live or die situations in a dystopian world ravaged by disease. While some are still claiming it’s a thriller, I’d argue this is her plunge into horror. With a post-apocalyptic society, experimentation and science gone wrong, cringe-worthy scenes of gore and death and a distinct feeling that death is inevitable (just a matter of when), this one falls nicely into the horror genre. Her writing is addictive and action-packed with short, cliffhanger chapters from the perspectives of three different characters. For fans of her thrillers, have no fear—there are still plenty of thrills (and chills considering the snowy settings) and her trademark anti-hero characters are still just likable enough that you hope for their redemption and survival. Loaded with thought-provoking scenarios of survival, revenge and defining “good” or “evil,” this one also keeps your wheels turning—especially in our own post(ish)-pandemic world.

While The Drift may be a wildcard and her only dabble into full horror, I truly hope it’s not. I loved this book. The twists, the adrenaline, the mystery and the juxtaposition of moments of fierce love and straight scary. I think horror has tugged at Tudor for awhile now and with The Drift, it feels like she has stepped into her power.

I am a big Tudor fan so I was pumped for this one!

While I could not put this one down and I enjoyed the multiple storylines being tied together seamlessly, overall I was left wanting more in the end.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and C. J. Tudor for the advanced copy of The Drift in exchange for my honest review.

I admittedly feel slightly duped by the book's synopsis... it ended up not really being what I was expecting. It was incredibly fast-paced (I read about 60% in one sitting without even realizing), but the wheels really fell off for me at the end.

There's one big surprise (I wouldn't quite say twist), that I definitely did not see coming and I think it was expertly executed by Tudor. The book itself was also very well-written.

Readers will meet *a lot* of characters right off the bat, and while that is usually something I struggle with, for whatever reason it didn't bog me down too much with this one.

The Drift will be on US bookshelves January 31!

C.J. Tudor has written an adrenaline-fueled thriller set in a world decimated and transformed by a terrible virus. There are three settings: a group of students on a bus that has crashed in the snowy wilderness, a stranded cable car on an icy mountainside, and an isolated building in a wintry ski area. You will definitely feel cold reading this novel! All of the storylines involve gripping survival plots with plenty of mysteries, but in the end there were so many details and names to keep track of that my interest waned. Without giving any spoilers, it's hard to say more, but I wish the story had been told in a slightly different manner. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books for a digital review copy.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Mystery Thriller

I have read two C.J. Tudor books in the past. I loved her debut novel, The Chalkman, but I was not a fan of The Other People. The Drift is an exciting story of a virus that has spread globally and takes place in the winter when everything is covered in ice. It follows three different storylines. Hannah is trapped inside the coach with others on their way to The Retreat. At the same time, Meg and other people are trapped inside a cable car that stopped working. And the third storyline follows Carter and his colleagues who work at The Retreat.

I think the author did a great job of building tension in all three stories. There is always something happening. The idea of trying to survive the dangers from outside and inside was done excellently. To be honest, I thought three storylines were a bit much at times. Each storyline has a set of characters. So there were times that I was mixing up the characters from Meg and Hannah’s stories. Yes, there is a reason that I don’t like such structures.

However, I believe the author did a good job of keeping all the stories exciting by including all the thrilling elements. Just before starting this book, I finished reading How High We Go in the Dark, which has a similar concept and structure! I prefer The Rift though over that. I was conflicted about how to rate this book. I was torn between 3.5 and 4.0, but then I felt this had the entertainment factors that kept me interested, so I am going with 4.0 stars.

Many thanks to the publisher, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced apocalyptic thriller for about the first half or so. After that, it became a bit too complicated and hard to follow, with too many details to try to keep track of. However, I kept reading, since I needed to know how it would end. I’m not sure I ever was able to piece it all together. Still, a worthwhile read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Three separate groups of people just trying to survive, a storm of massive proportions on the way, added to which, some of the people in the groups may already be infected - and there’s no way out!

Lots of tension, wondering how the three groups are going to survive the nightmare with seemingly no escape. It’s also gripping waiting to discover just how the groups are linked, but with C.J.Tudor at the helm it’s all brought together nicely, and a difficult one to put down!