I took a bit of a risk with this as it’s been a while since I read a horror.

Story: ⭐️⭐️/5
World building: 🛳️🛳️/5
Fear factor: 😱😱/5

If I’m completely honest it was a difficult read for me. I really struggled to bond with the MC Liv, she was whiny, a little stupid and a bit 2 dimensional. She spends an incredible amount of time thinking about how poor she is and what she’s wearing.

I don’t really understand the premise of how she ends up on the ship. Apparently it’s a ‘seamester’ which is clearly an excuse for a load of rich people to get drunk and learn absolutely nothing. I don’t get it.

I had the plot figured out considerably earlier than I’d have hoped. I mean we’re literally told at the beginning…not that this helps because you still don’t get any closure at the end.

Overall I really struggled. This had so much potential, I’m not a fan of low ratings but I really couldn’t get into this. Thank you so much to the author for the ARC. I’m sorry that it wasn’t for me. Whilst I didn’t get on with this story I did like the writing style and would definitely try other books from this author.

💫Thank you Netgalley and Ink Road for giving me an ARC to read ahead of release!

What I liked:
💫The luxury cruise ship setting — I’ve never read a book set on a ship before!
💫The cast of characters, especially Con, love an icy rich kid!
💫The fun events onboard the ship — loved the magician scene, the club scene, the Greek God murder mystery... so much scary fun!
💫The little clues that started suggesting something is really wrong (like omg Hillary!?)

I couldn't tear myself away from this book! 5 star.

Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith is an outstanding YA horror-thriller.
The writing was impeccable and the characters were well developed.
There’s an eerie feeling that continually develops as the story unrolls, a feeling you’re being closed in at every corner, and it brought so much excitement to the page.
I loved the writing, found the pace enjoyable and engaging and I found myself devouring this book quite quickly! All characters are very interesting and kept me glued to my kindle.
This story kept me on the edge of my seat - it’s subtly eery and full of suspense.

I can’t wait for Our Wicked Histories to hit!

I would like to thank NetGalley and Black & White Publishing, Ink Road for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publication date in return for my honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the early read.

Terror on the high seas!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a breath of fresh air! A strikingly original horror set on a cruise ship that utilizes its setting to the fullest.

With hints of Roman and Greek mythology and a sympathetic (and a little unreliable) protagonist who is not sure whether the horrifying things she is seeing on the ship are real or whether she is going mad, this is a fantastic addition to YA horror.

"Those We Drown" by Amy Goldsmith is a horror novel that follows Liv, who lands an all-expenses-paid opportunity to study aboard the luxury cruise ship The Eos for a semester. The prospect of spending time with Will, her ex-best friend, adds to her excitement. However, upon boarding, Liv realizes that she is out of her depth.

The cruise is also hosting the Seamester students, including Constantine, a brittle and beautiful individual with potential ties to the ship. The presence of the Sirens, three glamorous and mysterious influencers who seem to have control over the ship, adds to the intrigue.

Liv soon discovers that she was invited to join the trip because another girl disappeared shortly after enrolling, and nobody knows what happened to her. As more disappearances occur and strange creatures haunt Liv's dreams, she begins to question whether The Eos is hiding a dark secret within its shadowy decks.

The novel explores themes of mystery, horror, and the price one is willing to pay for the truth. As Liv navigates the enigmatic world of The Eos, she must confront the chilling reality that the ship may hold secrets that go beyond her worst nightmares.

I held my breathe most of the time I was reading this. I could not breathe from how anxious I was. This book had me on the edge of my seat wanting to know more and more. I did not wanna put it down.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy for an honest review
‘Those we Drown’ by Amy Goldsmith is a YA mystery.

It didn’t really hook me, it was fine but a bit to tropey for me

Rating 2 Stars

"Those We Drown" is a ya mystery novel, with horror elements, written by Amy Goldsmith.

What a wasted opportunity! I loved the premises of this book: a dark and luxurious cruise in the middle of the ocean, people disappearing into thin air, eerie and ominous presences. Not to mention the clear inspiration from Greek mythology and some references to the works of Lovecraft. In short, it had all the makings to win me over! And I would have liked to appreciate it, really! But unfortunately, the poor execution sank everything. I don't know, I found it shallow, rushed and inconclusive, full of plot holes, convenient situations and anonymous characters. I am not joking when I say that I was deeply annoyed by the inconsistency of the narration, by the feeling of emptiness it gave me. And that was from the very first pages! I was hoping for improvement, but instead it only got worse, to an embarrassing conclusion.

The cruise ship is the only element that I really appreciated! Dark, claustrophobic, labyrinthine, and mysterious, it intrigued me with its vivid descriptions. I enjoyed the ominous atmosphere that hovers inside, the horror undertones in the air. Too bad these elements were not adequately exploited.

The story is absolute chaos! Between continuous plot holes, repeated situations of convenience, and a general sense of neglect, I didn't quite understand where it was trying to aim. In theory it should be a mystery, but in practice the mystery almost solves itself, with no interest on the part of the protagonist. Her best friend disappears, strange events happen, but she is too busy thinking about her hormones to open her eyes and care. Seriously, this novel basically revolves around the whims and complaints of Liv (the protagonist), who does nothing but complain that rich people are rich, she is not rich and therefore cannot afford expensive things, and then, icing on the cake, the romance. Her best friend, for whom she has complicated feelings, disappears and what does she do? She thinks about the sullen, grumpy, billionaire stranger of the moment, wondering whether or not she can trust him, whether or not he wants her, whether or not she wants him, only to be reminded from time to time of her missing best friend, feel guilty about it, and soon after forget about it, in a cycle that repeats itself time after time. Of course, occasionally she notices that something is wrong around her, tries to take an interest for a few pages, and then goes back to making mental movies about the boy she likes. Help, I was really irritated by the whole situation and lost count of the number of times I rolled my eyes!

Liv, the protagonist and only pov in first person, did not appeal to me. I found her shallow as a puddle and she conveyed nothing to me but annoyance. As mentioned above, all she does throughout the book is complain and follow her hormones, heedless of her surroundings. Her best friend disappears and she promptly forgets about it. Strange events happen and she punctually ignores them. She gets overt hints and clues and doesn't take them.  Seriously, after a few pages I was already irritated by her attitude!

The rest of the secondary characters are even worse for me! They seemed anonymous, empty, completely devoid of personality. They conveyed nothing to me, except great boredom.

All in all, I found it to be a book with interesting premises, which unfortunately did not convince me in its development..

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Just wooooooooooooooow - the (incredibly scary) sea, greek mythology, gaslighting, romance. Just loved everything about this book, had to stay up late to finish this. I haven't read anything quite like this before IN A GOOD WAY. I saw it released in the US and was excited to have an early chance to read here. Reccomend if you want a quick scary read!

This was a quick and super tropey read. Scholarship girl (with no other personality) is torn between her missing bestie and the hot millionaire, with horror. Fun, but not enough that I'd recommend it, and the ending is a huge let down.

This book was absolutely amazing, like, jaw on the floor when I'm done amazing. WOW!!

So, I went into this blind, I did read the synopsis but I immediately forgot what it was about, and tbh i prefer it that way, I think this one is deffo one you should go into as blind as possible!!
It follows Liv as she sets sail on a semester-at-sea program with her best friend who she's had a falling out with for reasons made clear later on, and all the dark, dangerous, and actually horrifying things that happen in the week it takes them to dock at NYC.

From the prologue, this book absolutely blew me away with how beautiful the writing was. It wasn't overly flowery to the point of sacrificing (pun intended) legibility or coherence which I've seen happen one too many times with debut authors. This was a perfect balance of colloquial dialogue, disturbingly beautiful descriptions of both atmosphere and *things* and standard this happened and then that happened. The balance of horror to normal was perfect, it really added another layer to Liv's already questionable sanity. A large chunk of the book is her seeing, hearing, and experiencing things that she immediately brushes off as a side effect of homesickness or anxiety, lack of sleep etc. to the point where there will be a glaringly obvious red flag in front of her and she'll bend over backwards to rationalise it. To be completely honest, this really did annoy me at first but as the story went on, and she started pacing some things together (still ignoring the glaringly obvious things) I realised that maybe I've been over-exposed to paranormal/fantasy books where the normal MC is way too conveniently prepared to accept the abnormal; that Liv was doing the normal thing of questioning if she's losing her mind before she immediately goes yeah there's monsters about. So, in the end, I didn't let that take away from how much I enjoyed the book because it started to feel more like an intentional choice and less like an annoying MC. Which, now that I'm writing this is actually super smart, because when she finally does start freaking out, she has this overwhelming backlog of weird stuff that comes crashing down and makes for a completely disorienting realisation. Kudos to the author for that!!

The side characters were all so ambiguous in their intentions. At first, you think you know who's good and bad, who's the mean girl, who's the gym rat, who's the sweet old lady etc. But when I say I STILL didn't know who I could trust by the end of the book... like, I shut the final page and sat there for a good few minutes like ???? This ending is going to keep me up at night 100%. A lot of my annotations were me theorising, pointing fingers (and being wrong), trying to join dots etc. which was SUCH a fun time!! A lot of the mystery/thrillers that pop up, especially in the YA category are often predictable once you reach the halfway point but NOT THIS!! You suspect enough to think you know what's afoot, but there are so many layers to it that, really, even when you're done, there are still many unanswered questions, theories that haven't been confirmed or denied, and so much possibility still left kinda hanging in the air (good and bad, but mainly bad, but in a good way as far as narrative quality go).

The descriptive passages in this book felt so intentional, so specific it blew me away!! The horror aspects were definitely my favourite part!! I honestly can't do it justice but I will say this- when the characters feel cornered? I felt cornered. When the characters felt like trapped rats in a maze, anxious, anticipating something bad, I felt the exact same thing. The author has the incredible skill of being able to make the reader feel the same claustrophobic panic while reading this book cosied up in bed as the characters do being hunted by literal sea monsters, on a ship, that they can't get off..... If that doesn't deserve a 5 stars I don't know what does. Truly one of my favourite horror reads of the year, and couple with with my fear of the deep sea??? I was holding my breath for all 400 odd pages!!

I have one single complaint, and I'll preface it by saying that it obviously didn't take from my overall enjoyment or rating of the book but it did bug me a little bit. I felt like the romance was a little scattered? Maybe could've even been skipped. It was zero to a hundred and then back to zero etc. Idk their encounters felt either like acquaintances or super eager and I didn't really see a natural progression or flow of their relationship. I understand that he didn't believe her at first etc. etc. but if he genuinely was worried she was losing her mind and needed to see a doctor...why was he still trying to get in her pants? Idk but I didn't feel like that relationship was fully committed to- that being said, the moments they did have??? I absolutely ate those UP!! And I do wish that there was maybe a monster-fighting pair thing going on that would've made a solid base for more feelings to develop.. I just wasn't too convinced.

I LOVED the ending!! Like, absolutely LOVED it. I loved that I still don't know who I can and can't trust, I love that there are still questions left unanswered, and tbh,, that there's no closure. It's stressing me out but also I think it's the best possible ending, a happy or sad ending would've minimised everything that came perviously and I think maintaining that mystery was the best choice!!