This book was INTENSE.

Claustrophobic, eerie, creepy, and suspenseful are all words I'd use to describe it. I am honestly still not sure if I loved this book or hated it, but I FLEW through it and found it unputdownable, so I rated it based on that. Will Dean is on another level of weird, IMHO. Skirting the edge of almost speculative fiction. His books always leave me deeply unsettled and this was no exception! Love or hate, I'd still recommend this to everyone!

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC

I loved the concept and the atmosphere. If you're into claustrophobic/isolated settings, this one is great. There were several scenes that made me feel physically stuck. It got my heart racing. I enjoyed the building mistrust and paranoia amongst the crew. The ending was my only real complaint. I didn't completely love how it wrapped up, but I'd still encourage others to give it a try.

This book, y’all. 6 divers go down to the bottom of the North Sea in one of those tiny diving bells, where they will live for a month while working on an oil field. BUT the divers might not be safe down there when something begins to happen. Creepy and claustrophobic, but I didn’t love the ending.

My thanks to Atria/Emily Bestler, Will Dean and Netgalley. I've no idea where Mr. Dean comes up with his stories. Truth be told, I'm not even sure if I like his stories or not.
The thing is that I can read a book by him and it just seems to rip right along...but man oh man do his endings suck!
I had an idea from the beginning of how this book would end, and it turns out that I was right. I mostly hate that!
Will Dean is someone I'm keeping my eye on. His stories are really very good. I somehow manage to plow right through them. Love the story and people, but I hate bleak endings, and that seems to be the deal with this author.
Yes, I did enjoy this very funked up tale.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my e-ARC of The Chamber!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔
🌊 are terrified of the deep sea
📖 enjoy short chapters
🔔 want to learn more about diving bells
🕵🏻‍♂️ love a fun mystery

• 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot, close quarters.

Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.

With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge. What…or who…is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all?

• 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

This was a hard one for me to rate. On my hand, it felt a bit too slow and repetitive. But on the other, I really enjoyed following this story and wondering what exactly was happening. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone in the story. Unfortunately, instead of getting an ending that fully explained what happened, we got a maybe this, maybe that. It’s really up to the reader to determine who is innocent and who is guilty. I wish there was a more concrete explanation. Overall, this one is fun if you like feeling claustrophobic and on edge!

Thank you so much to the publisher #partner for the #gifted eARC!
——
It’s now almost exactly a year since the Titan submersible implosion shocked the world. That real life incident was what I had in mine when I started The Chamber, one of my most anticipated releases. If you want a deep sea, claustrophobic thriller, this book is it!

Take a locked-room thriller but replace the room with a locked bariatric chamber with no way of escape where six saturation divers are on the clock to complete tasks in 28 days. In those 28 days, the divers have to follow strict protocol to avoid any fatal errors and are constantly monitored by a team of experts. Yet, things very much go wrong and each saturation diver dies one by one. With very confined space for movement and no means to get out, you can only imagine how palpable the story feels, and as the reader, I couldn’t help but hold my breath with every turn of the page and piling body count. I personally would have liked the final twist to be elucidated some more but it didn’t take away my enjoyment of this very unique setting for a thriller. The author very obviously put in tremendous research when creating 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 as evidenced by the glossary in the beginning of the book!

I had a lot of fun buddy reading this book with my friends @sunflower_book_lover @abookwormwithwine @archie.loves.to.read & others! Can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts when the book comes out in August!👀

The Chamber is a locked room mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. We follow six saturation divers who have just departed on a month long job. The environment is claustrophobic and the divers work in strict conditions and a high pressure environment. A sudden death has them returning to the surface, but at the depths they work at they must undergo decompression or risk a horrific and painful death. More deaths follow and the crew is left to figure out who or what is responsible and how to survive as the hours count down to their escape.

This is a really great summer read that you won’t be able to put down. I would have liked to get to know the divers more in the setting of their work and the saturation diving environment before everything starts happening as it’s so interesting. But once the time starts ticking down to their escape I couldn’t put it down. It was tense and claustrophobic and the tight living conditions as everything starts happening is pretty horrific to imagine. I find saturation diving really fascinating and this was a really interesting take on the locked room mystery.

If you enjoyed Netflix’s Last Breath or are like me kind of obsessed with saturation and cave diving stories and are looking for a suspenseful tension filled read that will keep you guessing this is a great summer or travel read.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and the publisher. I received an advance review copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to Atria for the physical ARC of one of my most anticipated thrillers of the year! Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the eARC! Will Dean has a superb way of building suspense. I throughly enjoyed his previous outing, The Last One and The Chamber was no different in regard to my enjoyment.

I found myself questioning character motives throughout, and second guessing my theories and presumptions of the plot and characters. This book was an enthralling journey, I could hardly put the book down. Full of urgency, paranoia, and shudder inducing events - The Chamber is an excellent literal locked door thriller.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of this ebook. I was looking forward to reading it because I really enjoyed The Last One, and I was hoping for something similar. This particular storyline did not grip me quite the same way, and I admit that sometimes I had difficulty following the story. I think because this story revolved around a group of divers who were submerged deep in the sea, the scuba lingo and atmosphere were a bit lost on me. The story was suspenseful though and the sheer claustrophobic nature of it was alarming. Also, just like in The Last One, the ending really packed a punch and left me with my mouth agape.

This book is tense, y'all. One of my favorite sub-genres of horror and thriller is isolation, but I wasn't sure how I would feel about the claustrophobic aspect of this one. Dean does a masterful job of forcing you to understand just how crammed into a tiny little chamber these six divers are and at times it felt like I was in there, shoulder to shoulder with them. I have a particular fear of not being able to breathe, so underwater horror is extra chilling for me.

I loved learning about all the different divers, their backstories and some of the things that they had all been through in their years at sea. Being in Brookes head was unnerving for sure, I was constantly terrified that she would act on one of her intrusive thoughts. But this is a slow burn all the way until the end. If you're looking for something fast-paced, you might be disappointed in this one, because while there is action, its quick and once its over, its back to slow moving chamber time.

While I definitely enjoyed this one, I do have a couple of issues with it. First, it was really hard to keep track of who is who, because they switch from talking about divers using their nicknames to using their real names frequently - I wish they would've stuck with one or the other. And then the twists. The first one caught me so totally by surprise that I had to go back and reread it to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding. The ending...it was a little ambiguous for me. I can't say much without spoiling it, but I'd suspected all along that it was headed the way it ended, but...is that actually how it ended? Unclear.

Overall, this is a good read from Dean, but for me it doesn't live up to The Last Thing to Burn or The Last One. If you love a locked room mystery and a tense claustrophobic atmosphere, filled with paranoia, mistrust and an unreliable narrator, I think you'll like this one!

I have enjoyed other installments by Will Dean but this was not one of my favorites. The book seemed mostly to tell the audience all the cool facts he learned while researching the book. While they were interesting, the actual plot of the book dragged and was more annoying than suspenseful. After reading over half of the book, I skipped to the end and was not happy with the "twist." Skip this one.

Six saturation divers locked in a hyperbaric chamber. Shortly after they descend into the oceans depths one of them is found dead. They have four days until they can be brought to the surface and released…rapid decompression will kill them, opening the hatch early will kill them, and now another there is a second body. Nowhere to run, nobody can be trusted, a deadly countdown to reach safety before anyone else dies.

The chamber is a claustrophobic nightmare in which six people are stuck inside a hot, cramped, pressurized, death trap below the oceans depths. I can tell you every descriptive paragraph in this novel had me cringing. Also the characters unique ways to pass time by telling each other about horrible events didn’t help. I typically enjoy this authors stories but this one wasn’t a good fit for me. This is not to say it wasn’t a fantastic murder mystery but the setting made me uncomfortable, I don’t find diving as interesting as the author apparently does, and some of the story felt repetitive and a bit slow. That being said this was the ultimate “escape room” situation in which everything will kill you horribly. If you like to “geek out” about deep sea diving then this might be a better fit for you.

When six divers are on a job in a confined chamber for the next 30 days, cramped quarters are the least of their concerns. On the first shift, Ellen gets back to chaos, when the newest member of the crew passes out. When the situation worsens and they are unable to save him, the team is forced to begin to ascend. Paranoia begins to set in as another member goes down. Is there foul play or something more harmless?

Imagine being locked in a tiny chamber miles out in the North Sea if you suspect one of your teammates of murder, or indeed that there’s some harmful bacteria/substance that’s caused the death of your colleague. You can’t open the door or you will all die! The finger of suspicion gets a real workout in this excellent locked room thriller. As the hours tick down, the psychological pressure builds, as does the claustrophobia, leaving the reader breathless with anticipation! Another winner from the talent that is Will Dean. And breathe!!t sends shivers down your spine, makes every hair on your body stand up! It makes you feel trapped, paranoid, delirious, sweaty, dizzy, helpless! You feel like one of the six people caged in the chamber, forming conspiracy theories about who wants to kill you, who the main villain is: somebody inside or anyone working in the corporation sending your food, your drinks, equipment you use. Who? Even writing these sentences made me hyperventilate. SO good and SO worth it!

It is remarkable what a tasty dish the author cooks with almost no ingredients. Six characters trapped in a space the size of an SUV. That’s it. And how he maintains the tension throughout the novel is remarkable. Ellen Brooke is the lone woman in a crew of Sat divers, who go to unbearable depths and subject themselves to insane pressures to do what needs doing at the bottom of the ocean. Once one of them dies in mysterious circumstances, there is no way to rescue them until the titular chamber depressurizes slowly to get them safely back to the surface. They are surrounded by people, but no one can go in to help and they can’t get out without becoming “raspberry jam” (their term). But with so many people in such a small place it would be easy to keep an eye on them all, wouldn’t it? When a second diver is found unresponsive, it is clear that it is not a coincidence but what is happening, and who is doing it? More importantly, does the threat come from inside or can one of the many people outside, those tasked with keeping the divers alive, be responsible? I had no idea. Normally, I’m not into too much detail, but this world is so fascinating, that I wanted to know more. But what really got me was the tension. The countdown to the second they can open the hatch and what else can go wrong. Very suspenseful and entertaining. Pardon the pun but The Chamber left me breathless.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Atria Books.

4.5 stars for this absolute thriller of a book. Holy moly this is one claustrophobic locked-in crazy ride. Six people go into a chamber for 28 days to go to the bottom of the North Sea to attempt to research or fix something from an oil company. They are in a space the size of a small bathroom with 3 sets of bunks where they can touch each side and some are unable to even stand straight up in this chamber. It is narrated by Ellen, the only woman in the chamber. They are all experienced professional divers who will need to rely on each other for everything. Will Dean bring the reader into the tiny space of this chamber, the heat rising in the chamber will rise within you as you read this book, your heart will race and you will wonder what could possibly be next.

And then one dies. What happened? How? The tension continues to build and build in this suspenseful novel that takes you into the teeny tiny space where five people now remain. Will the body have to stay with them in this small chamber . . . what is happening? Then another person dies . . . and now they have to begin the ascent - four very, very long, arduous days to allow for decompression. Hallucinations begin . . . or are they? Who or what is killing these divers? Will anyone survive. Can they trust one another? The psychological warfare going on inside of their heads is crazy.

At times I had to stop, put the book down, and just breathe. Because I'm telling you this was so intense. I wanted to race through it because my heart was racing so fast but I didn't want it to end because it was so good. And then ending . . . well . . . the ending was as good as the rest of the book.

Thank you so much to Will Dean, NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books to for getting my claustrophobic fears racing . . . Another great book by Will Dean.

This book had my claustrophobia acting up 😮‍💨🥴🤪
•
I absolutely loved Will Dean’s previous book, The Last One, and requested this one as soon as I saw it! Nothing better than a can’t put down, read in a day or two thrill ride, and that’s what Dean delivers. 🙌
•
I knew next to nothing about sat diving before reading this and I thought it was so interesting. Being locked in a tank underwater breathing a mixture of helium and oxygen; wearing a spacesuit type deal and hopping out of the tank to work on pipelines on the ocean floor. 👩‍🚀 Like what!! And then having to stay put for several days after the job is done while the ship above depressurizes the tank you’re in? 🤯🤯
•
It’s a locked room mystery (obviously, they’re stuck in a 6x10 foot chamber 🤣) which I normally LOVE, but this one became super repetitive, maybe as a function of the small setting. As people started dying, the procedure was the same, and we read about it over and over again. I also was skeptical after finishing by the how and why of it all. I don’t really know how it could have been done, and I can’t figure out why they would do it either. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It didn’t necessarily take away from my overall enjoyment of the book, but I do wish more time had been spent on the ending.
•
Obviously, I had some conflicting feelings about this one, but I will still read anything Will Dean writes!! Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for my e-arc!

A slow-build up to a pulse pounding conclusion. Before starting this, I knew about diving but not about Saturation Diving. The first part of the book is setting it up. I loved the storytelling quality. The main character, Ellen, is telling you how it all works by relating stories of how previous dives have gone and how they are different from other dives. It kept me hooking and wondering what was going on. The feel of the small quarters and the complete lack of privacy just jumped off the page.

The mystery begins right after your brief intro. The agonizing wait to get back up to land while also trying to figure out also bleeds off the pages. It's not that the story is boring but you can feel the thoughts and movements slow as they characters begin their wait to decompress and come back up. But each turn has a new emergency, so the story doesn't slow down at all. My only grumble is I would have loved a little more, in the end. But I was highly entertained, telling everyone around me all about the story, the mystery, and how dangerous their jobs were. I loved the characters (Pro tip: make a list and write down names and nicknames. It's a lot at the start and it's easer to have it all written down) and getting to know them and their stories. I love this author, I really appreciate the writing style and the storytelling. I can't wait to read the next one!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This book has an interesting premise and you'll learn a lot about saturation diving. The glossary and diagram at the beginning are very helpful in understanding the story. I mostly enjoyed this one, though at times it was a bit repetitive. After reading this author's last book, I was expecting some big twist at the end, but the ending here fell flat. 3.5 stars rounded down because of the ambiguous ending.

Thanks to net galley for an ARC .

I wish I could give this book a higher rating. The premise was unique and it had me hooked in parts, but the ending fell very flat for me and made the book a disappointment overall. I kept waiting for the twist that never came.

Aside from that, the vernacular made the book a little challenging to read, but not too bad- definitely would have been worth it if the ending had been more exciting.

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