I sooooo wanted to love this one. It started off so strong. Dean is a master at building tension. The repetition of certain aspects of life in the chamber started to feel redundant but it was a master tool at making the reader feel just as claustrophobic and trapped as the characters. The first half or so I was all in, and couldn't read fast enough. By about 3/4 of the way in, I was starting to have my doubts about how this would wrap up. And by the end I was just so unsatisfied. There was too much ambiguity for me, and I wanted to know more about what was happening outside of the chamber. However, Dean will continue to be an auto-read author for me, he's incredibly talented at building a world that draws the reader right in.

I gravitated towards this book because it reminded me a bit of TJ Newman's books: angsty, terrifying, edge-of-your-seat anxiety and I'm glad to say it absolutely delivers! Definitely pick this up as a fun and quick summer read.

Not my favorite will dean book. This was too wordy and too much about diving. I didn’t enjoy this book. The end was good but I’m not really sure I fully understood it.

I don’t know that I’ve ever felt claustrophobic reading a book until now. This was INSANE! Full of Intensity and shock.

This just didn't work for me, It was really interesting at the beginning until about the 50% mark. I enjoyed reading and finding out more about sat divers but once the murders started, it seems like nothing happened in between. It wasn't the author's fault, the setting just doesn't allow for more action. Reading about a bunch of people cramped in a tiny chamber stopped being fun for a while.

I decided to give this author another chance after I DNF'd "The Last One" last year because I felt like the plot was so ridiculous, I could not stand it. This is no hate towards those who enjoyed the book, but it was not for me.
Explaining the plot in short is no difficult task because to me, there was not much plot. We get one POV throughout the entirety of the novel, and it is about 6 divers being sent on a contract job on a deep-sea vessel in the middle of the North Sea. I will say that when the North Sea was revealed as the destination in this book, the TikTok song played in my head. IYKYK. Then we get backstories from each character, and as expected from the blurb, the "one by one" trope was used, but in my opinion, not in a good way. Basically, the plot is just that, and the final 8% made me say "oh s***".
"The Chamber" is unfortunately no exception to the ridiculous plot as I mentioned above, except I did not DNF it. I felt like the plot was far-fetched and outlandish like some thrillers are, but in this instance, it was not done in a good way. I was interested in finding out the ending, but I truly did not connect or relate to any of the characters and what they were going through off-shore and onshore. I am sad to say that this book was boring the first 92% with the occasional intense scene of a member being unalived. As someone who works in the medical field, the medical aspects of the thriller were interesting to read, but that is putting it lightly. I do still want to keep giving this author a chance, but I knew when I had to get through a few pages of words and definitions frequently used in the world of diving and the logistics, I had a strong feeling I would dislike this novel. All in all, I did not hate this, but I did not enjoy it either. If you are someone who is interested in the world of diving and locked-room mystery taking place within a very small chamber and repetitive and tedious chapters explaining backstories of different diving experiences from each character, then this might be for you. The ending was interesting, but by the time I made it to the ending, I did not really care what was unaliving the divers, one by one. In my opinion, this book needed more plot and character development but written in a compelling way instead of an uninteresting way. The very end was confusing because the "twist" that was used happened pretty all of a sudden, and I'm sure the final scene was supposed to be intense, but I found it comical and not realistic at all. Yes, I obviously disliked this book. Am I trying to deter you from reading it? Absolutely not. Proceed with caution. I have seen a lot of good reviews. You may like/love it. Sometimes I am on outlier land. LOL.
Thank you to Atria Books for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. I am sorry that this book did not work for me, but I hope it reaches the intended audience.
2.5 stars from me (the .5 is because I was on edge and laughing so dang hard during the final 8% of the book, LOL)

Ellen Brooke is an experienced saturation diver who is setting off on a typical dive with five others. Below the surface, there’s a mysterious death of one of the divers without a reasonable explanation. The divers must be brought to the surface but can’t be released until their chamber undergoes decompression for four days. Will the remaining divers survive?

This is a very eerie and claustrophobic locked room mystery. The setting alone allows suspense to build and provides atmosphere and creepy tension to the story. I enjoyed learning about saturation diving, because it’s a topic I previously knew little about. However, the thrilling elements weren’t focused on as much as they could have been and the tension and suspicion could have been built up more amongst the divers. Parts of the book were a bit slow moving and there weren’t any major twists like I hope to find in a thriller. Overall, this is an average read and one that I think certain readers might enjoy, especially those who prefer a less intense thriller or mystery.

Thank you to Will Dean, Atria books, and Netgalley for the arc and the opportunity to be an early reader and reviewer.

As someone who is severely scared of the ocean and has claustrophobia, this story gave me literal goosebumps.

Six divers are locked in a very small vessel at the bottom of the sea for their job repairing oil pipes. One of them is found dead and they’re unsure what has caused his death. Then they start to die one by one while they slowly depressurize to open the hatch and get back to land. The details of how slow the time moves in such a tiny space underwater while they wait to possibly die will have your anxiety sky rocketing.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately this one missed the mark for me. I really wanted to love it after my obsession with The Last One. I love a locked room thriller, and had really high hopes for this one. However, I feel that it leaned too heavily on how dangerous the environment was, at the expense of moving the plot forward. The danger was spelled out for the reader on almost every page, and at points it felt like a guide to deep sea diving.

I am SO SAD that I did not love this book more. I loved The Last One so much, I recommend it to so many people, but this book did not hit the same mark.

The concept for this book is amazing and I was so hyped to read this, but the book starts really slow and takes awhile to get going. We get a lot of information dumped on us in the first few chapters and not much is happening. Once we start getting into the book, the pacing is still off and there are a lot of side story telling and filler about cleaning, that don’t seem like they contribute anything to the plot or twist. The reveal and ending also left me confused and disappointed.

Overall, a really unique concept and it definitely had some stressful and claustrophobic moments, but I think I would have enjoyed this much more if some if it was cut down and there was more tension and drama.



**Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Advanced Reader Copy!

I really wanted to like this as the premise sounded so interesting! And I was definitely invested for the first 30% or so but then everything got repetitive and boring. I kept reading to find out how it all ended but that just confused me more! Meh.

I had to remind myself to breathe throughout this entire story- from page 1 all the way to the very last! With his words, Will Dean brings you right into the chamber and makes you feel exactly what the divers are feeling- the pressure, the emotions, all the things. It was suspenseful and claustrophobic and terrifying all at once. I loved every single second of it! A true ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me! Thank you so much to NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC of The Chamber by Will Dean. It was amazing!

Are you ready for a to-die-for locked room thriller?

Todays venue: an underwater chamber for a deep sea diving crew. Six divers will descend but not all will make it back up to the surface. One by one the divers are being picked off.

All the usual questions: how? Why? And most importantly, who is behind it all?

I enjoyed this latest thriller from one of my new go to authors. He kept me guessing all the way. I was doing the usual finger pointing at everyone involved in the dive.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more tension and fear and a little less cleaning!😂 (but maybe that’s just a me thing).

This is the fourth book I’ve read from Will Dean. All his books have a bit of a different feel to them which I love. His ideas are always unique and fresh. You just never know what he will come up with next. What more could us readers ask for!?

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books

This book was utterly dull. I could not connect to any of the characters and there was so much infodumping which was quite a disappointment after how much I LOVED The Last one.

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books for this advanced reader's copy. This book was both exhilarating and terrifying. I don't know how anyone would be able to do this, but everyone has the capability for bravery for different things. Praise people for the ability to be in small spaces for extended periods of time AND be underwater. This is the set up for this book. Six experienced divers are taken down in what should be a routine dive for a week in a hyperbaric chamber. Usually, the divers only have to deal with the boredom of being stuck together in a tight space and away from their families, breathing in helium, and trying not to go a little stir-crazy. Not this trip. They find of the divers dead in his bunk. They can't be brought up too fast or they could die from rapid decompression sickness, but when another of the divers dies right in front of them, will they all die before they make it to the top? Who or what is killing them in their tight quarters? Terrifying as they don't know who or what to trust anymore or who will die next.

A fast paced, edge of your seat adventure thriller that hits a little too close to the events we witnessed last summer. Will Dean certainly knows how to keep you turning the pages while clutching your chest.

OMG I can’t this book had me in a chokehold I loved it so much. I love locked room mysteries and let me tell you I wanted to figure it out right along with everyone else. I tried to figure it out and couldn’t by the end of the book it was such a good twist I loved it.

This one wasn’t for me.

Honestly, much of it was a slog to get through. The small portions in which something happens or people die were interesting. The problem was that they were too few and far between. The rest of the book seemed to consist of introspection and war stories.

I mostly enjoyed our characters and didn’t find the dive-speak off putting. (I confess that I largely ignored the in-depth glossary in the front of the book. I wasn’t going to remember all of that.) I definitely admired the amount of research the writer did. I now know everything I never wanted to know about this kind of diving.

The claustrophobic atmosphere is well done, but I also found that I didn’t want to be trapped with our narrator’s thoughts.

Concept definitely better than execution.

• ARC via Publisher

The Chamber starts out very technical until about 20% in. Once it gets started, the suspense really amps up. I'm glad I stuck with it. This was one of the best settings for a locked room mystery. Ever since hearing about the submersible implosion, this kind of story has my attention. Reading about them performing autopsies under the sea was quite intriguing. It seems like the author did a lot of research in order to write this novel. It was a unique plot and setting and I really enjoyed it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books | Atria/Emily Bestler Books for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

So saturation diving is absolutely CRAZY and I have to send kudos out to all the sat divers in the world that endure these crazy conditions. Will Dean clearly put in a crazy amount of research regarding this kind of diving and the specifics surrounding it. I learned a lot and was able to confirm that I want to stay at the recreational level of scuba diving.

As for the story, this one was soooo claustrophobic and I could feel the walls closing in while reading this one. I live in a shipping container so I’m used to living with limited space, but the idea of not being able to step outside made my skin crawl.

In The Chamber, we get introduced to the concept of sat diving which is scary enough as it is. Then our FMC returns from a dive to find the rest of her team performing CPR on one of the other divers. When a second person in the chamber experiences similar symptoms - the remaining divers realize these might not be accidents after all…..

What follows is a trip into paranoia and self-preservation as the remaining divers try to stick it out until The Chamber can be safely opened. I didn’t ~love~ the ending of this one which is my reason for 4 stars, but still highly recommend for fans of diving, thrillers, mysteries, and books that close in on you as you read!

**Thank you to Atria Books for the ARC of this unique title!!**