Survival can be murder . . .
During a deadly snowstorm, Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors.
Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She's in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board.
Carter is gazing out of the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, the threat of something lurking in the chalet's depths looms larger.
Outside, the storm rages. Inside one group, a killer lurks.
But which one?
And who will make it out alive?
This is a fine example of a bait and switch. Although the information in the blurb is technically correct (the best form of correct, as we all know) it's actually completely misleading for the actual story. This reads like a man-vs-nature story, but there is actually an apocalypse going on in the background that we only learn about as the story goes on. The information we get is quite bitty and it wasn't until about 75% in that I felt I fully understood what was going on - and even at that, there were small points that didn't matter to the story but that I wasn't clear on and would have liked more information about. (How intelligent are the Whistlers? How do they survive when there's noone around to eat?)
However, leaving that out of the equation, I really enjoyed the story. It's well written and moves fast. Tudor has a few habits in her writing that show up - two different characters, in different groups, had 'a shadow of an idea flick(ed) across (her) mind' for example - which can make it tricky to remember which group we're with, but overall I didn't have too much trouble.
I caught on to the big 'twist' just before we started being told about it. It was clever, I'll say that, but I don't want to spoil anything (more) so I won't go further than that!
Overall I enjoyed this, and I recommend it - just be aware that what the blurb says is not exactly what you're getting!
The Drift publishes on the 19th of January, 2023 in the UK (top image) and on the 31st of January, 2023 in the US. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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