The Drift by C J Tudor – #BookReview – #psychicsuspense

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors. They’ll need to work together to escape—with their sanity and secrets intact.

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. They are heading to a place known only as “The Retreat,” but as the temperature drops and tensions mount, Meg realizes they may not all make it there alive.

Carter is gazing out the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, something hiding in the chalet’s depths threatens to escape, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails—for good.

The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater danger—one with the power to consume all of humanity.

His Review:

Could mankind be destroyed by a new disease? This novel explores an apocalyptical era where Earth’s inhabitants die from an extremely toxic and rapidly spreading disease. Those who do not die from the disease are changed into people with bad breathing problems. The dying easily pass on the disease.

The government sets up compounds where those afflicted can be quarantined. Old ski lodges are used for this purpose. A good portion of the story centers around survivors being stuck on a chair lift around 250 yards from the ski lodge. Those stuck in the gondola are trying to make it to the lodge but the cables have problems. They are stuck in the air one thousand feet above the ski slope.

The characters are well-developed and the novel points out the selfishness and avarice that people exhibit trying to save themselves. Killing is random and the more selfish of the group tend to become survivors.

I’ve read several books by this author including A Sliver of Darkness and was not quite prepared for the heavy side of horror and apocalypse. It was well-written and paced but was just a little too much blood and guts for me. 4 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Psychic Suspense, Horror Suspense, Psychological Thrillers
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ASIN: B09Z91SS77
Print Length: 337 pages
Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: C. J. Tudor lives with her partner and young daughter. Her love of writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert.

Over the years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, dog walker, voiceover artist, television presenter, copywriter and, now, author.

Her first novel, The Chalk Man, was a Sunday Times bestseller and sold in thirty-nine territories.

Have a Great Sunday

A Sliver of Darkness: Stories by C J Tudor- #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

A Sliver of Darkness by C J Tudor

Book Blurb:

The debut short-story collection from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man, hailed as “Britain’s female Stephen King” (Daily Mail), featuring eleven bone-chilling and mind-bending tales

Time slips. Doomsday scenarios. Killer butterflies. C. J. Tudor’s novels are widely acclaimed for their dark, twisty suspense plots, but with A Sliver of Darkness, she pulls us even further into her dizzying imagination.

In “The Lion at the Gate,” a strange piece of graffiti leads to a terrifying encounter for four school friends. In “Final Course,” the world has descended into darkness, but a group of old friends make time for one last dinner party. In “Runaway Blues,” thwarted love, revenge, and something very nasty stowed in a hat box converge. In “Gloria,” a strange girl at a service station endears herself to a coldhearted killer, but can a leopard really change its spots? And in “I’m Not Ted,” a case of mistaken identity has unforeseen fatal consequences.

Riveting, macabre, and explosively original, A Sliver of Darkness is C. J. Tudor at her most wicked and uninhibited.

His Review:

A Sliver of Darkness by C J Tudor — A Sliver of Darkness – US cover

As I read this author, I harkened back to my teen years. Many years ago I became engrossed in the writings and short stories of Edgar Allen Poe. His use of the macabre in his short stories was intriguing. Reading C.J. Tudor I wondered if Edgar could have been reincarnated.

Each of these stories has a diabolical twist at the conclusion. I was also enchanted by the idea of the apocalypse and end of life as we know it. The defeatism and loss of control by the individuals involved became predictable. My sympathies went out to the people who tried to escape to Butterfly Island. I did find it hard to believe, however, that sailors giving transfer services would not be aware of the dangers lurking in the shoals.

CE Williams [Note: Clyde also read The Burning Girls in 2020 and I read a couple prior to that, including The Other People. You always get a nail-biter with a book from this author.] Enjoy these short stories and harken back to the writing mystique of long ago. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Psychological Thrillers, Supernatural Thrillers, Paranormal Suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ASIN: B09PB2HH4J
Print Length:
Publication Date: November 8, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Links: A Sliver of Darkness [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Over the years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, dog walker, voiceover artist, television presenter, copywriter and, now, author.

Her first novel, The Chalk Man, was a Sunday Times bestseller and sold in thirty-nine territories.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The Burning Girls: A Novel by C J Tudor – A #BookReview – British Horror Fiction

Rosepoint Publishing: Five of Five Stars

Book Blurb:

An unconventional vicar must exorcise the dark past of a remote village haunted by death and disappearances in this explosive and unsettling thriller from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man.

A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed—then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the nave of the church.

Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.”

The more Jack and daughter, Flo, explore the town and get to know its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into the age-old rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo begins to see specters of girls ablaze, it becomes apparent there are ghosts here that refuse to be laid to rest.

Uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village with a bloody past, where everyone has something to hide and no one trusts an outsider.

His Review:

A nice safe position to be placed in for a young priest, a vicar in a small hamlet outside of Nottingham. You would think so but this turns out to not be the case. Jack (Jacqueline) Brooks has been sent to Castle Croft to replace a former priest. She was moved from Nottingham under suspicious circumstances.

Once a year, the hamlet celebrates a special day to honor the memory of eight missing women burned at the stake during Queen Mary’s purge of Protestants from 1553 to 1558. The martyrs are represented by twig figures which are set ablaze during the celebration.

May 24, 1990 (two) fifteen year-old girls disappear from the area. Half-hearted searches turn up nothing and the community considers them runaways. The mystery continues but the search ceases. Legends abound and this close-knit community goes on with its’ business. Tough place to become the new Vicar, particularly for a female priest.

The characters are well developed and believable. Jack has been blessed with a fifteen year old daughter named Flo. Mother and daughter have a tumultuous relationship very much like many teenage girls and their parents today. Flo is a fairly free spirit and is not the least bit happy with coming to this hamlet from Nottingham and leaving all of her friends.

Integrating into a small close- knit hamlet is a struggle at best! Jack has a very difficult integration because of her sex and the cloistered community. The paupers’ wage of a vicar certainly does not help. The town folk are not impressed by the new vicar and throw at her problems and roadblocks at every turn. Set in their ways they are not amenable to change and a new spiritual leader.

There is no part of this book that moves slow! I am reminded of the young girls who go into the barn in the “Chainsaw Massacre.” You would think they would learn from some of the gruesome stories and tales of killings in those places. And the grave yard outside of the chapel at Chapel Croft adds the macabre to the setting. A rational person would avoid the location like a plague. The locals guard all of the towns’ secrets jealously. A dark and chilling suspense thriller nee horror. Can the vicar solve the mystery of the disappearance of the girls? 5 stars – CE Williams

My other half read or listened to The Other People and The Hiding Place. It was my turn at a Tudor book. Currently on pre-order. FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Kathleen Quinlan of Ballantine Books-Random House through NetGalley. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: British Horror Fiction, Ghost Suspense, Horror Suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books

ASIN : B087PMPD5S

Print Length: 352 pages
Publication Date: February 9, 2021
Source: Publisher and Netgalley
Title Link: The Burning Girls [Amazon]
Also find the book at these locations:
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

The Author: C. J. Tudor was born in Salisbury and grew up in Nottingham, where she still lives with her partner and young daughter.

She left school at sixteen and has had a variety of jobs over the years, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, shop assistant, ad agency copywriter and voiceover.

In the early nineties, she fell into a job as a television presenter for a show on Channel 4 called Moviewatch. Although a terrible presenter, she got to interview acting legends such as Sigourney Weaver, Michael Douglas, Emma Thompson and Robin Williams. She also annoyed Tim Robbins by asking a question about Susan Sarandon’s breasts and was extremely flattered when Robert Downey Junior showed her his chest.

While writing the Chalk Man she ran a dog-walking business, walking over twenty dogs a week as well as looking after her little girl.

She’s been writing since she was a child but only knuckled down to it properly in her thirties. Her English teacher once told her that if she ‘did not become Prime Minister or a best-selling author’ he would be ‘very disappointed.’

The Chalk Man was inspired by a tub of chalks a friend bought for her daughter’s second birthday. One afternoon they drew chalk figures all over the driveway. Later that night she opened the back door to be confronted by weird stick men everywhere. In the dark, they looked incredibly sinister. She called to her partner: ‘These chalk men look really creepy in the dark . . .’

She is never knowingly over-dressed. She has never owned a handbag and the last time she wore heels (twelve years ago) she broke a tooth.

She loves The Killers, Foo Fighters and Frank Turner. Her favourite venue is Rock City.

Her favourite films are Ghostbusters and The Lost Boys. Her favourite authors are Stephen King, Michael Marshall and Harlan Coben.

She is SO glad she was a teenager in the eighties.

She firmly believes that there are no finer meals than takeaway pizza and champagne, or chips with curry sauce after a night out.

Everyone calls her Caz.