Exciting read but a bit contrived plot that relies on coincidence. Fun summer reading although I am glad I'm not taking a flight anywhere.

“Hostages is a thriller that starts slowly and builds up speed, like a jet on a runway. Mina is a flight attendant on a 20-hour flight when she’s compelled to do the wrong thing for what she sees as the right reason. Those pressuring her feel the same — or do they? I’m looking forward to the movie HBO or another service will inevitably make from this. Reviewed in print and online for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

I devoured this one in a matter of hours. I did see the bad guy twist coming, but the final twist caught me by surprise. Loved it!

Lots of great buildup, character development, and background information. What a mystery! Action packed with twists and turns that will keep you turning pages.

I loved Sophia’s part in the story! The author did a great job covering her character as well as her relationship with her new parents. In this one you’ll find heartache, mistrust, lies, secrets, and lots of wow moments!

Oh that ending… Great read!

Mina and Adam thought that life would be complete with the arrival of their daughter, Sophia. But life with a special needs child is not always easy and when Adam breaks Mina's trust, she is not sure that she can forgive him. In an effort to avoid facing issues at home, Mina volunteers to work on the very first non-stop flight from London to Sydney.

Without giving away any spoilers, I can tell you that during the flight, odd events come together when Mina receives a note from an unknown passenger who seems intent on preventing the flight from reaching Sydney and demanding Mina's help. Should she follow her flight attendant training and report the incident .... or should she follow the instructions in the note? What would you do ... "save hundreds of lives or the one that matters most"?

Clare Mackintosh is one of my go-to authors, so I was thrilled when NetGalley approved my request for an advance copy. I was instantly captivated and finished the book in two sittings.

The story is told in dual timelines - Mina and the passengers and crew on Flight 79 - and Adam and Sophia back on the ground. I have to admit that I found Adam and Sophia to be much more likable than Mina, but both storylines were equally tense and kept me turning the page to see how the story was going to end. Even though I guessed the ending pretty early on, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Clare Mackintosh has brought a hold onto your seat, can't put down thriller with Hostage.

Clare Mackintosh is my favorite thriller writer and one of the only authors who still surprises me. Hostage did not disappoint and had me reading late into the night. I would recommend to any fans of suspense!

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh is so realistic that I'm glad I don't have plans to fly anywhere. This is a crime thriller that is not easy to figure out.

WOW, WOW, WOW!! The tension in this book is a slow build at first but once it takes off, it never lets off the gas.

Clare Mackintosh has created a twisted, action-packed new take in a locked-room thriller. The characters, the story, everything feels so real! I read this book in pretty much one sitting because I literally could not stop. The story was so compelling and I needed to know what was going to happen. And that ending… *mind blown!*

HOSTAGE follows our main characters, Mina and Adam and is told mostly from their points of view. Mina is a flight attendant on the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Adam, Mina’s husband, is a detective at home with their daughter. Between chapters you also get quick snippets into the other plane passengers’ lives and POVs. I also appreciate that this book discusses issues such as body shaming and domestic abuse.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fast-paced thrillers that leave you guessing until the very last page! If this isn’t on your to-be-read list yet, do yourself a favor and get it NOW!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me this phenomenal thriller!!!
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Ok year 2021 is proving me to be the glorious year of thrillers. I can’t decide which thriller is the best because there are so many out there that are so good! But this one, guys…this one is the 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞!!! I kid you not that I was at the edge of my seat from the first pages of the book! So many things are happening in the book from the get go, and none of them good!!!

On Earth, we have the main protagonist, Mina, who is dealing with her shaky marriage with Adam while taking care of their special needs child, Sophia.

But once Mina is up the in skies, Mina as a flight attendant, receives a heart-stopping letter from an unknown passenger to give them access to the flight deck or else her daughter dies. WHAT WOULD A MOTHER DO in this situation??? Mina is in a nonstop 20 hour inaugural flight from London to Sydney so she’s not really in a position for options. Sure enough, she chooses the life of her one daughter over 300+ passengers and the plane is now held hostage by a group. What can happen to a plane held hostage for 20 hours? A lot, actually. Just read the book and find out!!!
In case you thought that’s where the story is limited to, nope!! While Mina is up in the skies fighting to survive, husband Adam and Sophia are also in imminent danger on soil, also trying to fight for their lives! The final chapter and epilogue are EPIC!

I don’t think I’ve ever been THIS excited to write a book review because, man, this thriller just blew my mind!!! Just fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride Clare Mackintosh has laid out for you! This is my first book from this author and will certainly not be my last!!!

This psychological suspense has one shocking twist after another. Macintosh is a true master of suspense and this latest novel proves that. I recommend this and all of her books.

Another heart in the mouth read from Clare Mackintosh, Her latest book is right up to date in terms of current affairs and opinions. Is this the right way to fight for a cause? One of the characteristics of the author, is the remarkable twist that each of her books has had, and this one, if anything, is more sophisticated than her others. I was gripped by the characters and their lives throughout. No spoilers, but the ending was satisfying despite a very complex, claustrophobic, and intense plot. A great read, enjoy it on your staycation for more than one reason!

From the first page you are part of Mina's story. You see all the characters through Mina's eyes. She has 20 hrs to try and figure out how to save all the passengers on the flight and the person she loves most in the world, her daughter. Full of surprise reveals and gobsmacking plot twists. The creepy plot twist at the end sent my blood cold and then Clare turns it on it's head. Such a clever writer.
Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown Book group for my ARC ebook.

Mina is a flight attendant for World Airlines on the history-making Flight 79, the first nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Back home, Mia is a mom to Sophia, her adopted daughter who is anything but easy. She is also estranged from her husband Adam after her au pair leaves in tears. Not long into the twenty-hour flight, Mia receives a terrifying note. Let someone into the flight deck or Sophia will die. As the events on the flight take a turn for the worse, Mia must decide what she’s willing to risk to save her daughter, herself, and everyone else on Flight 79.

Hostage takes place over the course of about 24 hours leading up to the takeoff and during, Flight 79, from London to Sydney. It alternates perspectives between Mina, Adam, and various passengers on the flight. The various passengers give a bit of their backstory and explanation about why they are on the flight.

I could not put this down. I read Hostage over the course of two days. I know this will subtlety haunt me going forward, and I will remember it for years to come. This book was enjoyable throughout, but I particularly enjoyed the ending. I find it rare for thrillers to maintain a steady pace, remain readable throughout, and pull off a solid ending, but Hostage did just that.

I would not recommend this book to anyone with flight anxiety. Although it is fiction, I could see this being a trigger for people with this fear.

Hostage is about a plane that is hijacked. There are actually a lot of hostages. As a matter of fact, hostage has a lot of characters. I started a little note page to keep track of who was who and where they were on the plane. The main characters are a husband and wife with a troubled marriage. The wife, a flight attendant, trades a little to get away from home, her husband, and their difficult child. She gets on a famous first nonstop from England to Australia. Side note: I never want to be on a plane this long. Ever.

Once on the flight, a decision must be made that will affect the lives of everyone on board. The author does a good job of introducing all of these people and then bringing them all together in this terrifying situation. I enjoyed most parts of it, even the parts that were a little hard to believe. There was a “twist” at the end that wasn’t much of a twist for the reader. I can see it being so for the characters. I doubt they had my notes!

I enjoyed the looks into the minds of so many characters and the book, once it got going, kept me constantly page turning. I really wanted to know how this would turn out. I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. It was told in multiple points of view, by Mina, Adam and several different passengers.

Mina is a flight attendant on the first ever non stop flight from London to Australia. On the flight she gets a letter that says help them take over the flight or something will happen to your daughter. Like every parent Mina chooses her daughter even if it jeopardizes everyone else on the plane. The plane gets over taken by terrorists and its a wild ride from there

Adam is Minas husband and is trapped in their basement with their five year old daughter, being held hostage by the babysitter who is actually in cahoots with the terrorists on the plane. Through in some debt collectors who want their money returned and some arsen and it really seems Adam is in way over his head.

No one is who they seem in this crazy mail bitter of a thriller, will anyone make it out alive?

I loved the suspense, writing, plot and characters of this book, i was a little let down by the three years later section, i thought it was really fast and not as enjoyable as the rest of the story but the Epilogue definitely made up for it

Ahh - I've finished the book - I can breathe again. I really felt like I was holding my breath the entire time I was reading "Hostage". This book played in my mind like a movie as I was reading it (premonition? I won't be surprised if it's made into a movie). Mina is a sympathetic character who is put in an impossible situation. Adam comes off as a jerk in the beginning but definitely redeems himself.

There is nonstop action and tension here throughout the story and there are definitely some shocking moments. As the story concludes, it seems like it will be 'happily ever after'. Or will it? The author has another twist in store for us that I didn't see coming. But wait - there's more - and that one I REALLY didn't see coming.

Excellent thriller!!

Last fall, trapped at home and dreaming of flying far away—anywhere!—I picked up Hostage. I thoroughly enjoyed Mackintosh’s previous books, especially her first two, and was hopeful this too would be diverting.

Two days later, having alienated everyone I encountered—I did not want to be disturbed about anything that wasn’t definitively urgent—I put down this book, desperate for the rest of the thriller loving world to read it. In short order, I had my husband, my best friend, and my neighbor flipping its pages as fast as they could too.

Hostage may make you think twice about flying but, reading while grounded, you’ll be transported.

As the book begins, Mina, a flight attendant, is headed out on what will be the first nonstop flight from London to Sidney: Twenty hours in the air in a Boeing 777 filled with 353 press, passengers, pilots and other airline staff. Mina has pulled strings to be on this flight, not because it’s a big deal to her but rather as a way to temporarily escape her seemingly broken marriage. Mina loves Adam and their exceedingly precocious daughter Sophia, but she no longer trusts Adam—she’s convinced he was having an affair with their ex-au pair, a young Ukrainian woman who recently cryptically quit working for them.

Over the first ten chapters, Mackintosh introduces Mina, her family, and her coworkers as well as a terrifyingly matter of fact group of passengers who are on the plane to… you got it… hijack it. They’re eco-terrorists who plan to crash the plane if the airline industry doesn’t agree to significantly cut its carbon footprint. The reader is shown their thinking early on but has no idea who, on the plane, they are.

Shortly after the plane takes off, Mina is shocked to discover Sophia’s EpiPen in Mina’s flight bag. This makes no sense—Mina knows it is always kept in Sophia’s school backpack because her daughter has severe nut allergy. Mina thinks she must have made a mistake but then, less than 30 minutes later, a passenger suddenly and suspiciously dies and, while Mina is going through his pockets for his ID, she finds a picture of Sophia, clearly taken earlier in the day. Mina is freaking out when things get much worse. The hijackers slip her a note demanding her help in commandeering the plane. If she doesn’t do their bidding, Sophia will die.

Back in London, Adam and Sophia are also being threatened. Neither they nor Mina have any way to communicate, a situation used to great advantage by the terrorists. As their situations worsen, so does that of all on Flight 70. The chapters switch from narrator to narrator and though this is confusing when the book begins, soon the threads fuse, ensnaring the reader in a delightful web of menace, fear, and frantic curiosity.

Beginning in her first book, I Let You Go, Mackintosh has gifted readers with twists we didn't see coming. Here, she's never offered more stunning revelations. This is a book that, to the very end, is full of smartly rendered shockers. I enjoyed each and every one.

At the end of the novel, Mackintosh has a long and thoughtful note about the airline industry, global warming, and tough choices. It's a fascinating take on a complicated conundrum and makes thinking about the issues raised in Hostage provoking.

Hostage--along all those Karin Slaughter books AAR convinced me to read--is the best thriller I've encountered this year. It's perfectly paced, genuinely perplexing, and almost impossible to predict. I predict readers everywhere will be held captive to its thrall and will be bereft when the thrill ride that is this book comes to its stunning, jaw-dropping end.

Get it at Amazon

This was a great, action-packed, fast- paced thriller. I find that books that take place over the span of 24 hours are really intense and suspenseful, as was the case here. I enjoyed the characters and sympathized with Mina. I really liked how the perspective alternated between Mina and her husband Adam. I feel like that really helped amp up the suspense because we get to hear from the perspectives in the air and on the ground. What prevents me from giving this one five stars is that I felt the motive behind the hijacking was a bit loose. Otherwise I enjoyed this gripping and intense thriller.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Hostage by Clare MacKintosh.
Mina and Adam were once a happy couple - they have a daughter, Sophia, good jobs, nice home . But life happens and Adam was unfaithful with the babysitter, and Mina decides to go on her own.
Both Mina and Adam have secrets - Mina an airline hostess and Adam a detective - they keep them close to the vest. But everything goes haywire when a seemingly normal day turns their entire lives upside down and they are now the hostages of their own making.
Written by POV - this is a good book, lots of characters to keep track of, and sometimes a bit predicable. Solid plot and good ending.
4 stars.

Thanks @netgalley for the ARC of this one!!

If you liked locked room thrillers, this one is for you! This was such a great suspenseful story about a flight attendant/mother, who has to make the most impossible decision: allow for a hostage plot to take into effect with her help or risk her daughters life.

This was so well written and I loved the multiple POVs. I did not see the ending turning out the way it did, but boy was my mind 🤯

Highly recommend for all the thriller lovers out there!