The blurb for this touts "Titanic meets The Shining!" but mentions nothing about the Alien franchise. It totally should have. The corporate sleaze underlying that space series has a match in Dead Silence. Claire has already been a Company victim once, as a child, when her settlement didn't get needed supplies and consequently perished. She also carries a secret shame from that ordeal, and she never learned to play well with others. But her Company job is almost at an end, and they're going to put her out to pasture. On her last voyage, though, she and the crew pick up a distress beacon. From a long-lost luxury vessel. Which they can claim for salvage. They juuuuust need to go aboard and get some evidence...Claire can't account for what happens next, and then, she's sent back into the fray. A ghost ship, corporate greed, and shallow consumerism make a lethal combination. Will anyone survive? Ooh, this is a shivery and delicious read, even if one of the underlying culprits is pretty obvious early on.

Space mystery where the sole survivor of a disaster is being suspected of murdering their crew.

They come across a Luxury space ship that has been missing for a number of years, but they find it in a desolate part of space.

The evils of corporations is a bit overdone

A haunting story set in space , what more could I ask for? Easily one of my favorite reads of the year so far. While not very complex or flushed out I found myself rooting for the entire ships crew and enjoying the whole cast of characters. While parts of the story were predictable, it never took away from the fast paced fun of this read. Switching between past and present the dual timeline really works for this story, and I COULD NOT put this down.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this AMAZING book!

When a communications network repair crew lead by Claire Kovalik picks up a strange, distress beacon on the outer edge of known space, they have no choice but to investigate. The crew finds a twenty-year-old lost luxury ship, the Aurora, which could net each crew member quite the salvage reward. However, what the crew stumbles upon is a strange series of events that resulted in the violent deaths of everyone on board the Aurora two decades ago. What caused everyone on board the Aurora to violently murder each other or commit suicide? Kovalik and her crew find out - the hard way.

Dead Silence is a science fiction, horror novel about a ghost ship, with a twist. This page-turner of a novel follows Kovalik in her retelling of the events that transpired when her crew found the derelict Aurora; however, Kovalik's memory is unreliable. Throughout the novel, the author expertly reveals small snippets of Kovalik's stellar backstory - which are a definite highlight of Dead Silence. The novel is also split into several parts, each with a very different 'feel'. Readers who enjoy science-fiction and horror genres will greatly enjoy Dead Silence, as well as those who would prefer a thriller.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this ARC.

As an avid horror reader, this book filled me with more dread than any other book I've read in years. A Ghost Ship story with a twist, this book had me torn between "unable to put it down" and "I need to throw it across the room to keep it away from me." It will, fittingly, stick in your head long after the last page.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a review copy! I am a horror movie fan. I heard about this book as a comparison to the early 2000’s movie Ghost Ship where ship salvagers find a luxury liner adrift in the ocean. Surprise! It’s haunted. The comparison was enough to make me NEED this book. It did not disappoint! The story had it all- a desolate space setting, haunting location, and plenty of action. This is one of those books that I don’t want to reveal too much in the review- you have to go in not knowing. If you like space/sci fi thrillers and horror/ghost stories- this is for you! (And I wholly recommend a viewing of Ghost Ship after you finish!) 5/5

Also reviewed on my Goodreads page.

This is a very good book, even if you are not a fan of science fiction, there is a lot that happens that should keep your attention. Claire Kovalik, the lone childhood survivor of a virus on a Mars colony, is the grownup team lead on a space ship that inspects/repairs a giant communications network. While in a remote area of space they pick up a distress signal originating from another ship and investigate. The signal is coming from a luxury space ship, the Aurora, that had disappeared 20 years ago with all on board, most of the passengers were of the uber wealthy kind. Claire and her team decide to board the ship to salvage something they can return with to prove they found the ship and to claim the salvage reward. What they find on the ship is very disturbing, all the passengers have died violent deaths. Claire and her team start to experience hallucinations, or is it? The story is told in a present day where Claire is being interviewed by executives of the company she works for and in the past where she relates her memory of what happened. Claire's memory is unreliable to say the least and has large gaps in it. What happened to the Aurora takes place over the last third of the story and it's quite the tale, each revelation keeps the pages turning. Highly recommended! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Event Horizon meets Titanic in this spooky and thrilling novel. This book succeeded as a haunted house story set in space, with a broken protagonist struggling to overcome the horrors of her past and the new ones she is facing.

The book starts off slow, letting the reader get to know the various members of Claire's crew. She has Kane the mechanic, Voller the pilot, Lourdes running communications, and Nysus managing the technology. The five of them stumble on an old distress signal from the Aurora, a luxury cruise liner believed lost years prior. They travel to the ship to claim the ship as theirs, only to discover the horror of what happened to the Aurora's original passengers. Barnes does a great job with the setting of the Aurora, depicting a grand ship that has been decaying over time. It works well as a location that could have ghosts around every corner.

In the present, Claire is being interviewed by Max Donovan and Reed Darrow, two representatives of the Verux company, as they attempt to determine what occurred on board the Aurora. She was found in an escape pod a few weeks after her crew arrived on the ship. They believe Claire is lying about what she saw and want to head back there to investigate. I was worried initially at the book revealing this on the first page, but it does not reduce the tension of the first half due to Barnes' effective characterizations and the simmering tension of the crew's exploration of the Aurora.

This book was a great mix of science fiction and horror that I hope many more will read. Big thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan for a review copy of this book.

If you fancy a nice trip into the realms of nightmare drenched science fiction horror then Dead Silence, the debut from SA Barnes, is your dream ticket and I guarantee you will not be seeking any refunds on your journey. Alternatively, in reading some of these startlingly original and eerie sequences readers will be decidedly pleased to have both feet on the ground, rather than aimlessly drifting through uncharted space on the ghostship ‘Aurora’. The sense of isolation on this lost ship was so complete you could almost taste it in the back of the throat. Interestingly, the blurb sells the book as “Titanic meets The Shining” which is a very accurate pitch, but I have seen others bill call it “Ghost Ship meets Event Horizon” which is also a cool and honest hook.

Dead Silence is convincingly carried and narrated by central character Claire Kovalik who is damaged, unpredictable and is blessed with a fascinating childhood backstory which is gradually revealed as the plot develops. Claire is the captain of a small maintenance repair crew which travels around the outer boundaries of known space, where she has spent her entire life, with rotating Firefly style crews. When the novel opens it is revealed that she is days away from being made unemployed and believing she has no future is both an emotional wreck and contemplating suicide. Claire is not exactly ‘hero’ material, but she has many great qualities and the author does a fine job of presenting her contradictions and bringing them to life. Although Dead Silence really is not an action novel and is much more psychological, Claire did remind me of Ellen Ripley from the Aliens franchise who famously return to the last place in the galaxy she wanted to visit. Even though Claire is both a strong and enduring female lead, when she is presented with the same dilemma she is terrified, but knows she has to face her demons.

If you are after a blood and thunder Scott Sigler style of science fiction horror novel this might not be the book for you, as it was rather slow, patiently setting the scene and relies upon atmosphere rather than jump scares or bloodletting. The sequences on the ghostship ‘Aurora’ were outstanding, described in supreme visual and hallucinogenic detail, vividly bringing to life the famous luxury space-liner which disappeared twenty years earlier. The reader genuinely walks the steps with Claire and her crew as they explored the giant tomb, discovering the bodies of long since dead famous people of two decades earlier, whilst trying to uncover the reasons for the disaster whilst slowly developing a nigglingly bad feeling. Although I did enjoy these sequences they went on for just a tad too long, where little happened and perhaps another edit would have moved the story on at a speedier pace.

The novel flows well with split narratives of ‘present’ and ‘before’ kept the readers on their toes and nicely broke up the sequences on the Aurora with what followed. In the current storyline Claire is being grilled by her bosses on what happened to her crew after they discovered the Aurora and the before narrative takes us back to where most of the story is set, after they decide to scavenge the massive space-liner when hearing a distress call on a very old radio frequency. Once again, this company had an Aliens mining vibe, and I could not help thinking of sleazeball Burke and the business putting cash before their employees. The two timeline stories come neatly together and the author keeps the reader hanging on what did really happen to the Aurora? I was totally on the hook for the big reveal! In the end, Claire’s part in the story held up well, but I found the ultimate reason for the Aurora’s disappearance to be slightly anticlimactic and rather low-key, even if it did fit with the mood of the book overall.

Dead Silence had many admirable qualities and I loved the manner in which it came across as a science fiction novel, but never dwelled on the mechanics of the ‘science’ but is naturally very rational. Although it was set in space, the value of salvaging the most famous spaceship in history was a fascinating idea and the characters rightfully spent some page time on discussing this and the monetary value of discovering something as unique as the Titanic or the Marie Celeste. For much of the time Barnes nicely keeps the reader on their toes on whether the disaster is caused by aliens, the supernatural or something else and there are plenty of breadcrumbs dropped along the way to make Dead Silence a relatively swift read and it is easy to get carried along by the sense of foreboding, strange noises, muffled voices and horrific blood patterns which decorate the walls.

Overall Dead Silence was an impressive read where the positives heavily outweigh the slight gripes I have already mentioned. Successful science fiction horror is not easy to pull off and this novel achieves it in some style and has the potential to pick up a wider readership beyond the horror genre.

This scratched every horror itch I had. It was right up my alley. I LOVE the whole premise of an abandoned ship, house, spaceship or whatever and this was so well done with the unreliable narrator, who unlike other horrors was believable and well thought out.

From start to finish it was unputdownable.

I have found lately that "horror" genre books aren't always creepy and scary, but this isn't one of them. I haven't enjoyed a horror this much since The Elementals or The Deep.

I absolutely love space horror and that’s why I requested this book as soon as I saw it!

This book gave me strong vibes of one the best space horror movies ever made, “Event Horizon.”

Reading this book has been one wild ride and I devoured it within a day. I just couldn’t stop reading.

Every moment was filled with heart thumping dread and a sense of utter eeriness.
I don’t get spooked easily, but I was looking over my shoulder multiple times while reading it.

It’s like the story of the titanic /ghost ship/ event horizon, all rolled into a giant ball of terror in space.

Claire Kovalik and her small space crew discover The Aurora, a luxury space-liner destined for a cruise of the solar system, which has been missing for twenty years. It was boarded by society’s finest and richest people at the time.

Claire and her crew decide to board the ship as this is their big chance to strike it rich. They want to take the ship back, to be rewarded for their discovery, and also because they want people to have closure, and find out what happened to their loved ones on board the ship.

What they find on the ship is extremely disturbing and mystifying. What terrifying events took place aboard the luxurious ship, that caused all the passengers to die or kill themselves in horrific ways?

There’s something not quite right about the Aurora and Claire and her crew will pay a price for coming aboard the doomed ship.

I really liked the characters that made up the main cast of the book. Their camaraderie is enjoyable and one almost feels like a part of the crew, reading about them. These are well thought out characters that one actually cares for.

I really want this book to be made into a series on Netflix or Amazon Prime, as it’s absolutely perfect material for a TV show.

I would definitely recommend this book for sci fi, horror, thriller & mystery fans. I think it has to be one of my favorite horror/sci fi books this year!

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy of this book for an honest review.

Okay just wow. The spooky atmosphere and mystery in this was wonderful and this book is definitely a new favorite.

When Claire's team stumbles across a distress beacon and find the lost Aurora, a luxury liner that has been missing for years ever since it's maiden voyage. No one knows what happened to the ship, but here it is for the taking. They decide to go on board to investigate, expecting the find could set them all up for life. But they aren't ready for what is waiting for them. This book is basically Titanic in space if the Titanic had gone missing only to be found more than years later with unspeakable horrors on board. Even worse, the corporation owning the ship doesn't want the truth getting out.

This book hit everything I love in a good space horror. The building tension of what Claire's team will find on board mixed with the horrors they are finding that keeps the story spooky and mysterious. Then the book begins messing with their senses and you aren't sure what is real and what isn't and it keeps you guessing. This is one of those books that left me with some visuals that will stick with me for a while. I also loved the subtle clues pointing to the truth.

Dead Silence is one hell of a book. It was advertised as The Titanic x The Shining but set in space which works, though Ghost Ship x Event Horizon might be more accurate. From start to finish, this book knows exactly what it wants to be, and it delivers every step of the way, which was a marked contrast to this reader’s previous book.
S.A. Barnes does a fantastic job of immersing the reader completely in both the past and present timelines. This trick often does not work well, but in this particular case, the writer managed to flip back and forth in a way that kept the tension up and kept the story going forward. The logic behind the story, that which drives the plot, makes a refreshing amount of sense. There was no issue with the suspension of disbelief.
The main character, Claire Kovalik, has one trait that sets her apart from the traditional MC in these types of books. One that could have been poorly handled but wasn’t. While she does check many of the traditional boxes for the tortured but enduring strong female lead, Kovalik does not feel like a cliché. There are no excuses here, and though the character does have a bit of a ‘woe is me’ thing happening, it is completely understandable.
“But I will say this: once you’ve been in a position to watch everyone you’ve ever known die […], you realize not only that life is precious but also that death is absolutely inevitable. […] I prefer facing that particular unavoidable reality rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.”
Barnes’ prose is on point with Dead Silence. It never tips to purple, and there are delightful lines that will send a happy shiver up horror lovers’ spines. Like:
“Well, are you sure this is even the right Claire?” Lourdes asks. “She’s over there, too.” A whisper of fabric against fabric traces her movement as she stands. “Claire. Wait, come back.”
We are all going to die.
Dead Silence is a story of corporate greed and desperate people being driven to pull off the impossible in order to get ahead. There is a romance subplot that softens the edge of the story just enough to keep a thread of hope running through it. The pacing is perfect. The characters are fairly typical for the most part, but they work well in the story. The very idea of a luxury cruise liner ‘lost’ in space and then being found the way this particular ship is found is a great take on a familiar tale.
Recommended for fans of space adventures gone wrong, though it might quite possibly find a home in the hearts of some who are always looking for the next Firefly-esque crew to root for. Banged up clunker ship and all. Overall, Dead Silence is one of the best sci-fi horror tales that Sci-Fi & Scary has experienced in recent years.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought I knew how it would unfold, but it gave me quite the twist and I loved that. Amazing worldbuilding. Excellent main character. A whole lot of tension and creepy stuff. A total winner!

Sad to admit but this was my first space horror novel! And I'm here to say I'm.officially hooked! Hells Bells Dead Silence was freaking amazing! I believe I have found a new genre! So thank you! 😘

Barnes really knows how to hold a readers attention and never steers away!
This story was the best story I've read in some time! As for the characters I really enjoyed them. And how much the characters developed throughout the book. Very interesting!
All in all this book was a great psychological suspense read.
The writing was beyond interesting and intriguing. It held my attention. And I loved the story.

Thank You for the chance to read and review!
I'll post to my accounts closer to pub date!

4.25 stars from me! This was such a fun ride! You had me at haunted space Titanic. I feel like anyone who loves the movie Aliens will really enjoy this one - it’s maybe my favorite movie and I loved the parallels. The tension is mostly psychological, and despite the many content warnings, muuuuuuch of the horror is actually in the past - there is evidence of it, but you are not experiencing it live, if that make sense. That said, some of it definitely does happen on the page, so if gore/death is not your bag, you may want to skip it. I really liked watching Claire try to make sense of her past, her broken memories, and how she wanted to be a person moving forward - a great character development arc.

Imagine the Mary Celeste….in space. Claire is working her last days on the job as a beacon repair operator when her ship picks up a distress signal. Knowing that only unemployment awaits her back on earth, Claire and crew decide to follow the beacon. What they find is a salvagers dream – the Aurora, a luxurious space ship that disappeared over two decades ago. It looks like Claire’s fortunes are looking up… until they tour the Aurora. The ship appears to be empty, but there are strange noises, muffled voices, blood on the walls. And what happened to the passengers and crew? A freakishly scary book