A horror story in the middle of an apocalypse! In The Drift, we meet three different heroes trying to survive in or around a place called "The Retreat." Hanna is in bus with other students headed to the Retreat, Meg is also on her way with a group of adults via a cable car. Carter is an employee at the Retreat searching for his colleagues and friends. All have been cut off from the world during a dangerous viral outbreak (overturned bus, dangling cable car and abandoned facilities.

Take on this book if you dare! It's dark and daring and on the tail of COVID 19 maybe a little too close to home. CJ Tudor has done an excellent job of creating 3 interesting protagonists that are connected but not revealed until the end of the book. There is some gore, some shocking moments and like all apocalyptic novels, lots of death.
If you like your dystopian, locked room stories, or just interested in a new snowy thriller, The Retreat is for you!

Three different groups of people stranded during a snow storm. Working against a sinister force outside while worrying that not everyone is who they may seem to be, this one keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. The first thing that comes to mind when reviewing this is how incredibly well this author writes her stories. I don't even know how to explain exactly what I mean by that without spoiling it but I am highly impressed. The beginning was a bit confusing to me and I felt like I had no idea what was going on but don't worry, it's supposed to be like that. When reveals are made, you won't be questioning anything. Forewarning, this is not an uplifting read. This is dark, sinister and honestly quite depressing. But it works and it works beautifully. This one is one of my more favorite from this author and it definitely sticks out. I can easily see this as a future series or movie. Four Stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC.

This book follows three groups of people in different settings and in different dangers, all with the goal of not becoming infected and dying of a virus or even worse, living after having been infected. This is an end of the world adventure. Every minute counts and everyone is hiding something.

The three groups are tied together and that will come out as the story unfolds. This book was creepy, suspenseful, filled with twists and turns and brought out some of my own phobias while reading it. Very creative and the ending should surprise everyone.

I could barely put this book down. It was that good.

I want to thank NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity of this early read.

This was a real page-turner! It tells the story of three separate groups of people following an apocalyptic viral outbreak (which hits uncomfortably close to home). They all face dire situations in the fight to survive in a dystopian world.

I really enjoyed (if that's the right word to use for such a dark book) the switching of stories among the three groups--even though there were a lot of different characters, it was easy to follow. And because each group kept facing different crises, it really kept the action moving, but in a believable way.

I loved the ending--it took me by surprise but made sense.

Would definitely recommend (although probably not right before bed, or you'll be up all night reading to find out what happens next)!

There are three POVs representing three groups of survivors:
Hannah — medical student and survivor of a bus crash full of students heading to a semi-secret mountaintop campus called The Retreat during a blizzard. Half of the riders are dead, the driver has vanished, the exits are blocked and emergency tools are missing. Prior to boarding, they all agreed to give up their phones to protect their destination’s location.
Meg — former police officer and volunteer for an experiment at The Retreat, waking up drugged and finding herself trapped with four others and a dead man in a stranded, swaying cable car she does not remember boarding.
Carter — a frostbite victim who has worked at the ski chalet style Retreat for three years with six others, one of whom is inexplicably missing. Realizing that the oncoming storm might isolate them, Carter has his turn to ski downhill to get groceries and trudge back up.

We know from the prologue that something ghastly and infectious has been affecting the world and we easily assume that Hannah, Meg, and Carter will be joined in an eventual mission to cure or conquer the zombie apocalypse (such things called “Whistlers” lurk in the woods), but that snowstorm is preventing that meeting. Within each protagonist’s group, there’s paranoia, suspicion, dead people, and deepening claustrophobia. It becomes slowly apparent that it’s not just Mother Nature conspiring against them.

Suspense is tripled as each group tries to solve their immediate mystery (like where’s the driver, how did that guy get knifed, who stole the drugs) and each protagonist seems to have an annoying adversary (Hannah’s Cassie, Meg’s Sarah, Carter’s Welland). As the narration unfolds, the stories overlay in a twisty, surprising way.

I admit that nowadays I need to be in a specific mood to read any novel about a pandemic, but “The Drift” appealed to me like pre-COVID thrillers did, back when “The Walking Dead” was just a TV show and “World War Z” was just a showcase for Brad Pitt. And this is pure horror/suspense entertainment. You can’t necessarily trust that the good guys and bad guys will sort themselves out. The book is fond of quoting the first part’s heading “The Earth is full of dead good guys.” It’s an original thriller full of suspense and surprising moments. 4 stars!

Thank you to Ballantine Books/Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO But there are some equally rare grey eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO All considered, it is a book about snow, lots of snow, covering any flora.

Buckle up your seat belts folks because this is one wild ride!
I really liked this horror/apocalyptic thriller. It was a fast paced read and I didn’t want to put it down. Full of twists and turns and gore in places.
Hanna is headed to the Retreat but her coach overturns and a few are killed. Meg is headed there on a mountain top cable car that stalls and leaves her and a few others stranded in ice cold temperatures. Carter is already at the Retreat but his friend is missing. These 3 peoples lives intertwine in wicked ways.
This is a must read for C. J. Tudor fans.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine and Kathleen Quinlan for this ARC!

<b>”The Devil was an Angel once”</b>

It’s been 30 minutes since I’ve finished this novel and I’m still sitting here trying to wrap my brain around this captivating story that C.J. Tudor has written. This is the first novel I’ve read by this author and it surely won’t be the last.

<i>The Drift</i> unfolds during a time of unrest, when the world is being ravaged by a plague-like sickness that rapidly infects anyone and only the rich and powerful are being saved. Those that have means are being sent off to safer places while the infected are sent elsewhere.

The novel is told from three perspectives - Hannah, Meg and Carter. <b>Hannah</b>, a student who is on a bus with 12 other students, on her way to the exclusive Retreat. But before they get there, the bus crashes in a snowstorm, leaving them stranded. <b>Meg</b> wakes up to find herself with 5 other people suspended in a cable car in the same snowstorm. There is no operators in site and the drop below is thousands of feet to their deaths. <b>Carter</b> has worked at The Retreat for years. He and his coworkers are responsible for keeping the place running and keeping the "occupants" in the basement safe. But the snowstorm is causing the power and generators to glitch and soon the locks and the gates will give out, putting them all at risk.

This novel is so captivating that I read it in one sitting. The character development and evolvement is nothing short of masterful. 5 well deserved stars.

A group of students find themselves stranded in snowy mountains, trapped when their coach wrecks during an attempted evacuation. The shelter they find keeps them alive for now, but they have to keep going out to seek food.

The generator won't last much longer, and the thing in the crevasse is more and more threatening. They are closer and closer to death. How will they get out of this predicament?