This book follows Poppy Roe, a famous popstar who sets out to sea on a cruise ship while accompanied by her bodyguard Isaiah Rivers. As a killer emerges as a serious threat to the safety of those aboard, but mainly Poppy, Isaiah and Poppy work together to find the culprit and in the process build trust and a romance.

What I liked most about this book is that it kept me on my toes and that I was never too certain on who the killer on the ship was and had multiple theories throughout the book, but in the end, I was actually surprised by the reveal, which I can appreciate. The romance element of this book was alright as it was nothing too incredibly special to me, and I cared much more of the plot payoff than rooting for the romantic relationship.

A sharp, witty dive into the chaos of modern dating. The Situationship is painfully relatable, laugh-out-loud funny, and filled with emotional truths about self-worth and letting go of the wrong guy. Perfect for fans of messy love lives and even messier personal growth.

ARC review
3.8 ⭐️
~murder mystery, thriller

Thank you Netgalley and Kate Callaghan for letting me read this arc. The following review is my honest thoughts and opinions.

The Situation Ship was a fun read for me considering its setting - that is the cruise ship. A string of murders surrounds the pop star Poppy, with a killer who seems to be playing a cat-and-mouse game with her. The entire book is about her and Detective Isaiah trying to figure out clues left on the cruise ship to piece together the identity of the killer.

Poppy was a fierce character throughout. I loved the cruise concept and the whole 'everyone's a suspect' situation. I like the ending too, which was a nice surprise. Throughout the book, I placed my suspicions on a lot of people, but I was proved wrong.😂
There is little spice in it (in like 3 chapters) which you can just ignore if you're looking for spice spice-free read.

For the cons, I have to say there were unnecessary details here and there. Not too much but still. I also felt like Poppy and Isaiah's dynamic should have been a little better cause they gave into each other way too fast.😂 At times it was fast paced and other times slow, so the pacing was a bit off too.

Other than that, it was an enjoyable read.✨️

Amazing book loved the characters and plot. I couldn't stop reading I stayed up all night. I loved the book so much thank you for the arc.

Thank Kate Callaghan and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review! All information below is based off my own opinion of the book! I also like to keep my reviews short and simple as someone who looks at the short reviews before reading books. 💕⭐️

Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Favorite characters: Poppy & Mina
Review: The book was a good time! I loved the plot there wasn’t a lot of romance in the book but I kind of enjoyed the lack of romance and more of the mystery side of things! The whole book I kept trying to guess who the killer might have been and it changed every other chapter! I wish the ending was a little better! Overall the story kept me entertained and I loved characters!

4.5✨
I loved this book!! It was such a fun and
enjoyably read!! If you love tropes like:
Detective/Bodyguard X Pop Star
Cruise Ship
Murder Mystery
Opposites Attract
Shared Cabin
Reluctant Allies
This is definitely the book for you!!
Poppy Roe is a Pop Star
after her abusive
Auntie death (murder) she's ready to take charge of her life from firing her agent to taking a cruise ship. Just as she's about to aboard with her new assistant and a new bodyguard/detective she's dumped my her (Fake) boyfriend who abundance her and drives away.
Curious about her new bodyguard Isaiah Rivers and why he's volunteered to take this job and if he may or may not be keeping an eye on her over her Auntie death.
Highly recommend this book!! 😍😍😍

The Situation Ship by Kate Callaghan is a slow-burn romantic thriller (is that even a thing?). This was a fast-paced page-turner that caught my attention immediately. While it started with more thriller vibes, there’s enough spice and romance added to keep things interesting without detracting from the story. A lot is happening in this one, and it will keep you guessing.
I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC ebook that I read and reviewed. All opinions are my own.

I was a bit unsure of the direction this story was heading more towards - romance or thriller. The suspense was definitely there either way. Enough to keep me dying to know what was going to happen next. The plot twist was totally unexpected. The spice was just the right amount. Overall, I would recommend this book. To make it even more fun, read this book on a cruise vacation haha

3 Stars - Fine book

A person should avoid booking healing cruise packages since many Hollywood celebrities want to see you dead. The Situation Ship begins its journey with this energy and delivers a mostly fun and bloody experience.

Poppy Roe boards a week-long luxury cruise to escape her grief and gossip headlines. She discovers cryptic notes and CCTV blind spots, and the body count matches the number of cocktail specials. The detective Isaiah Rivers , who doubles as her bodyguard, plans to protect her until he proves whether she is a victim or a perpetrator. The story progresses through its chapters like a podcast about true crimes, using the ship’s decks as settings and passengers as suspects, while the ocean waves create enough motion to require Dramamine.

Callaghan nails cruise-life minutiae—the buffet purgatory, claustrophobic cabins, and that eerie 2 a.m. hush—while handing Poppy a satisfyingly grey moral compass. The mystery clicks because every corpse ties back to the toxic machinery of fame, and the final mask-drop, though half-guessed, still lands.

The romance development moves too quickly throughout the story. The transition from wary allies to deep soul connection within four days triggers my #InstaLust warning signal because I wanted more nighttime surveillance and fewer spontaneous heart declarations. The detective’s credibility suffers from Isaiah’s willingness to accept an excessive number of deaths, and the two major red herrings, consisting of Mina’s dishonesty and her friend’s excessive helpfulness, fail to make an impact.

This book works well for poolside reading if you accept fast-paced feelings and want to finish the suspense in one sitting.

The publisher provided an ARC for review, but my opinions remain completely wild and independent.

New-to-me author, and while overall the book was fine I don't think I was the right audience for it. Poppy (famous singer) and Isaiah (extremely skeptical detective) meet under tense circumstances and their whirlwind romance then takes place over a couple of weeks during a very trying time in Poppy's life. (Murder just seems to follow this girl around, doesn't it?) They're both a bit morally gray (which didn't really bother me), and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this was a theme for the book. I was invested in the mystery, and there were definitely some twists I didn't see coming in this whodunnit. However, the writing style is a bit flat and the pacing/plotting was uneven. I was jarred at times by the push-pull of the relationship between Poppy and Isaiah, and the insta-lust/insta-love aspect gave me a bit of whiplash. (I'm fine with sexual content in my books, but in this book it sometimes felt like filler or a way for the author to force intimacy between two characters who really didn't know each other well at all.) This is an age gap romance, which normally isn't my favorite, but it didn't bother me here since Poppy (26) didn't come across as being a lot younger emotionally than Isaiah (mid-30s). If you're a fan of this author's previous books then you're likely to enjoy this one. (Phoebe and Axel from Not Another Rockstar make cameos in this book, and since they knew Isaiah here I assume he was also in their book.) Fans of age-gap, forced proximity, open-door insta-lust romance with morally gray characters should like this quick read. Publishes July 27, 2025. This review is based on a complimentary eARC of the book, all opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed the book! tho i would have loved writing the names of the characters and who they were, because some of them appeared later and i just forgot who they were haha, but the trio i really liked them! the mystery was done really good and i didn’t see the killer being her!! Overall i enjoyed a lot the book 4.5 ❤️

After the death of her Aunt Poppy Roe the princess of pop finds out about a plot to kill her so she hires a new body guard to travel with her on her vacation. Little does she know that detective Isaiah Rivers ( the new body guard) is investigating some deaths that have been happening around her and his number one suspect is her.

This moved really fast. Things started to happen almost immediately. The plot was constantly going from one point to another. It had me guessing who was responsible who could be doing this the whole time.

I loved the cameos from other books. It made me so happy to see them pop into the story.

Tropes:
Shared Cabin on a cruise ship
Suspect to lovers
Murder mystery
Body guard/ detective
Touch her and die
Protective MMC


Thank you Net Galley and CallaghanWriter | Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles for providing this early copy for review.

Pop stars, a cruise, and a dash of murder? I was all in! This one had a strong start and a fun setup, but I wish Poppy and Isaiah’s romance had been more developed. Still, it was a fast-paced and easy read that kept me entertained.
Big thanks to NetGalley and Kate Callaghan for the ARC!

Poppy Rae is a pop star with a secret and an annoying habit of having those around her show up dead. Isaiah Rivers is a detective who finds her habit extremely suspicious. Together, they solve crimes. Kidding, but not really.

The Situation Ship, as a mystery novel, enthralled me. I was constantly wondering where the story would go and trying my best to keep track of all of the relevant pieces of evidence and plot points. I have to confess that I did not successfully find out the identity of the killer, and while that was due to my lack of attention or lack of clues is something I am not certain about.

As a romance novel, however, I felt it very lacking. Body Guard X Client or Detective X Suspect are not innovative tropes, so started this book expecting it to have an, albeit somewhat cliché, pleasing love story. I didn't see any chemistry between our two leads except for a passing comment of finding the other attractive, and there was no angst or burn. In my opinion, they got together too quickly, and I wished their differences and the impropriety of their situation was explored more in-depth. Their relationship became very intense, but I kept having to remind myself that it had only been a few weeks.

Finally, I have conflicting feelings about the writing. While the author did a very good job of portraying what Poppy's childhood was like and some of the negative parts of being a celebrity, I felt the dialogue contained a lot of exposition. Characters would often explicitly state something that we had seen described in the text, and oftentimes it felt like readers were not trusted to sufficiently understand what was happening.

Throughout this book, for better or for worse, I felt as if I was along for the ride in the Midas. Despite some of my criticisms, I did not feel as if I had to force myself to read it. It felt slightly chaotic, but sometimes the chaos is appreciated.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kate Callaghan for the advanced copy. This review is left voluntarily and honestly.

The situation ship is the perfect summer murder romance! It had a great plot and good character building. Just enough spice but if you want to skip it the chapters are given to you at the beginning.

A really enjoyable read!!!

A pop star's life is turned upside down when her aunt (a major Hollywood actress) dies.

To relax and escape the spotlight, she decides to go on a super exclusive cruise. With a new bodyguard who seems to believe she's involved in three other deaths, she finds herself trapped in a sea of other deaths on the same cruise.

Now they have to work together to catch the killer and prevent more deaths.

Even with a very heavy theme (murder), the author managed to make this a lighthearted read. I really loved the character development, especially Poppy. The more we read, the more we discover new layers to her.

Honestly? I didn't feel like the sex scenes fit into the overall context of the book. I didn't think the sex scene made much sense when it happened, and I also didn't really like how it was written.

Poppy discovering who the killer was was amazing!!! I already had my suspicions about who it was, but when it was finally revealed, I was in shock along with her, hahaha.

Overall, it was a very good read! I'm curious to read other books by the author (especially the one about Phoebe and Axel).

Thank you NetGalley, Independent Book Publishers Association, Members' Titles and Kate Callaghan for an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

The Situation Ship follows Poppy, a famous popstar, and Isaiah, an opinionated detective in a dual POV whodunit mystery on the seas. When Isaiah takes a job as Poppy's bodyguard aboard an exclusive cruise on the Midas to get close to her he soon finds out things aren't always how they seem.

The cruise setting had potential for a very unique forced proximity story, unfortunately many aspects fell short and were underdeveloped. The story relied too much on the simple fact that the crew of the ship would brush anything and everything under the rug to maintain a paradise image.

The dialogue came across quite verbose at times; ranging from amusing to just redundant. While the book was dual narrative I feel like we learned more about each character while in the opposite POV. The book did a lot more of telling than showing who the characters were.

I appreciated the killer reveal even if it was easily predictable to an extent; reveal moments did feel rushed at certain points but for the most part everything flowed nicely until the end. There were a few unresolved storylines and unsatisfying excuses for misunderstandings and motivations among various suspects throughout the story.

In all, The Situation Ship was a lighthearted, fun take on a whodunit story. It offers enough mystery and suspense to keep readers hooked, while simultaneously offering a slow burn romance.

I really, really wanted to love this one, because I love mystery, romance, and books set on cruises! Unfortunately, this read like a first draft. There was a great story in here somewhere, but it didn't come through. The writing was confusing and kept contradicting itself. Another round of developmental and copy editing would do this book wonders.

Unfortunately, I did DNF. I'm going to give it 3 stars since it might have gotten better later on.

I've enjoyed Kate Callaghan's books in the past, and was excited to see her newest book, "The Situation Ship." In this book, Poppy Roe is a pop star who finds herself trapped under everyone's demands for her life. When she finally escapes (due to her own machinations), she finds herself on a cruise ship trying to escape a stalker. Isaiah Rivers is a detective who's been sleuthing all the deaths that have been occurring around Poppy, but he finds himself drawn to the pop star instead. While the two of them put their heads together to determine what's going on, they can't ignore the sparks flying between them any longer.

I really wanted to like this book, but I didn't find Poppy likable, and I didn't like that Isaiah was willing to overlook all her bad actions. I look forward to Callaghan's next book instead. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Since the tragic death of her mother, Poppy has lived under the strict and watchful eye of her aunt. But when her aunt suffers a fatal fall, Poppy is suddenly—and suspiciously—free. Seizing the moment, she books herself on an elite luxury cruise, hoping for a fresh start. Accompanied by a personal assistant and a sharply observant bodyguard named Isiah, who’s supposedly on a vacation from the police force, Poppy is ready to embrace the high seas.

However, the cruise quickly takes a sinister turn. A string of unsettling murders rocks the ship, and Isiah’s presence proves to be no coincidence. He’s not just there to protect—he suspects. With Poppy’s past littered with conveniently timed deaths, Isiah is determined to uncover the truth behind the charming woman with far too many secrets.
Opinion
This book was an absolute thrill ride. From the very first page, the pace never let up—there was always a twist, a secret, or a sharp exchange to keep me fully hooked. The banter between characters was witty and perfectly timed, adding levity to the darker moments, and the murder-mystery plot was full of clever turns.
It’s the ideal vacation read: light enough to breeze through, but packed with suspense and charm to keep you coming back for more. I couldn’t put it down!
Many thanks to Net Galley and Kate Callaghan for providing me with an ARC of this book.