This was a rather fun effort with quite a lot to like about it. The great setup, detailing the sense of mundane and ordinary life aboard the ship, with the crew dealing with the strange guests and their requests for a way of life involving period-specific details, they employ so that it takes a fun way of life as a starting point. That carries into the different detailed explorations of the performances for the guests, with the spider sequence in particular giving this a great deal of tension, seeing the different reactions to the tricks while setting the stage for the lifestyle found on the ship. This is all incredibly helpful to build up how the ship operates and the way the characters interact, which leads into the general chaos that arises once the spiders get loose, while highlighting the main issue within this one with the sluggish tempo on display. That we get several performances and interactions with each other, trying to win him over and get to the magician or detailing the annoyance with the intricate demands of the guests, is fine, yet it rarely serves to generate enough suspense to bring the spiders into the fray until quite later in the storyline.

Once it does, though, bring them into the storyline, and this starts to kick up in not only intensity and suspense but also brings the action along considerably. With the whole thing given a reasonable enough setup involving witchcraft and errant black magic rather than more grounded forms of release for the creatures, this allows for the initial reluctance in understanding the severity of the situation until it’s too late, as they’ve already started taking over the ship before anything is realized. The venomous nature of the specific species and the way they attack keep the encounters fun, chilling, and quite enjoyable, which makes the urgency in the latter half to get to safety believable. As this resolves itself and works to a bizarre conclusion involving a conspiracy cover-up and other forms of government control to keep everything under wraps, there’s enough to like here with the action scenes involving the spiders, while these last segments do little for the story as a whole. The focus on the survivors and their means of aligning with the cover-up offers some intrigue, yet it does go on a bit longer and in more detail than necessary, making this a bit clumsy in execution.

4/5

This book reads like one of those cheesy creature-features that you can find on the SyFy channel (and I mean that as a compliment). This was an easy vacation book that I could turn my brain off for and just go along for. the ride.

Unfortunately the pacing of this book was absolutely atrocious for me. The first 30-40% was mostly just waxing poetic about love triangles and being a performer. By the time any of the action was happening, we were jumping around to so many perspectives that I had no idea what the progression of the situation was, until it was (apparently) dire. It felt like the whole first act was so long and drawn out, and then almost out of nowhere the situation was "we are in mortal danger and everyone is going to die". It also was a little challenging for me to figure out what the actual threat of the spiders was (besides just the obvious creepiness of spiders). They didn't seem to really be doing quite enough to warrant the apocalyptic level of terror and doom that the characters were feeling, and again I think that's due to the pacing of the first half.

This was entertaining enough, but it felt like the author spent so much time trying to come up with deep and meaningful things to say about performance and identity that she neglected to leave any time in the book for a well-paced story.

If you’re looking for a fun & over-the-top creature-feature, this is the book for you! Spiders on a Ship is a fast-paced, creepy read that delivers exactly what the title promises. Mixing an isolated horror story setting with eight-legged monsters, this book will definitely trigger your arachnophobia. Stories about people unexpectedly finding themselves on the wrong side of the food chain are always interesting to me, and I enjoyed this fun, quick, and creepy addition to the genre. I would recommend Spiders on a Ship to readers who love creature features, spider stories, and isolated ocean settings.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc! All thoughts & opinions in the review are my own.

3.5 rounded up to 4

Did I read this on a cruise ship? Yes, yes I did. Would I recommend doing the same? No, lol.

This was Snakes on a Plane meets Arachniphobia with supernatural elements. It had genuine scary moments that would provide fear inducing nightmares. The pacing was a little off, which is why I rated it 3.5 stars. This would make a great horror movie.

"𝚆𝚎'𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝, 𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛."

The fact that the main character is called Christopher Webb, is just so fun!

I used to be afraid of spiders when I was little, it's funny how some fears we can just grow out of as realizing spiders aren't scary at all. They are just little creatures and compared to them we are so much bigger and scarier.

When I saw this title and cover I immediately knew I need to read this, I love all those horror movies that features spiders and this book looked intriguing.

The book was so slow, I really thought it would pick it up but around 20% I just lost all hope and considering that this should be a horror book it was way too boring for that! Unfortunately it was a DFN for me. I was too bored and uninterested to keep going in a story I wasn't even keen picking back up.

Thank you so much NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.