The Drift: The spine-chilling ‘Waterstones Thriller of The Month’ from the author of The Burning Girls

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This story essentially follows characters in three different survival scenarios. We have a group of young people, fleeing a private school in the midst of a blizzard, whose coach violently hits a snow drift, trapping them in the vehicle in extremely hazardous conditions. All three groups have been facing life and death with a horrible virus that has changed life as they used to know it. The virus is on everyone's mind all the time and surviving it might be some people's worst nightmare depending on how a person is left to "survive". Maybe facing death and getting it over with is better than facing what horrors life has to offer. C.J. Tudor may well be on her way to becoming this generation’s Stephen King. Since making her debut with 2018’s The Chalk Man —which won the Barry Award, the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel, and the Strand Critics Award for Best Debut Novel—she has earned a legion of fans who will snap up her books by virtue of the name on the cover. Tudor’s suspense novels have always had an element of horror, often straddling the line between this world and the otherworldly—a style notably evidenced in last year’s stop-gap short story collection, A Sliver of Darkness . Now, she makes her much anticipated return to full-length form with The Drift .

What exactly is The Academy, what was taught there, why were certain students selected to go to The Retreat? Why did they choose to participate? There are a lot of characters to keep straight, which is perhaps the book's greatest weakness. But I just kept reading, trusting that it would all come together. And it did. Especially the last chapters of the book made me scream WTF loudly! I giggled several times and jumped from my seat with pure adrenaline rush! This book is a little different from the author’s other works! I think this is so far my favorite book of hers! Overall, I loved this book – I feel that it her best story to date. Whilst it is very different from her previous novels it has been expertly told bringing together three stories together for a very thrilling conclusion. Looking for a riveting, post-apocalyptic, quasi-horror ( don't mind me, just making up genres over here), violent, graphic, vulgar, zombie, revenge thriller from a darling author? Well boy do I have a recommendation for you...While writing the Chalk Man she ran a dog-walking business, walking over twenty dogs a week as well as looking after her little girl. C.J. Tudor' s new book is just so good that I don't know how she will top this one but please keep writing Ms. Tudor because I and all of your other fans will keep reading and waiting for each new unique creation that your imagination brings to written words!

In the author’s last book, “A Sliver of Darkness”, she shares that she lost her father during Covid, to explain why many of the short stories in the collection have “end of the world” and “isolation” themes. Perhaps she is/was still processing that devastating loss, as she penned this-since this story continues in that vein. C.J. Tudor is a writer of roller-coaster fiction--you're thrilled, maybe a little afraid and you can't wait for the end, but once it does you find yourself yelling, "Again." C. J. Tudor's love of writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert. At the end of the world, what are people willing to do to survive? Everyone holds a secret, no one is who they appear to be, and all are seeking redemption. Hannah awakens to moaning and stiffness and wonders where she is. The last thing she remembers is daydreaming while looking out the coach window watching the snowstorm that keeps getting worse by the minute on the way to the retreat after leaving their academy along with a dozen other students. What has happened and why and where have they stopped? What are all those other awful, strange noises she keeps hearing and why is she so, so cold?Wow, I had to sit and absorb this one in. I only read one CJ Tudor before The Drift and the style is very different. Where "The Burning Girls" was dark with haunted vibes, The Drift is a real-deal horror that's violent and full of despair. Some scenes will probably even gross you out. 🤢 THE DRIFT wraps up with such a clever way of connecting the three storylines that I never saw it coming. It is a fine suspense read and possibly the best work of Tudor’s illustrious career." Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man. TEN YEARS. That is how long it took for society to crumble. The virus was the start of the riots, the wars, the Anti-Science terrorism, and the HATRED.