A glamorous ship. A mysterious cast of passengers. And a New Year’s Eve party that goes horribly wrong… The Cruise didn’t let me down, just like last time I was completely engrossed in the chapters set in the past, while the present was puzzling and addictive. New Year's Eve on an exclusive cruise ship what could possibly go wrong, well lots as it seems as a womans body is seen going overboard and Lola the dancer is nowhere to be seen. The glamorous ship Immanis and a New Year's Eve party that ends with the ship's dancer Lola disappearing. The coast guard is called and the ship is searched but there is no sign of her.

Onboard, no one really knows who you are or where you came from so it’s easy to escape your old life and start a new one, should you want to. Now I know most modern psychological thrillers have dual timelines, but it still seems jarring when the narrative switches to the Scottish Highlands. Catherine Cooper is a freelance journalist writing for many national newspapers and magazines, specialising in travel. She also makes regular appearances as a talking head on daytime TV. She lives in France with her husband and two teenage children. Good points: The setting for this book is perfect. It's supposed to be a glamorous and idyllic cruise...but nope! It almost makes me want to go on one...almost (my fear of water and boats basically means I never will!) The story and plot and twists are amazing and I will never not buy a new Catherine Cooper book because they look so pretty all together on my book shelves!

To me it seemed absolutely enormous and I regularly lost my way trying to find my (rather lovely) stateroom, but since then obviously they have almost doubled in size! This is the second novel I read by this author and after having been impressed with her debut novel The Chalet I couldn’t resist this new mystery set in another secluded location. I’ve not been on a cruise ship yet but the author seemed to know the ins and outs of life on a cruise ship so well and described it so vividly that I almost feel as if I’ve been on one after reading this novel. This is hard to review in any depth for fear of spoiling something, but I’ll say I am not sure I really liked or connected with the characters. But I’ve found in a thriller that it doesn’t matter if you want to figure out who did it or what is going on and that was the case for me. Who killed Lola and what does this have to do with the secondary plot line. There was a lot of layers to this and it never felt like too much.

Two weeks later, the ship is o ut of service, laid up far from land with no more than a skeleton crew on board. And then more people start disappearing… I LOVED this fun, fast-paced murder mystery. Luxurious surroundings, great characters and dark secrets’ SUZY K QUINN Again, wonderful and engaging writing, the author is clearly very well at what she does, but the book simply wasn’t for me. By pleasing coincidence and neat symmetry, my first ARC of 2022 ( A Fatal Crossing) and this one, which will probably be my last, both happened to be thrillers set on cruise ships. Even aside from the setting, the two had a surprising amount in common - simplistic writing, far-fetched plot, and a ridiculous number of murders - but overall "The Cruise" was a much better book.Also – whenever I’ve been on a ship, I find the size of the ocean quite scary if I think about it too much! It’s so massive and powerful. If you go in, it’s quite possible to be swallowed up and never seen again. During a New Year’s Eve party on a large cruise ship in the Caribbean, the ship’s dancer, Lola, disappears. The ship is searched and the coastguard is called, but there is no sign of her, either dead or alive.

My other cruise was with a lovely group of ramblers on Fred Olsen’s Boudicca where instead of getting the coaches to go sightseeing we would do walking tours on the stops – a much smaller ship and a very different experience. Both good though! I’m working on it at the moment and it’s set partly in an overwater resort in the Maldives and partly in the home counties. Again, lots of luxury, great food, and a few deaths! A cleverly plotted thriller set almost entirely in the French Alps. The descriptions of the snow made me feel like I was there’ ALLIE REYNOLDS There is a sub plot which I loved and I couldn't work out how it would all come together at the end, but it did wonderfully. This novel to its credit really did start strongly, the details of the luxury cruise liner and immediate murder really drew me in.

Why a Booktrail?

Several reasons – I was partly inspired by the cruise ships moored off the South coast of England during Covid and fascinated by the fact that they are obliged to have a skeleton crew onboard. Two weeks later, the ship is out of service, laid up far from land with no more than a skeleton crew on board. And then more people start disappearing…