THE LAST PASSENGER
WILL DEAN
*****
A luxury cruise liner, abandoned with no crew, steaming into the mid-Atlantic.
And you are the only passenger left on board.
Caz Ripley, a cafe owner from a small, ordinary town, boards the RMS Atlantica with her boyfriend Pete and a thousand fellow passengers destined for New York.
The next morning, she wakes to discover that everyone else on board has disappeared.
And that's just the beginning. Caz must prepare for a crossing that will be anything but plain sailing...
MY REVIEW *****
Imagine waking up on a luxury cruise ship to find everyone has disappeared and you are alone on the open sea. This is the amazing premise from Will Dean, author of the brilliant The Last Thing to Burn which I awarded one of my Kindig Gems of the Year for 2021.
I have been so excited to have this book on my ‘to read’ list which can sometimes spell disaster as expectations run high. However, I’m so happy to report that although this book is on the long side (almost 500 pages), I was completely hooked and could not put it down. A big part of my enjoyment was that I just could not predict or guess what was going to happen next. Particularly at the beginning we are hit with twist after twist and I was left gasping with shock at every turn.
The setting of an abandoned cruise ship is also a perfect one - atmospheric and creepy and it is pictured perfectly. I’ll try not to give too much away but when the actual crux of the book is revealed, it then becomes an interesting moral dilemma and has a lot to say about us as a society. The characters are interesting, I would just say I felt like we got a little too many flashbacks into Caz’s past, all of which seemed to give the same information. I think some of this could have been edited down to make for a more concise read as they didn’t add to further the plot.
The ending did feel a little rushed – almost as if Will Dean couldn’t work out how to top the beginning of the book and it did leave me with a few questions, particularly with regards to the other characters. However, it’s a hard hitting last chapter and left me with a smile on my face as to how it all gets wrapped up.
The Last Passenger is one of those books that is better going in not knowing much about - don’t read any spoilers, just sit back and enjoy those twists and turns! It’s definitely a Kindig Gem for 2023 and one of my favourite reads this year. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder & Stoughton for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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