By Tony Frame. Contains very mild spoilers.

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Having just finished C.J. Tudor’s collection of short horror stories in A Sliver of Darkness I was delighted to find out that her new novel The Drift was just days away from being released and hitting the bookshelves. I loved the immersive qualities of her writing in A Sliver of Darkness; I annotated the hell out of it because there were so many juicy descriptions of people and places that it took very little effort for me to imagine what she was describing. And there was humour as well. Mustn’t forget the humour, even in horror. Even Stephen King has humour in his writing.

The Drift is set in a remote mountainous snowy region, with endless pine trees and jagged peaks all around. You can practically feel the cold seep into your bones from the outset as you find yourself in an overturned coach with Hannah and a bunch of students, some of whom are badly hurt, others have perished. The snow outside is coming down hard and fast as Hannah tries to get her bearings and make sense of when and how the bus crashed. And then comes the realisation that there is no way out of the coach because of the awkward angle that it’s buried in the snow. And the temperature is dropping…

That’s literally the first couple of pages; it’s a start that hooks you right away, and not only do you get one story, you get three stories (yes, three stories!), separated in each chapter, which means three protagonists and three mystery thrillers that slowly unravel with each page turned, all of them linked with one deadly virus. A virus that has decimated the world’s population and brings our protagonists to the same location as they seek answers as well as sanctuary. Strangers trapped in a cable car hundreds of feet in the air, an isolated chalet with some questionable friends, and of course, Hannah and her predicament. What more could you ask for? Apart from a cuppa tea and a warm cosy fire to sit next to and read this beaut of a book.

There were so many things to love about Tudor’s writing here: the cliff-hangers at the end of almost every chapter just whet my appetite to read the next one, even though there was many a night that my eyelids were getting heavy and I should have turned the lamp off long ago and went to sleep. The protagonists internal thoughts that were both poignant and pragmatic added substance to their character. And the ease of which I was placed into each scene and location practically projected a running movie reel in my mind’s eye that it was like watching a film as opposed to reading a work of literature. Yes, The Drift doesn’t disappoint. There was lots of snow, creeps and creepiness, questions and cruel intentions and blood and guts galore. It was great. It was fandabidozi! And until the author’s next novel comes out I’m so looking forward to reading her earlier works which I missed the first time around. Oh yes.