St Martin's Press Dead Silence

I was recommended this book if I enjoyed the Bioshock franchise and Prey the video games. Well these two games are up there as my most favoured so I jumped at this opportunity of a read in seconds.Overall I was impressed, the book provided me with a lot of intrigue and I was gripped for near enough all of it. Only reason for 4 stars and not 5 is, the book in my opinion shares no revelance with Bioshock and the only essence of Prey I got was the fact it was in space! However this didn't deter me from carrying on to read. I really did enjoy it. 👍

Yeap. Just as the title says.

Amazing read from start to finish, I couldn't put it down.

My most anticipated book of the year and 5 star prediction based on early ARC non-spoiler reviews, the premise and hype. I've been wanting gripping space horror in books ever since the movie Alien and the computer game Alien Isolation were released years ago which both scared the crap out of me. I was hoping Dead Silence would scratch this itch but... it fell short, sadly.I did like the horror elements and spooky scenes that kept me on the edge and I had to know what happened next. There was a little bit of mystery, the suspense and atmosphere within the luxury liner 'ghost' ship was well done.The book is a good entry for readers new to sci-fi and horror since there isn't too much science-y stuff and just enough creepiness to keep the pages turning. Also for readers who don't mind 1st person narrative and some thriller aspects as well.Although for me, the science was lacking to my taste as the author touched on elementary space science. I felt side character development was needed in order to see and care about the relationships with the protagonist. I was also surprised by the direction of the story in the latter half of the book that I was not expecting.In addition, for how the book was marketed my horror seeking, super scary can't leave the lights off into the night weren't met, the story felt mediocre. I just wish the book lived up to its' hype. I've rated this book 3 stars as it's the authors first attempt at space horror and there were some good elements, though in my opinion more time to be given to develop, flush out and unfold the 'space horror' based on the premise and stayed on task could very well have bumped up my rating.

It was 90% brilliant! The other 10% is likely just me - I found the times that Claire was self-absorbed in her thoughts about her troubled past, guilt, tragedies, self-loathing, etc., a bit much sometimes. But that didn't detract from this being such a fantastic novel. The book's prose was quite good, and the way the horrific scenes were described were absolutely the best. To be clear, when the horrific occurrences popped up, you were just drawn in, relishing every word and sentence, sucked in and eager to know what happens next. And next after that! And after that! The resolution was well-handled; it could have been a significant let-down, but not in her hands. So, overall I was quite pleased to have read this book. It was all there as promised, and I hope to see a new title soon.