Hey there, book lovers!
Do I have a publication day treat for you! ‘The Gathering’ by C.J. Tudor comes out today and believe me when I say, you want to run to your nearest bookshop and spend your hard earned money on this book right now!
Michael Joseph Books super kindly sent me a proof copy AND a first edition print of this book, after they first introduced me to C.J. Tudor in December by sending me a copy of her book ‘The Drift’. I have a lot to thank them for here! Tudor has quickly become one of my favourite authors and I could barely put either of these fantastic wintery thrillers down!
What is ‘The Gathering’ about?
Vampires. No, really. But don’t let that put you off if, like me, you run a mile when anyone mentions ‘Twilight’.
Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine we live in a normal world, but there are vampires living in colonies among us and around us. Just like humans, some are good; some are bad. In a small town in Alaska, a teenage boy has been murdered and the close-knit community are blaming the recent resurgance of a vampire colony. They want a cull.
In steps Barbara Atkins, a detective from another state who specialises in vampire colonies. It’s her job to decide, with the help of the local police department, whether this murder was committed by an out of control, blood-thirsty vampire, or whether there is more to this case than meets the eye. But before she can really get her teeth into it, the harsh Alaskan winter brings a snowstorm that isolates them from the rest of civilisation. Who wins when it’s man versus vampire and tensions are at their peak?!
Should you read ‘The Gathering’?
If you like thrillers, page-turning action, eerie edge-of-your-seat tension, then yes! You absolutely should read this book. The plot itself is full of twists and creepy turns, but as the weather worsens and the wintery setting becomes increasingly dark and isolating, the tension really kicks in. It takes a lot to scare me when reading, but there were a couple of moments I found myself reading with scared squinty eyes!
The other obvious question with a book like this is “how predictable was the ending?”. Well, I didn’t guess it! You know I don’t do spoilers, but there were a fair few gasp-out-loud plot twists for me in this novel, and the ending was no exception!
Not only was the plot brilliant, the characters were also excellently written. Barbara, our protagonist, had the classic self-destructive flaws most fictional detecives suffer with, but I didn’t find her too cliched at all. In fact, I quite liked her feistiness – it wasn’t overdone; it just seemed to come naturally and she seemed like a realistically reasonable person just doing her job. The supporting characters were also interesting, unique and not over-the-top in their typical characteristics. Yes, you have the overbearing religious bossy boots, the lone wolf ex-sherriff and, of course, the ‘evil’ vampires – to name but a few! – but they all came across as realistic characters reacting to situations the way real humans (or vampires, I imagine) would do.
To be honest, that’s something that struck me heavily while reading this book. Whilst it is about vampires and a murder mystery, a significant element of the story is about human nature and discrimination: how easy it is to fall into blaming the outsider; how hard it is to fight against the majority, even when it would be the right thing to do. I think that’s a tough moral to share in a story with supernatural elements, but C.J. Tudor absolutely nailed it.
Final thoughts
All in all, a tense thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat, expertly interweaving dark supernatural horror and important moral lessons.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Back soon!
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