Review: From Below by Darcy Coates

Title: From Below

Author: Darcy Coates

Genre: Adult, horror

Publication date: June 2022

Published by: Black Owl Books

Source: Borrowed from library

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Thrift Books

Synopsis: No light. No air. No escape.
Hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, a graveyard waits...

Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course... a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean's surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life.

Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia's rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished.

But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

A documentary crew are the first people permitted to explore the wreckage of the SS Arcadia after it was recently discovered. The ship disappeared more than 90 years ago without a trace and no one ever knew what actually happened. Well, Cove and her crew certainly find out the hard way what happened 🙃

I enjoyed this book for the most part. I really liked the horror aspect and that it was set underwater in the wreckage of a ship. The mystery of what happened to the ship was very intriguing. One thing that kinda made me groan at first but ended up appreciating as the book went on was that we got flashbacks to the days leading up to the ship disappearing, so we do eventually find out what happened. I also liked that the flashbacks correlated with whatever was going on in the present day, things the present-day crew discovered.

The creepy descriptions of the ship were good! And don’t even get me started on the flashbacks when the crew started acting... weird. It got downright horrifying!

And what the present-day crew had to deal with, omg I loved that!! I have never read anything like this, in this setting at least. So I really liked this! It was SO creepy!

It was underwater freaking ZOMBIES!!

However, despite my enjoyment of the horror aspect of this book, I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. I mean, most of them were fine, but that's it. They were... fine. A couple of them made some really dumb decisions that made me roll my eyes and shake my head and it really made me question their sanity. Lol.

But even though I didn’t particularly love any of the characters or connect with them, I thought this book was a pretty good read overall. I actually haven’t really read anything like this before in regards to the setting and the situation the present-day crew found themselves in, so I really enjoyed that. The mystery of what happened to the ship was intriguing and the answer we got was pretty satisfactory.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊