Adrift by Will Dean

5 Stars from me

I mean, it’s a Will Dean book so it’s going to be good right? Right. And awful. But awful as in it is brilliant and it will grip you with an iron fist and it will squeeze your sense of fairness, right and wrong. Much like other Will Dean books, this one has it’s fair share of climatic building, sprinkled with sudden jolts that deliver a cold drop to the pit of your stomach.

Oh my heart bled for Samson and Peggy, and for the sure and certain knowledge that people live like this day in day out hiding the truth of their existence, even from themselves.

Have you read The Last Thing to Burn by the same author? If not, you need to. Oh, but do bear in mind you will never forget it.

Highly recommended if your soul needs some torment. My thanks to the author, netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC in return for an honest review. It’s out on the 19 February 2026, what are you waiting for, pre-order it now.

Blurb: Three of them adrift on the narrowboat.
Mother, son, and wickedness.

Peggy Jenkins and her teenage son, Samson, live on a remote stretch of canal in the Midlands. She is a writer and he is a schoolboy. Together, they battle against the hardness and manipulation of the man they live with. To the outside world he is a husband and father. To them, he is a captor.

Their lives are tightly controlled; if any perceived threat appears, their mooring is moved further down the canal, further away from civilisation. Until the day when the power suddenly shifts, and nothing can be the same again.