‘I will never set foot on a cruise ship again!’ – Åsa Larsson, bestselling author of The Second Deadly Sin and Until thy Wrath Be PastOn the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream. Tonight, twelve hundred expectant passengers have joined the booze-cruise between Sweden and Finland. The creaking old ship travels this same route, back and forth, every day of the year.But this trip is going to be … forth, every day of the year.
But this trip is going to be different.
In the middle of the night the ferry is suddenly cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who they can trust.
Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma.
’Blood Cruise is terrifying and terrifying real, a must-read for fans of Stephen King and John Ajvide Lindqvist’ – Elizabeth Hand, author of Generation Loss and Hard Light
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I think the Swedes must really love vampires
I enjoyed this creature feature cruise tale. It takes place on a booze cruise ship sailing on the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland.
Not too far into the story, a strange young boy and his mother start creating havoc among the passengers and soon chaos reigns.
The writing style (and subject matter, too, in fact) reminded me of another story by another Swedish author LET ME IN. Both stories are creepy and gory but I sure enjoyed them. LET ME IN was made into a couple of great movies too.
I’ve never been on any kind of cruise and I was leery enough during this COVID-19 pandemic but after reading this book I think I’ll just stay on dry land or maybe an air flight.
I recommend this book if you enjoy horror and/or vampire tales.
I received this book from Quercus Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
Blood Cruise follows several characters as they board an overnight booze cruise that will take them across the Baltic Sea from Sweden to Finland. However, some nefarious characters are also boarding the Baltic Charisma, and they have other plans for the passengers. The book follows a pretty typical horror format. We spend some time getting to know the major players and their personal struggles. We see the first few attacks by the villain. The situation escalates into total chaos.
That first section can be a slog in some books, but the characters in Blood Cruise are so compelling, I came away from the book actually enjoying the beginning more so than the actual horror part. This book has a lot of POVs, so do your best to keep track from the beginning. I was impressed with how well the many POVs were utilized.
Once we get into the meat of the story, be prepared for some gruesome descriptions. Being so invested in the characters, I was hooked for the journey, but the story has a bit too much gore for me. I also felt like certain moments closer to the end were unnecessary to the story but included for the author’s enjoyment in inventing stomach-churning scenarios for the characters. It was maybe 5 (short) chapters too long.
Some major pluses were the queer rep, disabled rep, mental health rep, and the social critique that touched on issues like class and climate change. If you’re into horror and don’t mind a heavy dose of gore, Blood Cruise gets my strong recommendation!
Content warnings (may contain mild spoilers):
blood (lots), vivid body trauma descriptions, violence against children, rape-like situation, suicidal ideation
454 pages
3 stars
Several people, individually and in groups board the Baltic Charisma cruise to party and step out of their everyday lives – for a change. It is an approximately twenty-four hour cruise in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland.
The sheer horror that follows on the cruise is epic.
Whoever came up with the idea that this author in any way compares to Stephen King is sadly deluded, or perhaps they’ve never read Mr. King. However, the writing and plotting in the book is very good. (Hats off to translator Agnes Broome who I assume added a little polish to Mr. Strandberg’s words.) I liked the level of self examination that some of the characters exhibited. In that I would guess that is where the reviewer saw shades of Kingsian authorship. This is a solid, well written and interesting book. I would like to read another novel by Mats Strandberg.
I don’t want to go on any cruises, not now.
I want to thank NetGalley and Quercus (US)/Jo Fletcher Books for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read, enjoy and review.
Not what I was expecting. The storyline fell a bit flat, was overly confusing, and had A LOT of run-on sentences. I would suggest maybe a fresh look at editing. The basic bones are there, but it definitely needs more polishing before I could award anything more than a 2 star.