Day Four

April 6, 2015
Disaster strikes a pleasure boat, The Beautiful Dreamer, on the fourth day of a Caribbean cruise in Lotz’s tedious thriller, her second novel for adults (after 2014’s The Three). A young woman is murdered in her cabin, The Beautiful Dreamer comes to a standstill, its satellite positioning and radio systems go down, and normally reliable rescue boats fail to appear. Trapped with little to amuse them, the passengers increasingly become enthralled with Celine del Ray, a celebrity medium on board. The situation steadily deteriorates: food becomes scarce, ghosts and demons start appearing, and a virulent sickness spreads among the crew and passengers. Some interesting side stories delve into the personal lives of those aboard, but these are overwhelmed by graphic and repetitive descriptions of the virus, the ship’s unsterile conditions, the ghostly apparitions, and vomit, as well as by too many undeveloped characters. The murder mystery’s precipitous and unconvincing resolution will disappoint those readers who persevere to the end. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath & Company.

April 15, 2015
After three days of fun, sun, and excess, a cruise ship suddenly loses all contact with the outside world. The beleaguered passengers and crew soon find themselves fighting off the norovirus, lots of creepy noises, a few ghosts, and, eventually, each other.Lotz's (The Three, 2014) horror-thriller begins as an intriguing take on the classic "locked room" mystery since, as weird things begin to happen, there is no way on or off the ship. She employs this claustrophobic feeling very effectively at first, also developing the fear factor by exploring the mind of a serial murderer on board and by introducing Celine Del Ray, a mostly fake medium who suddenly begins to show signs of true spirit possession just as the ship gets lost (on New Year's Eve). But as every short chapter ends with a bang (sometimes literally), the novel begins to feel both formulaic and unfocused. The six or seven characters who drive the narrative (the chapters rotate among them) aren't interesting enough to carry the reader with them, nor is the mystery deep enough to sustain or encourage their development. By the time the engines start working again and Lotz switches her style to newspaper articles and interviews, it feels like a gimmick with no payoff. In the end, it's still pretty unclear whom or what Celine was channeling, but apparently it's one step up from demonic possession-malevolent but not up to dragging anyone down to hell. There's another disturbing side to this novel: the basis for the plot might be taken from some recent headlines about disappeared airplanes, and there's something a bit too salacious about the way the story unfolds when one has those current losses in mind. A little creepy but juggling too many narrative (and horror-movie) threads.

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Starred review from June 15, 2015

Lotz's (The Three) new thriller is creepy, memorable, and definitely not a book to bring on your next cruise vacation. The novel opens aboard The Beautiful Dreamer, a cruise ship on a five-day New Year's excursion to the Caribbean. The first days of the trip are uneventful, but an incident on day four leaves the vessel dead in the water and unable to contact the outside world. On board, a cast of characters--an eerily prescient psychic and her assistant, a blogger, a serial rapist, a pair of elderly widows, and various members of the crew--try to cope with this unfortunate turn of events. However, as the situation worsens, passengers must defend themselves against dangers both mundane (a rapidly spreading virus) and otherworldly (ghostly apparitions and strange events). VERDICT A stranded cruise ship is the perfect setting for all manner of horrors, both real and imagined. As in her earlier book, Lotz incorporates realistic elements into her story that will keep readers engaged and turning the pages until the very end. Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, get ready to set sail.--Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins

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May 15, 2015
The passengers on the Beautiful Dreamer, a cut-rate cruise ship, are in for one heck of a trip. Four days into the cruise, the ship loses all power and wireless connections. As conditions deteriorate (a low point comes when the crew hands out plastic bags to compensate for broken toiletsa bad situation made worse, seeing as 75 percent of the group has been stricken with a terrible stomach virus), tensions rise and strange things start to happen. There's a psychic on board, Celine, who begins to channel a sinister spirit claiming that the worst is yet to come. And, oh, there happens to be a murderer on the ship, too. There's an awful lot going on hereeight main characters surface, and the narrative unfolds in chapters that alternate between their storiesand the mix of paranormal-horror-suspense never quite gels. Still, Lotz's debut, The Three (2014), did well, and this follow-up will appeal to the same crowd, particularly those who like genre blends.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)