Haunted House at the bottom of the ocean

From Below
by Darcy Coates

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Divers find a wreck very deep down and want to solve the puzzle of why this cruise liner disappeared many decades ago. My Spooktober pick. I expected something pretty fast with a high body count of gruesome deaths and maybe some deepsea monster. However, this is a ghost story… mostly… with a very slow build-up. The main narrative is interspersed with short chapters going back to 1928, telling of the last few days of the Arcadia before she sinks.

A haunted-house story at the bottom of the sea, with the added claustrophobia of being far down, with a lot of water overhead, a limited amount of breathable air, unreliable team members and no fast rescue when something goes wrong. It all turns pretty creepy eventually.

Character and plot development were decent, despite the slow build-up it was a pretty quick and entertaining read. I looked up the author and she seems to write a large amount of haunted-house horror stories. It that is your jam, she might be your author!

PS: as a recreational diver with an advanced open water certification I had to suspend disbelief a few times. But for a light horror read it was ok and not so far off the mark that I was put off.