It Might Just Save Your Life

Years ago during a routine voyage, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace. Sixty years later, it’s 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, but something dak 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 desperate to claim them.

Because once they’re trapped beneath the ocean’s waves, there’s no going back.

From Below by Darcy Coates
Published 2022
Bingo Category – Under the Surface (Hard Mode)

This review contains SPOILERS

From Below follows a group of people hired to investigate the ruins of a sunken ship that was once considered lost and has recently been re-discovered. The SS Arcadia disappeared without a trace and with no explanation as to why, rumours abounded – from mutiny to ghost stories, Cove and her diving crew aim to find the truth about the mysterious liner, but it turns out to be much more than they bargained for.

What Worked

This book is intriguing pretty much all the way through. The knocking/tapping in the walls – the deaths – the sense of fear is palpable with the original story of the ship and the diving crew in the present. This is edge of your seat stuff. It always feels like there’s an explanation – a real one – just beneath the surface; and while a perfectly reasonable and realistic explanation becomes apparent, the alternative is much more believable – the sentient beings on the ship were dormant – until Cove and her diving crew turn up.

What Didn’t Click for Me

That Roy sabotaged the ROV’s by removing the chips. 1) Surely Sean would have checked for that and 2) Why did he wait until the danger was so blatantly obvious, and seriously affecting him (Roy) before he admitted that he was the one who had done it? Roy knew that the events occurring were beyond explanation and freaking everyone out – making every extra dive more dangerous, so why didn’t he just take the hit and admit what he’d done. I mean, I know he didn’t because it moved the plot on, but it was the most stupid and reckless thing to do, and for a book where characters were mostly sensible, it just didn’t make sense for Roy to do it. Especially when the ROV’s could have got the footage that Cove was insistent that they needed to fulfil their quota.

The repetition about Cove’s previous “thrill-seeking” adventures along with her continued, escalated anxiousness with regards to diving was frustrating. Vanna being so removed from the group made some sense by the end, but even though she was a red-herring villain, she didn’t really do anything to warrant that status (aside from writing a few dodgy entries in her journal.) There was nothing that cemented her as actually dangerous, which in turn made Sean’s character arc mostly redundant until the last 10% of the book. Deveraux would have made a perfect villain, but in the end was under-utilised and ended up being a fairly average guy with a boat who was just interested in the history of the SS Arcadia.

Things I’d Like to Have Seen

Harland having a prominent position as one of the “other” entities – he was a major character in the flashbacks and was the body that was discovered in the dining room. One of the last of the original crew to succumb to the “madness,” it would have been great to have him become a sort of “hero” and save the diving crew from their fate – he tried so hard to do that while he was alive; lasted so long that the only place he had left to hide was a huge room. It was a shame he didn’t get more focus in the “present.”

Pace

Once it started to kick-off, it was honestly edge-of-your-seat stuff. the brief respites in between dives lifted a lot of the tension and it could have been ramped up even more if rather than hot chocolate and slippers, there were nightmares/noises/paranoia affecting the diving crew just as it had the original crew of the Arcadia.

Atmosphere

Tense, palpable in most of the diving scenes and especially in the flashbacks. Harland witnessing the passengers throwing themselves from the Crow’s Nest was harrowing and brutal.

The Ending

The end was much lighter than I expected it to be After the harrowing experience that the crew went through, I understood the reasoning for their decision to edit the footage and petition for the wreckage to become and official grave site etc. But the impact on the characters was lessend. perhaps it was intentional – people like to forget trauma (or the psyche does) and especially so if it’s unexplained or supernatural phenomenon. I just found it odd that everything went pretty much back to normal as quickly as it did. It was good resolution, but I’d have liked to have seen more physchological effects – if it was me, I think I’d have been messed up for a long, long while after all the shit they went through.

The Characters

They were believable. They felt “real.” I remember them all, mostly – Cove (which was a dodgy name in my opinion,) Vanna, Roy, Sean, Aidan, Hestie, Deveraux (there were a couple of extras too) and Harland and Fitz from the original timeline were particularly memorable.

Overall

I really enjoyed this. It doesn’t seem like it, from what I’ve said above, but I really, really did. It did its job and had me on tenterhooks wanting to find out what had happened and what was happening, and why. There was no clear resolution – whch worked. Was it the toxins in the fabric, or was it hibernating entities revived? That there was no explanation either way was really clever. The ending was satisfactory, but it could have been so much more. Nevertheless, it’s one I enjoyed and I’d recommmend it for anyone who likes a spooky read.

Characters: 8/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Writing: 8/10
Plot: 7/10
Intrigue: 8/10
Logic: 6/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

7.7/10 – 3.85 stars equivalent