From Below

This is a horror story, but not in your typical setting. This one takes place 300 feet under the ocean as a dive team is sent to explore the wreck of the SS Arcadia that sank in the 1920s. We experience the story in two timelines: one in the days leading up to the ship's sinking, and in the present when the dive team goes to explore the wreckage on the seabed.

I didn't really expect to be learning about the intricacies of deep sea diving from a horror book, but I want to commend the author in doing an excellent job of explaining some of the protocols and challenges when diving (and surfacing) in such a place. I found this insight to be fascinating as someone unfamiliar with the subject and appreciated the author's research into it to add realism.

As someone that generally consumes horror in more typical haunted house style stories, this book stood out to me as unique due to its setting. This is what caused it to catch my eye and make me enthusiastic to read it. I was expecting claustrophobia and suspense that the setting lends itself to and I wasn't disappointed. From Below delivers both in spades.

So, why I do I rate the book a high-three-but-not-quite-four stars? For me, there were a couple of factors that made it a good read but kept it from being great. The strongest of these factors, in my opinion, was the length of the book. Now, I'm not opposed to a long read if I felt the literary real estate was well used, but here some of the present day, middle chapters centering around the dives and exploration of the wreck did drag on a little. I felt there was a lot of repetition and descriptions of navigation within the ship and scenery (and specifically, silt and sediments) which began to go from suspenseful to trite pretty quickly. I feel the book could have used a stronger attention to editing in places; realistically it could probably have been 150 to 200 pages shorter, or that space could have been used to flesh out some of the characters, backstories or explanations, and reasoning for what was going on. With the story essentially being extremely limited to a singular setting due to its premise, it was important it didn't overstay its welcome but in parts I feel it did just that sadly. The increasingly contrived reasons for the crew to end up back in the ship was just too much by the end also.

The other issue I had was the ultimate nature of the antagonists in the present day timeline. I don't want to delve too much into that due to being mindful of spoilers, but it pretty much just stuck to the same trope and nothing more. Not really my favorite sub-genre of horror, but I recognize this is highly personal preference. I was sort of hoping for a twist or unique spin on the concept, but left disappointed. Once the nature of the antagonists were revealed, it shaved off a little of the intrigue, horror, and mystery for me and because that reveal happened fairly early on, it caused the parts that were meant to be scary to get repetitive with limited scope for surprise or evolution in the plot beyond that point barring some creativity to add uniqueness that ultimately, unfortunately, didn't come.

With that said, I particularly enjoyed the past timeline chapters documenting the ship's increasing descent into the state that ultimately led to its sinking. These chapters were very well written and as a reader I got the increasing sense of foreboding doom with every past timeline chapter that came up. I feel the book could have been improved if this timeline was perhaps featured more prominently and fleshed out.

The end was okay, but just that: okay. I feel there was room perhaps for a few more twists and turns, but the conclusion fell a little flat for me. It wasn't terrible, but I was hoping for a little more revelation by the end or perhaps a surprise which ultimately didn't come.

With those things said, this wasn't a bad book by any means and I don't regret reading it. If you're into slower horror stories that linger in claustrophobic scenes that are vividly described and don't mind undead horror elements you'll enjoy this, and have nightmare material to dwell on for a good while! The unique setting was creative and Coates is an excellent and descriptive writer whose writing style I largely enjoy. This isn't the first Darcy Coates horror I've read and certainly won't be my last, but I did prefer her previous work that I read: The Haunting of Ashburn House, which was a more traditional horror setting.