My enormous thanks to Will Dean for giving me a very early copy of Adrift at Capital Crime last June, as one Lincolnshire dweller to another. I’ve been desperate to share my review of Adrift for months and, although there’s a few weeks still to go until publication, I can’t wait any longer. Consequently, I am delighted that Adrift is my first review of 2026.

I adore Will Dean’s writing and you’ll find my reviews of other books by Will here.

Adrift is published by Hodder and Stoughton on 19th February 2026 and is available for purchase through the publisher links here.

Adrift

Three of them adrift on the narrowboat.

Mother, son, and wickedness.

Peggy Jenkins and her teenage son, Samson, live on a remote stretch of canal in the Midlands. She is a writer and he is a schoolboy. Together, they battle against the hardness and manipulation of the man they live with. To the outside world he is a husband and father. To them, he is a captor.

Their lives are tightly controlled; if any perceived threat appears, their mooring is moved further down the canal, further away from civilisation. Until the day when the power suddenly shifts, and nothing can be the same again.

My Review of Adrift

Sam and his parents, Drew and Peggy, are living on a narrowboat.

My goodness! I don’t think I’ve ever read a more tense novel in my life. It’s astonishing. What Will Dean has done in Adrift is, quite literally, prevent the reader from breathing normally. My heart was pounding as I read and I was frequently aware I hadn’t exhaled for some time. And the most effective aspect of this is that much of the menace, the evil and the fear, is often merely suggested, so that the reader’s imagination is manipulated and disturbed. With coercive control as one of the themes of the novel, the author manages to create on the reader the same effect that Drew has on Peggy. 

That’s not to say that there are not highly dramatic moments too, from the very opening of Adrift through to the end, but rather than being the most disquieting elements, I found them more of a release from the tension. It was a relief when something awful happened! A couple of moments truly shocked me as I simply hadn’t seen them coming. Obviously I’m not going to spoil the story for others, but I found the plotting painfully exquisite in its construction and its impact on both characters and reader. Adrift is a masterclass in storytelling.

There’s a claustrophobic atmosphere in the way the family live on the houseboat. As Drew isolates Peggy mentally and emotionally, he also moves the family increasingly physically further away from society. Whilst what Peggy endures is filled with simmering menace that is mesmerising,  I found the developing relationship between Drew and Sam utterly terrifying. Drew is threatening and dangerous, frequently belittling Sam and yet he teaches Sam how to stand up for himself in the face of school bullies so that Sam’s life improves. There’s a chilling realisation that nothing in life is straightforward. Through their relationship, Will Dean explores the impact of nature and nurture, and the role of a father figure. Whilst Drew is abhorrent and we believe he carries out atrocious actions, there is also a seed of doubt that what has happened ‘off screen’ may not have been Drew’s fault. This is brilliantly manipulative.

I thought the themes of family, mental health, control, misogyny, friendship, love, marriage and relationship were superbly interwoven. I also adored the love letter to libraries and librarians that underpins the action. There’s a real affection for libraries as places of education and refuge, hope and solace that ameliorates some of the awful events and provides pitch-perfect balance in the narrative. 

I’m aware I’ve not really said anything tangible about Adrift, but it is so, so difficult not to provide spoilers. Adrift is one of those books that you find yourself thinking about in the middle of the night, wondering what is happening to characters after this particular part of their lives is over. It’s beautifully written without a wasted word so that it’s taut, terrifying and thrilling. I adored it. 

About Will Dean

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and had lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying Law at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. His debut novel in the Tuva Moodyson series, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Red Snow was published in January 2019 and won Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019. Black River was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Award in 2021. Will also writes standalone thrillers: The Last Thing to Burn, First Born, the top twenty hardback bestseller The Last Passenger and One at a Time.

For further information, visit Will’s website, follow him on X @willrdean and Instagram or find Will on Facebook.