Top reviews from the United States

• 

  Mackenzie

  5 out of 5 stars

  Welcome aboard to your new favorite thriller!

  Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

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  Welcome aboard to your new favorite thriller!

  I was sent an arc of LYING IN THE DEEP to read early after winning a giveaway and I couldn't wait to dive in. As usual, Diana expertly crafts the perfect suspenseful story riddled with flawed characters, a fast-paced plot, and an immersive cruise ship setting. The main character Jade is a girl you can't help but root for, while also kind of suspect at the same time. But that's what makes this book so great – everybody is a suspect, and it's impossible to guess who's to fault for the murder. A perfect whodunnit mystery!

  While a fun and dangerous mystery away at sea, I also really appreciated the more serious aspects as well, such as the portrayal of Jade's anxiety, the messy feelings that come with friendship break ups, and the complicated relationship Jade has with her parents. Paired with the thrilling mystery and swoony romance (my personal favorite), it made this a dynamic read that I'm already looking forward to picking up again.

  And, without giving too much away, the TWISTS!!! Incredible, outstanding, literally had me needing to put the book down and pace around my room to get my energy and excitement out. Kept me up way too late because I had to know what happened next. As someone who reads tons of thrillers, this one felt so fresh and unique in its execution. It was a treat to read from beginning to end and I'm already eagerly anticipating whatever Diana writes next.

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• 

  C. Yamagata

  4 out of 5 stars

  Locked Room Mystery

  Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

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  Jade Miller has the opportunity of a lifetime. She has a semester to study abroad. On a cruise ship, no less. The Campus on Board program would take Jade through eleven countries in a span of four months. Jade needed the distraction. Especially after the nasty breakup with her ex-boyfriend, Silas. And the nerve of him to hookup with her best friend Lainey. So the cruise should do her good. New friends, new places… Everything was peachy until Jade spies two familiar faces in the sea of passengers while boarding. Silas and Lainey. Together.

  As Jade begins to seethe with anger and disbelief, she can’t help but envision Lainey’s murder — a poisoning, a fall off the ship, shoving her off her dad’s penthouse… That is until Lainey has gone missing and there’s lots and lots of blood everywhere in her room. And guess who is suspect?

  Lying in the Deep is a suspenseful locked room mystery. While I did enjoy the novel, I didn’t find it as engaging as the author’s previous work, These Deadly Games.

  The main character, Jade was a little too over-the-top with her woe-is-me drama. So that took away from the suspense. The other characters rounded out the story and balanced the instability of the main character. I did like a few of the other characters for their spunk and quirkiness.

  The plot is a whodunit mystery with a cruise ship venue. I found this aspect of the story intriguing as I got to cruise and sightsee foreign countries vicariously through the main character.

  There were a few plot twists. But nothing earth shattering. Though I did find the ending a little surprising and strange.

  I don’t consider Lying in the Deep to be Urban’s worst novel, but it’s not her best in my opinion. Four stars.

  I received a digital ARC from Penguin Teen through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

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  C. Yamagata

  4 out of 5 stars

  Locked Room Mystery

  Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

  Verified Purchase

  Jade Miller has the opportunity of a lifetime. She has a semester to study abroad. On a cruise ship, no less. The Campus on Board program would take Jade through eleven countries in a span of four months. Jade needed the distraction. Especially after the nasty breakup with her ex-boyfriend, Silas. And the nerve of him to hookup with her best friend Lainey. So the cruise should do her good. New friends, new places… Everything was peachy until Jade spies two familiar faces in the sea of passengers while boarding. Silas and Lainey. Together.

  As Jade begins to seethe with anger and disbelief, she can’t help but envision Lainey’s murder — a poisoning, a fall off the ship, shoving her off her dad’s penthouse… That is until Lainey has gone missing and there’s lots and lots of blood everywhere in her room. And guess who is suspect?

  Lying in the Deep is a suspenseful locked room mystery. While I did enjoy the novel, I didn’t find it as engaging as the author’s previous work, These Deadly Games.

  The main character, Jade was a little too over-the-top with her woe-is-me drama. So that took away from the suspense. The other characters rounded out the story and balanced the instability of the main character. I did like a few of the other characters for their spunk and quirkiness.

  The plot is a whodunit mystery with a cruise ship venue. I found this aspect of the story intriguing as I got to cruise and sightsee foreign countries vicariously through the main character.

  There were a few plot twists. But nothing earth shattering. Though I did find the ending a little surprising and strange.

  I don’t consider Lying in the Deep to be Urban’s worst novel, but it’s not her best in my opinion. Four stars.

  I received a digital ARC from Penguin Teen through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

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• 

  Amy

  3 out of 5 stars

  Lying in the Deep

  Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

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  After being betrayed by her (ex) boyfriend - Silas - and (former) best friend - Lainey - Jade just wants to get away. Luckily, she's signed up for Campus on Board, a semester-long program at sea, which will hopefully give her the space she needs. Unfortunately, some of the first people she sees when boarding are Silas and Lainey.

  Now, Jade can't avoid them, but maybe now she can get some closure? Only if she can get Silas away from Lainey, maybe then she'll be able to ask him what happened between them that he decided to break up with her via text and then promptly block her. It's fair to say that something is not quite right about the situation.

  Then, Lainey disappears from her room, and by the looks of it, she didn't leave peaceably. All eyes are on Jade since most everyone knew about the problems between the two girls. If Jade wants to prove her innocence, she'll have to figure out what happened to Lainey and who could have wanted to harm her.

  The story starts off with a bang as the opening pages are the discovery of Lainey's very empty (and bloody) room. Right away, I'm pulled in. From there the story slows down a bit as readers are caught up on everything leading up to this opening moment. It kind of puts the breaks on the momentum early on. While I liked getting the backstory, I felt like we could have gotten the information quicker. As it stands, it takes until almost the halfway point in the book to get back to where we started in the prologue.

  Once we hit that point, the story moved from "I've been betrayed, I must find out why" to "I need to prove my innocence". It's full of a lot of twists and turns. Some more plausible than others, but honestly I could feel Jade's anxiety and the franticness just jumping off the page. It certainly lends itself well to the thriller portion of the story. We believe in Jade's innocence, and Jade is adamant about her innocence almost to the point that she'll take any crumb of information and run with it to the point where almost everyone becomes a suspect.

  One thing that was a bit off-putting to me was the way the characters talk. I felt like it wasn't representative of how real 18 year old's would speak or think. There are other instances that I don't really want to get into because I want to avoid spoilers. But there were definitely revelations that made be take a second look but everyone else had an almost casualness about it, didn't even blink twice. I just found it odd. It's difficult to put this into words. Maybe it was intentional posturing on the part of the author. A commentary on how these kids really are on their own throughout the story and we're seeing them rushed into the adult world with the things they have to deal with.

  I'll say the big twist at the end pulled me back into the story and made me very interested as to how everything would play out. I just wish the rest of the story was trimmed down a little bit.

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• 

  Sarah F.

  5 out of 5 stars

  Excellent YA Thriller!

  Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2024

  Format: Kindle

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  I truly enjoyed reading this book! The prologue pulls you in right away, and as the story unfolds, you won't want to stop reading! The book starts in the present tense with the main character, Jade, discovering lots of blood in her ex-best friend's cabin, then the story flashes back to three weeks earlier to begin painting the full picture of what has happened leading up to the murder. Along the way, the reader delves into Jade's dark thoughts as she admits to having thoughts of killing her ex-best friend herself. The characters are funny, relatable, and all suspicious in their own ways, and they are delightfully relatable to a variety of young readers. This book is an easy read and a great thriller that YA readers and adults will enjoy as they try to unravel the events of that semester abroad. The twists and turns will keep you guessing until the very end.

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• 

  K2185OS

  4 out of 5 stars

  Not my favorite, but a solid 4 star read

  Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023

  Format: Kindle

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  "Lying in the Deep" by Diana Urban is a thrilling dive into mystery and the supernatural. Urban's storytelling shines in this mostly captivating tale. The haunted shipwreck premise is chilling, and the characters are well-crafted. I actually find myself drawn to books with a ship or even space ship setting, as they have their similarities. The unique blend of genres keeps you guessing, with unexpected twists that add to the intrigue. While some character motivations could have been more developed, and pacing occasionally slowed, the overall experience is a solid 4-star read. If you're into mystery and the supernatural, give this book a go! "Lying in the Deep" is a really great read for those who enjoy a dose of mystery, suspense, and a touch of the supernatural. With all of that, it really makes for a mostly captivating and unpredictable narrative.

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• 

  Jason Hughes

  5 out of 5 stars

  A terrific read for me--and my 13 year old

  Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

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  As someone who's sailed on the Semester at Sea ship, I picked this up out of nostalgia and expected to hand it off to my daughter. Instead, I ended up reading it myself before passing it along. The author shared that the book was inspired by Agatha Christie's novels; it shows. Real page turned and two generations in my household ended up enjoying it.

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  3 people found this helpful

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• 

  Delta High School Library

  4 out of 5 stars

  A fun to untangle mystery!

  Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2023

  Format: Hardcover

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  20yo Jade is taking a cruise across eleven countries in four months with the Campus on Board college program. Her ex-best friend Lainey and ex-boyfriend Silas are joining the cruise too and they’re treating Jade like she’s a toxic, horrible person. Jade can’t figure out why or what they think she’s done to be treated that way. When a blood trail is found leading from Lainey’s room to overboard the railing of the ship, many passengers believe Jade is guilty. Jade jumps into action to find evidence that will find the killer and prove her innocence.

  Likes/dislikes: The mystery was fun to untangle. Jade is kind and has true, sincere compassion for others. I enjoyed the college on board a cruise setting.

  Language: R for 134 swears and no f-words.

  Mature Content: PG-13 for implied sex (no details), passionate kissing, underage drinking, and drug use

  Violence: PG-13 for bloody mess in room and bloody trail to ship railing, possible suicide by hanging.

  Ethnicity: predominantly white, Divya and Navya, who are twins and Jade’s cabin mates, have golden brown skin.

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  Lili Lost in a Book

  3 out of 5 stars

  Could not get over the cringe

  Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2023

  Format: Kindle

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  I was really looking forward to this book because it sounded very Suite Life on Deck, but you know, with murder. Lol. But I don't know... I didn't end up enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

  I think the thing that put me off the most was all the secondhand embarrassment I got from the actions of the main character. I don't often get secondhand embarrassment from books... sometimes it will happen when I read a contemporary romance, but it's never been this bad! The way Jade kept following around her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend, trying to talk to Silas, and getting rejected and humiliated... 🫣

  And I don't know why it got me so much in this book! Jade kept making one bad decision after another, and it was just a mess... one I didn't enjoy. I usually like a good trainwreck of a situation, but Jade's decisions made me cringe more often than not, and I was not enjoying myself.

  I also didn't really love any of the characters, which also fed into me not liking this book as much as I thought I would. There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with them, I just didn't really connect with any of them. I did like Felix for the most part—I thought his concern for Jade was very sweet.

  But the story and mystery... I think I liked the premise more than the execution 😬 The action didn't really get started until about the 45% mark of the book. Before that, it was just Jade obsessing over Silas and Lainey, which I was not a fan of. But I'll give the book this: I did not guess who the killer was until the reveal, which is always great. But the set up of it all... idk, I wasn’t a fan. And I wasn’t a fan of a certain someone keeping secrets. Idk why. It almost felt like a betrayal, even though it wasn’t really? I think it’s the miscommunication trope at play, a trope I am not a fan of. And even though the killer was a prick for sure, I'm not certain everything that happened to them, especially at the end, they deserved. It was crazy! And while I usually like crazy, this was not it.

  All that being said, I didn't dislike the book. I liked the premise, as I mentioned, and I also enjoyed the setting on a cruise ship plus the different countries the characters visited. I liked the romance for the most part, but honestly, by the end, I just wanted to be done with this book. It had good potential, but in the end, this book was not for me.

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