Audiobook read by Abby Craden. She's a fine reader, though sometimes her pacing took away from the story rather than added to it. But, she handled each character's personalities well and their individual moments of fear, anxiety, despair, and joy.

I've been looking for a deep sea horror that is both "deep sea" and "horror" and From Below nails it. It's atmospheric in its description of the SS Arcadia, it is the sublime underneath, making the wider ocean seem like a safe haven in comparison. Coates takes what is often thought of as a Lovecraftian subgenre (to both horror and the gothic) and deviates from the weirdist (weirdism sub-subgenre) norm. 

I don't often read horror but, I love period and dual timeline books. This book was such a thrilling read and I loved how the narrative jumped between the modern day shipwreck exploration story and the days leading up to the ship sinking in the 1920s. A lot of suspense was created from knowing that the ship was going to sink but not how it was going to happen. The chapters are short and often leave you with a cliffhanger as they whip you back and fourth between the two timelines. 

I'm not a diver, but the descriptions of the mechanics of a dive this deep felt plausible and it seemed like Darcy had done a lot of research into how an expedition like this would work.

My only criticism is wishing the book would have followed more than one character in the 1920s. We get to know one of the crew members but I would have loved a passenger perspective as well. (Even if it would have come at the expense of the fast pace.) There were five divers plus two people aboard the ship in the modern day timeline so it felt a bit unbalanced with the 1920's narrative where we primarily followed one person.

Overall highly recommend this one! 

This was the PERFECT summer spooky read!! It takes until like halfway for the pace to pick up but once it gets going it DOES NOT STOP. I had to put the book down multiple times so I wouldn’t scare myself too bad to sleep 😂😂 It is very rare that I’m Edge Of My Seat over a horror book, but this had me gasping out loud, racing heartbeat, eyes darting over the page to get to the next line and everything