Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

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I've read a solid handful of Darcy Coates' other books in the past. I would say that most of them have been enjoyable; her stories are generally well-written and fun to read. However, there are some that are mediocre at best, and unfortunately that's where this story fell for me.

Cove is a documentary host, well-known for her fearlessness in the face of danger. When a missing ship, the Arcadia, is found on the floor of the ocean, Cove is allowed to put together a team for the purpose of shooting a documentary on the long-lost ship. What seems like a quick and easy job turns sour when the team reaches the vessel and begins to unravel the mysteries behind the sinking of the Arcadia.

Coates uses the ol' dual timeline narrative to tell this story. On one hand, you have Cove and her team exploring the ship in present day; on the other, you have the events in 1928 that lead up to the sinking of the Arcadia. I often find that stories that rely on this type of story-telling have the same problem: one plot-line tends to be more interesting than the other. This book is no exception.

For the life of me, I just could not bring myself to care about the present day story-line. It dragged along for a solid two-thirds of the book before anything really started to happen. It's such a shame because Coates did such a fantastic job building this sense of dread, isolation, and claustrophobia in the beginning of the story.
I found myself much more invested in the 1928 story-line because it did a better job delivering on atmosphere and scares, in my opinion. There were some truly disturbing and horrific scenes that absolutely shook me. I liked that the spooky parts came much earlier than in the present-day parts, and I enjoyed reading about Harland much more than reading about Cove and team.

Which brings me to my next problem with this read: the characters. I found that most of the characters in this book felt really underdeveloped. We keep being told how the characters are, but some of them consistently act contrary to what we are being told throughout the story.

(Cove is supposed to care about her team's safety above everything, yet she is constantly making bad decisions that put her team in danger. Roy was presented as reliable and experienced in diving, yet caused a lot of problems for the team throughout the story.)

Additionally, the motivations for most of these actions felt very weak and unconvincing to me.

When I finished this book, I just wished that the book's focus had been solely on the 1928 period of the story. While there were some horrifying moments and fantastically gross parts in the present-day sections, it just didn't really deliver for me the way that the past sections did. Additionally, I felt like the reveal was unsatisfying and kind of wishy-washy.

While this book ended up not being a winner for me, I'd encourage anyone interested in it to give it a read for sure. Darcy Coates' writing is fantastic, and I understand that others may not be as bothered by the pacing and character issues as I was.