The Passengers by John Marrs #BlogTour #BookReview @johnmarrs1 @Tr4cyF3nt0n @EburyPublishing

Eight self-drive cars set on a collision course. Who lives, who dies? You decide.

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.

The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife – and parents of two – who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man.

Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

 

John Marrs is the author of #1 Best Sellers The One, The Good Samaritan, When You Disappeared, Welcome to Wherever You Are and Her Last Move. The One has been translated into 20 different languages and is to be turned into a a ten-part Netflix series in 2019.
After working as a journalist for 25-years interviewing celebrities from the world of television, film and music for national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time writer.

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Do you want the long version or the short one? For those who don’t want to wait for the punchline: put it on your readlist, now!

This novel is legit one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read, it’s brilliant, timely and I loved it 100%. If you enjoyed reading The One then it’s guaranteed that you’ll love The Passengers too. Even though the subject in the novel is completely different, it follows the same format again, involving multiple (8!) characters with alternating POV’s. Each person has secrets to hide, secrets you’d never EVER thought of and will catch you completely off guard!

I have to be honest, I was completely pro the idea of driverless cars. You see, I don’t have a driver’s license myself so the thought of a stress-free ride where you don’t have to navigate yourself (there’s not even a steering wheel in level 5 cars so you have all the time in the world to eat breakfast, apply makeup or, oh yes, read a book) sounded more than wonderful but what happens to The Passengers was anything but stress-free. There’s a hacker who controls the cars and don’t think he doesn’t mean it! If I had any doubts in the first minutes it becomes clear right away that he is dead serious!

The entire novel is high on tension and plays on the reader’s moral compass. Who would you choose to survive a collision? The pregnant woman? The police woman with two children? The foreign woman who doesn’t speak English? Marrs plays this so well, he even adds the opinions of jurors and those on social media as well, leaving us even more hesistant to pledge our loyalty to one specific person. And then, just when you’ve almost decided he shuffles the deck of cards and secrets come out that might change your thoughts, again and again… The people I felt most loyal to suddenly find themselves ranked quite differently when I had to consider which secret was the worst to have.

Marrs really doesn’t let up until the end, he always seems to have another twist up his sleeve. I don’t know how he can be so imaginative but I really fell from one surprise into another and even when I thought it was finally all over, there was still more to come.

I can’t find any fault in The Passengers, it gets my golden buzzer! The novel is original, fresh and shows a frightening glimpse of what the future might hold. In case you didn’t get it yet: put it on your readlist, now!

My thanks to Tracy Fenton for the blog tour invitation and to the publisher for the paperback review copy.

 

 

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