Book Review
Title: Cursed Cruise by Victoria Fulton & Faith McClaren (Horror Hotel Book 2)
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Rating: 4.75 Stars
After bingeing Horror Hotel and loving it, I honestly couldn’t wait to get into Cursed Cruise and see what The Ghost Gang were going to get involved with next. As the title suggests I have a feeling that this book is going to take place primarily on a cruise and there are going to be some seriously spooky things happening. The opening rejoins the gang a little while after the incident at Hearst and their channel has really picked up, but Chase wants to get into Hollywood, so they filmed a reel for Creep TV as a new paranormal show. However, they find out pretty early on that the look that the network want isn’t what they are willing to provide but another ghost hunting show is even though they are genuine frauds.
Despite this they are heading about the revamped RMS Queen Anne, the sister ship of the Titanic in order to film for their new episode and have a mini vacation although it isn’t going to feel like that for Chrissy as we can see from the second she lays eyes on the ship. From the beginning she feels a magnetic pull to the ship and when she steps onboard for the first time, she has a vision but its different to ones she has had in the past as it feels like she was literally thrown through time but to everyone else it looked like she fainted. We also get an interlude from the ship itself, it seems that personifying the ship brought it to life in some way and it was influenced by the hatred of a particular passenger onboard and their emotions were stronger than everyone else’s and I am curious as to how this is going to play out over the course of the book.
Before the ship even sets sail there are a bunch of ominous things happening, from Chrissy’s attack and getting seemingly sucked into the past by the Lady in White to Emma’s hallucinations, Kiki seeing a ghost girl and Chase seeing things in the footage that definitely weren’t there when they were filming. Meanwhile, they are dealing with Kiki’s mother who doesn’t want to believe in the paranormal as well as whispers that the ship might be cursed not haunted which are two separate beasts. Also aboard the ship are the Paranormal Patrol, the team that is going to be on Creep TV who are picking fights with them any chance they get, flaunting their better equipment and talent at commanding the audience but they don’t have the authenticity that Chrissy does because she actually sees things that aren’t there.
Over dinner one night, a lady named Ruby springs the idea that the curse can be broken by returning the Pharoh to his homeland as that is what started this curse. This is all but confirmed by the Queen Anne, itself as the Pharoh’s power seems to feed it and in return she consumes or binds the souls of the people that die aboard the ship and she isn’t going to let the Ghost Gang stop her, especially since it is Chrissy’s soul she wants to consume next and Chrissy knows she is in danger. She finally caves and tells Chase but not Emma or Kiki since she wants them to have a good time, not realising that they are already seeing things that aren’t there and are aware that something isn’t right with their friend. This kind of reads like a cross between The Mummy and Ghost Ship which I am definitely vibing with but we are halfway through and nothing remotely creepy has happened apart from a few sightings so I am hoping that is kicking in soon.
As the group spend more time on the Queen Anne, the clearer the curse is becoming as Chrissy is seemingly possessed by Elizabeth Walker, bouncing back and forth through time. Through this she learns that Elizabeth didn’t want to marry her fiancé because he was abusive and was having an affair with a bartender on the ship. Eventually she was caught by her soon to be husband and thrown off the side by him. However, we do see clearly that the ship was guiding his action feeding the rage inside him as it has done with most of the deaths onboard, including the little girl currently attached to Kiki. The question of whether Bram is real or not still remains, since Chrissy saw him at the end of book one implying he was a ghost attached to her and yet seems to be haunting Emma or this could just be PTSD induced hallucinations.
This ship seems aware that the group are trying to break the curse and is doing everything it can in order to stop them. It has sent the little girl to Kiki trapped in a time loop on deck 7, it has possessed the men of the Paranormal Patrol to essentially kidnap Emma on floor 3, Chase’s location in unknown and Billie is with the semi-conscious Chrissy breaking the cardinal rule about staying together but this might work out for the better in the end. The ending and the reveal of how the curse breaks and what it means for all involved not just the Ghost Gang was actually a really emotional ending that made me tear up. I could tell this story was heavily influenced by the story of the Titanic but it didn’t feel like a carbon copy of the same story.
Overall, I ended up loving this more than Horror Hotel for entirely different reasons. Horror Hotel definitely had the creep factor and didn’t shy away from the gorier elements of the horror genre which I appreciated especially in a young adult novel. However, Cursed Cruise was more about the emotional bonds between the gang and the idea of those bonds being severed when we die leaving us alone. It really delved into the idea of loneliness and what lies beyond which we see through Chrissy and the others.
Buy it here: Barnes & Noble IndieBound
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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