The Deep: We all know the story of the Titanic . . . don't we?

by Alma Katsu

Shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award for the Best Novel of 2020.

'Beautifully written, thoroughly absorbing and totally terrifying.' said C.J. Tudor, bestselling author of The Chalk Man

A spine-tingling novel that 'blends psychological thriller and eerie gothic ghost story to create something truly haunting' wrote the Daily Mirror

Someone - or something - is haunting the Titanic.

Deaths and disappearances have plagued the vast liner from the moment she began her maiden voyage on 10 April 1912. Four days later, caught in what feels like an eerie, unsettling twilight zone, some passengers - including millionaire Madeleine Astor and maid Annie Hebbley - are convinced that something sinister is afoot. And then disaster strikes.

Four years later and the world is at war. Having survived that fateful night, Annie is now a nurse on board the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, refitted as a hospital ship. And she is about to realise that those demons from her past and the terrors of that doomed voyage have not finished with her yet . . .

Bringing together Faustian pacts, the occult, tales of sirens and selkies, guilt and revenge, desire and destiny, The Deep offers a thrilling, tantalizing twist on one of the world's most famous tragedies.

• ISBN10: 1473564492
• ISBN13: 9781473564497
• Publish Date: 3 March 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
• Imprint: Transworld Digital
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 432
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

Proceed With Caution:

This book contains two sinking ships, death, murder, abortion, and suicide.

The Basics:

The Deep tells the parallel stories of the Titanic and its sister-ship the Britannic, connected by two young women, Annie and Violet. Annie is our main narrator as she is recently released from an asylum where she has spent the last four years of her life, following the sinking of the Titanic. Only to go work as a nurse on the Britannic, which meets a similar fate. Is it a coincidence, or was all of the talk of ghosts and spirits four years prior true?

My Thoughts:

I am obsessed with the Titanic. At least in fictional accounts, although I would love to learn more about the realities as well. The Deep combines real events and people with fiction to create something very eerie and intense. No matter how many times I watch the movie, or read about it, I always get so nervous when the ship hits the iceberg. But here, there's some added anxiety because you just don't know if Titanic is actually haunted or if some of the passengers are mad.

The only reason that I didn't rate The Deep higher was because the middle drags. The beginning is very interesting as we meet all of the main characters. Very different people all in one place, with a few of them reuniting on the Britannic. It's also immediately clear that something is off about Annie. Then the ending was wild as everything finally starts coming together. We learn how everyone is connected and what is really happening on both ships. I didn't want to put it down! That middle section though, droned on and on, slowing the pace and the anticipation.

The Deep does do a great job of weaving all of the individual stories together though. What does a stewardess have in common with her first-class charges or with a pair of boxers or rich widows? Well, it all slowly comes together with many WHAT?! moments sprinkled out. The boxers, Leslie and David, almost made me cry! I would totally read an entire book about just them. But everyone was interesting in their own way and somehow contributed to these tragedies.

I can't say too much without giving anything away, but The Deep was a really cool story that meshed together history with fiction and with the paranormal. I'm a sucker for paranormal activity in historical settings. The overall story is quite grim. Yes, even more so than the sinkings themselves.

[HekArtemis]

Okay, I have a lot to say and I can't say it without going into spoilers, so sorry about that.

Ondine... the baby is named Ondine. Like the water spirit/nymph. How oddly coincidental that the baby is named Ondine, and she was named that before any of the relevant events took place around water so it's nothing to do with the actual supernatural stuff of the story, it's just an odd coincidence. A coincidence that literally no one notices, meaning it's an easter egg added in by the author and only myth nerds like me would get it. But it just made me roll my eyes.

I appreciated that this story shone a bit of a spotlight on how women are treated like crazy idiots all the time. The women in this story were gaslit all the time, treated like they were stupid, told they were imagining things, and they kept having to stop and take absolute control of every emotion because if they didn't they would be quickly accused of being hysterical. Any emotion a woman has = hysteria! So it was an interesting look at that. However...

First of all, given this idea of women being so crazy, the very beginning when Annie is released from the mental hospital as being not-crazy, becomes very unrealistic because, well, no, she is odd and fearful so of course they would force her to stay in the hospital. In the real world.

The female doctor on the Titanic keeps thinking to herself that all of the women around her are hysterical or verging on hysteria. A female doctor.

Worst of all though was the fact that the author wrote this story to make all the women actually hysterical, out of control, overly emotional, crazy. I mean seriously, one of them tries to drown another because she has no reflection.... IN THE DARK! No one has a reflection in the dark ffs. So yeah, sure, the book takes a look at how women are treated like we're crazy, but then it actually makes all the women crazy and kind of justifies how women are constantly doubted. Thanks, I hate it.

I don't like drug addiction/abuse in stories, because of personal experiences with drug addicts. I also find myself often very uncomfortable in a not good way when reading about people doubting their sanity - again because of personal stuff. So a book that has drug abuse and everyone acting crazy kind of makes me feel nope.

That said, the reveal of what actually killed the servant boy was cool, imo. That he took the jewellery of Caroline, a drug addict, and that jewel was full of drugs and he overdosed on said drugs. Well of course, and what a good catch that was. I also was cool with the idea of similar being the cause of Ondines decline. Personally I was thinking that Caroline was accidentally drugging Ondine via her jewellery leaking drugs onto the baby whenever she was being held. Doing it on purpose made little sense to me. To discover that Annie was doing it though, I just noped hard on that one. It was ridiculous.

The reporters final thoughts are him thinking about how he loves the 13yo prostituted child he raped years ago. Yeah, that is how I want a mans story to end, him declaring love for a child he raped. Awesome, thanks.

Many of the POVs were, why? I think Annie and Mark would have been enough. Maybe the addition of the reporter guy, Maddie, and Caroline would be fine too. But Dai didn't make much sense really. Though I didn't mind his POV, I don't think it added a whole lot. Especially when it also included a scene that was never finished - wherein he and Les are caught just after having sex (being both men this would be very bad in the early 1900s) by an unnamed woman. The scene just cuts off and we go to another POV and, no resolution, nothing happens, nothing comes of it. So, why was it added when it did nothing and went nowhere? I did like the end of their story though, Les pushing Dai into the boat.

And finally the supernatural element of the story. So I am getting so close to the end and I am suddenly thinking, "Wait, it's almost done and nothing has bloody happened except a boy died and a woman almost drowned another woman. Is this going to be one of those 'it was all in their heads' stories in the end?" And the closer it got to the end the more convinced I became that yeah, this was not going to actually be supernatural, it was going to be one of those awful "tricked you haha" books, and I was starting to feel pretty mad about it because I was wanting proper horror, not this crap. In the end there is a supernatural element, I guess, because really it could be read the other way I reckon. I am like 90% sure it is meant to leave you feeling like there was a ghost, there was a possession, there was a sea queen. But... all of that stuff could have just been Annie is crazy and that explains all of it. And I am angry about it. Seriously mad. And even if we say yes for sure it was supernatural, all I can say to that is that it was the worst most annoying stupid tame and not at all horror-ish supernatural that has ever supernaturaled. I am so angry.

I was really wanting some good supernatural Titanic horror. Instead I got a story about a crazy obsessed girl. A crazy obsessed woman who died and sacrificed her baby for a man. A crazy obsessed drugged woman who drove another woman to suicide, the mother of the baby she bought. A stupid man who steals from his wife so he can gamble it away. An old man who rapes trafficked teenage girls and calls it love. A crazy pregnant woman who tries to drown other women. And two gay/bi men who are con artists.

So it's a story about crazy women and dumb criminal men. Fantastic. I never would have read this if I knew that beforehand.

[Ashley]

The book wasn't really creepy - everyone was just nuts.

Frankly I read this book purely for the Titanic bits. Ghost stories or "spooky" books aren't really my thing. So I do feel a bit bad for picking up the book at all, knowing it wasn't my kind of story. The Titanic bits were interesting, but the sinking was over in like 2 seconds. I think I expected more time spent there, but it was actually one of the quickest parts of the book. The focus was definitely on the paranormal bits so I'd probably only recommend this book if you're into that.

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .

Ah, Titanic. The ship of dreams. Or nightmares, as it turns out. Well, I knew I was in for some historical, horrific goodness after reading the author's The Hunger last year and legit devouring it. One of the first notes I made on my Kindle this time was "I'm going to end up down a Titanic Wikipedia rabbit hole, I can feel it". And how true it was! I think my favorite part of Ms. Katsu's books is that she somehow seamlessly intertwines the real with the fantastical. Usually, I have some disbelief that I must suspend, but not here. Somehow, it seems almost like it was a true part of the Titanic story. Honestly, screw Rose and Jack, I'm here for the ghosts. 

This book weaves us through two timelines: That of the Titanic, and that of the Britannic. Both real, both ill-fated, and both containing two of the same women. One is Violet Jessup. She's legit, she was actually on both ships, and I'm not saying you'd want to jump ship if you saw her joining your Caribbean cruise but... actually, that's exactly what I'm saying. But for our purposes, the story mainly follows Annie Hebbley through both timelines. She's an interesting character, perhaps not a fully reliable narrator (which you'll see from the start, no spoilers here!), but the true thrill is seeing her interact with so many others. Some of them actual humans who were on the Titanic, some fictional, all wholly intriguing.

Because one thing that none of this motley cast of early twentieth century seafarers are is boring. Everyone had layers upon layers to their story, and no one was what (or who) they seemed at first glance. The question that penetrates both timelines is this: is there more to the happenings on these doomed ships than meets the eye?

Bottom Line: Get ready to go down an old-timey, character-driven exploration of these famed ill-fated ships, all while wondering if there's something paranormal, or just plain old bad luck.