Title: Hostage
Author: Clare Mackintosh
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group
Synopsis:
You can save hundreds of lives.
Or the one that matters most . . .The atmosphere on board the inaugural non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Numerous celebrities are rumoured to be among the passengers in business class and journalists will be waiting on the ground to greet the plane.
Mina is one of a hand-picked team of flight attendants chosen for the landmark journey. She’s trying to focus on the task in hand, and not worry about her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home with her husband. Or the cataclysmic problems in her marriage.
But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.
It’s twenty hours to landing.
A lot can happen in twenty hours…
my review:
Hostage is a really addictive, fast-paced read which ramps up the tension and ticks all the boxes as my kind of thriller!
I definitely don’t need a novel to be non-stop action to make me want to read it, but if it IS that kind of book, this is exactly the sort of writing that really engages me. The writing is great – Clare Mackintosh sets the scene so well and creates a horrifyingly realistic yet entertaining situation. This is the kind of book that has you feeling a bit panicky thinking about what you’d do in the main character Nina’s situation.
Air Hostess Nina is embarking on a landmark flight – the first-ever non-stop flight from London directly to Sydney. However, during the flight she gets a heart-stopping note which means she’ll have to make a very tough decision… I don’t want to give any more away but trust me, this is a read you’ll want to set aside a good few hours to completely lose yourself in, because you won’t want to put this one down!
Hostage left me struggling to put it down because every page is packed with more drama and it’s so damn believable. It has you weighing up the plight of Nina and everyone on the plane but also considering the motivation of those on the ‘other side’ too. You’re never entirely sure who to trust – there are so many characters you start to doubt just as Nina herself does. Meanwhile, Nina’s family back home are facing their own issues…
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for an intense, non-stop (much like the plane) read, with some great twists along the way too.
Rating: 5/5
Many thanks to the publisher, Little Brown, for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest review.