‘Freeze’ by Kate Simants

Author : Kate Simants
Title : Freeze
Pages : 400
Publisher : Viper Books UK
Publication date : March 2, 2023
Source : Netgalley

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

Frozen Out will be the TV sensation of the year. In the harshest Arctic conditions, eight contestants will push their bodies and minds to breaking point for a £100,000 prize. And camerawoman Dee will be there to capture every second, all but invisible – just how she likes it.

But as rumours spread of corner-cutting and safety risks, tempers among the cast and crew start to fray. And then one of the contestants is found dead, supposedly of a heart attack. But Dee is not convinced.

With a fierce storm approaching and communication with land cut off, the question now is not who will win the money. It’s who will make it off the ship alive.

| MY THOUGHTS |

On the list of “things what I don’t like”, you would definitely find (freezing) cold and reality shows. So what on earth possessed me to pick up this latest offering by Kate Simants is anyone’s guess. However, I enjoyed her previous book, so I thought it would be okay.

Hm.

Sometimes you start a book and you’ve barely reached page 10, but you already know you have a corker in your hands. Equally so, there are books where you quite quickly feel it’s just not going to be the one for you, and unfortunately I realised that pretty early on with ‘Freeze‘. Incidentally, this is the second time in the space of two weeks that a locked room mystery lets me down. Maybe I should take a hint.

‘Freeze‘ had potential, though. The setting for one, although not at all my thing, is brilliantly chosen. A ship in the middle of nowhere up near Greenland, where eight contestants will battle it out for a new reality tv show, with nothing but ice all around. Thus, when one of the contestants is found dead, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the killer is one of the other people on board. But who? And why? Pretty soon the question will not be who wins the big prize here, rather who will make it off the ship alive.

Quite frankly, everyone could have frozen to death for all I cared. My goodness, what an incredibly unlikable bunch of characters! What is it about psychological thrillers and their inability to include at least one person who isn’t a complete and utter douchebag? Nobody even seems to actually want to be here on this ship. True to form, each and everyone of these characters has secrets and are desperately trying to hold on to various skeletons in closets.

The story is told via two friends, Tori and Dee. When the reader meets them, cracks have already started to show in their friendship. Those cracks will deepen before you even get the chance to yell out “iceberg!”. Both are hiding things from one another, which somehow doesn’t seem right for BFFs. But at least Dee still comes across as a regular kind of person, worried about others for instance. Tori will not stop anyone or anything from getting this show made, in that reckless unsavoury kind of way. As a main character, I despised her actions fiercely.

I’m sure many readers will find ‘Freeze‘ tense and full of suspense. I just need a lot more tension to keep me hooked, and I kept waiting for that next level but it never came. There were too many coincidences, too many things that made me roll my eyes and say “oh, come on!”. Yes, I know this is fiction but I still expect some degree of believability, and nobody is going out in Arctic conditions without a coat! Anyway. It all became just a tad too ridiculous for me in the end, but I admit I had stopped caring at that point as well.

Still, Kate Simants is an excellent writer. There’s a varied cast of characters, although we get to know some a lot better than others. The harsh conditions were brought to life perfectly, yet I never really felt that sense of isolation that was required. I can absolutely see why other reads would find ‘Freeze‘ entertaining and enjoyable. For some reason, it just failed to hit the mark with me. But that doesn’t at all mean I won’t be reading this author’s books again.

Amazon UK [will be published on March 2nd]

My thanks to the publisher for the advanced review copy, which I received via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.