Three of them adrift on the narrowboat.
Mother, son, and wickedness.
Peggy Jenkins and her teenage son, Samson, live on a remote stretch of canal in the Midlands. She is a writer and he is a schoolboy. Together, they battle against the hardness and manipulation of the man they live with. To the outside world he is a husband and father. To them, he is a captor.
Their lives are tightly controlled; if any perceived threat appears, their mooring is moved further down the canal, further away from civilisation. Until the day when the power suddenly shifts, and nothing can be the same again.
Book Info: Book length: 400 pages. Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton: Publication Date: 19th Feb 2026
My Review:
WOW. I honestly didn’t think Will Dean could beat The Last Thing To Burn in terms of the raw and brutal power of his words, but Adrift really does show who the “Master of Darkness” really is.
Once again Will Dean has tackled some uncomfortable topics which many will find triggering including bullying, emotional and physical abuse, gaslighting, cruelty and suicide.
The story follows Drew and Peggy and their fourteen year old son, Samson. Drew is an author who had minor success many years ago and is convinced he is writing his next masterpiece but in order to write he has extreme demands. Moving his family onto a rundown canal boat and mooring it away from civilisation he controls every aspect of their lives with his violent and bullying behaviour.
Peggy is a loving and devoted mother to their young and impressionable son Samson. However he is being badly bullied at school for his appearance and is desperate for his father to acknowledge him, despite the violent and simmering tension.
It’s when Peggy who has been secretly writing her own novel, receives a publishing offer, that their lives spiral down a deadly and dangerous path.
Throughout the book the reader feels nothing but tension and horror as we follow Peggy and Samson trying to escape this toxic environment. With fascinating and flawed characters, we are taken on an emotional rollercoaster ranging from shock to hope and then back to dread, Adrift really is a powerful, raw & brutal story with an emotional, heart-breaking and deeply moving plotline. There is no doubt in my mind that Will Dean gets better and better.
If you like claustrophobic, tense and disturbing novels, then pop this on your wishlist or pre-order it now.
