Adrift

 

Adrift by Will Dean
2/17/26; 352 pages
Atria/Emily Bestler Books 

Adrift by Will Dean is an excellent, disturbing, and gripping domestic psychological thriller following a highly dysfunctional family. It is very highly recommended. My broken heart was in my throat and tears were in my eyes throughout most of this gripping tale of abuse and gaslighting. Adrift is most certainly going to be on my list of the very best books of 2026.

Drew and Peggy Jenkins, both aspiring writers, and their fourteen-year-old son Samson (Sammy), live an isolated existence on a deteriorating longboat in a canal near Cairo, Illinois. Drew forced them to sell Peggy's mother's bungalow after her death to buy the boat. Now Drew has complete control over Peggy and Sammy, including where the boat will dock for the night, and he uses this power to isolate, belittle, gaslight, sabotage, manipulate, threaten, and inflict psychological abuse on them. Drew has complete control over them, including what/if they eat. He requires their total silence when he sits down to write each night.

Peggy volunteers at the local library, because Drew won't allow her to earn her own money, but this also allows her the opportunity to work on writing her own book which will hopefully open up a way for her and Sammy to escape. Sammy is a scholarship student at a private school where he is relentlessly bullied and tormented daily for his physique and poverty. Every night the two don't know where the boat will be docked as Drew continually moves it. When Peggy finishes her book and it is accepted by a publisher, it sets off a rage in Drew followed by a disastrous series of events.

All of these characters are so well-written, so fully-realized as complicated individuals, that they come to life on the pages. While reading you will feel like you know them, which becomes increasingly heart-breaking as the plot unfolds. You will want Peggy and Sammy to escape and make it out alive, even while it seems impossible because Drew controls everything. Drew is a completely malevolent character. Anyone who has ever known someone who is an expert at gaslighting or desires complete control of others will have a deep empathetic understanding for Peggy and Sammy.

The writing is exceptional, eloquent, and vividly captures the gaslighting, abuse, and isolation Peggy and Sammy experience from Drew as he exerts complete control and subjects them to one cruel action or word after another. As Drew emotionally terrorizes his family while isolating them, the tension keeps rising throughout the novel and it became impossible to set it aside as the trepidation of what might happen next kept me glued to the pages, hoping they would find a way out. You will know what Drew is capable of and understand why Peggy doesn't just take Sammy and run for help.

Adrift is an outstanding, well-written domestic thriller which I very highly recommend. Thanks to Atria Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.