A beautifully told story packed with secrets, grief, and guilt!

Megan Collins has crafted an entertaining tale with an effortless flow. Another exquisite debut, this year seems to be oozing with amazing debuts!

Sylvie has come back home after being gone for many years to take care of her estranged mother who is suffering from cancer. Over a decade ago Sylvie’s older sister Persephone went missing only to be found a few days later dead in a pile of snow. The killer is never found, Sylvie is buried in grief, and her mother Annie retreats into a world of darkness. Now Sylvie is back home forced to face her past, her guilt, her secrets, and the man she is convinced killed her sister. What happened all those years ago? Will the truth set Sylvie free? Will it bring her mother out of the darkness? So many secrets so long buried what will happen when they all come to light? Well you will need to read this book to find all this out!

You may have read this trope before, however I thought it was extremely well executed in this story. Sylvie is an incredibly likable and engaging character someone you could see yourself as friends with. The twists and reveals were cleverly done with the perfect amount of clues sprinkled throughout the story. The ending was unquestionably fraught with tension. I was absolutely glued to those pages, needing to know what the story behind everything was, and I truly was almost more interested in Sylvie’ss mom’s backstory then the murder. There was also a nice dose of romance in this book a little unexpected and a little unsettling. Cannot wait to see what Megan Collins has in store for us next, absolutely recommend!

🎧🎧🎧 Rebecca Ross narrates this book bringing the perfect voice to Sylvie. Rebecca Ross is such an amazing narrator she really breathes life into the books she narrates. If you have not listen to a book narrated by her this is a good place to start! Just saying!

🎵🎵🎵Song Running Through My Head

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now
I hear you're feeling down
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are the only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
I have become comfortably numb
Okay
Just a little pinprick
There'll be no more
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hECRtLZ3Zdw

*** many thanks to Atria and Simon and Schuster Audio for my copy of this book ***

4 STARS for this engaging suspense novel. It's about a family with a lot of secrets and hidden pain. The primary character is Sylvie. Early on we find she needs to return to the home where she grew up to care for her ill and cancer ridden mother, Annie. We learn about a horrible event that haunts her. Sixteen years ago her sister, Persephone was murdered. Sylvie was just a kid. Persephone would sneak out to see her boyfriend through their bedroom window. But, one night, she couldn't get back in and she was discovered dead soon after, when someone saw her red coat in the snow.

Sylvie is certain it was Persephone's boyfriend and is determined to find out the truth, at whatever cost. Annie is mysterious and full of darkness and you kinda wanna hate her for being such a crap mother. More shall be revealed. Who is innocent? Better yet..who is guilty? Grab this for yourself to find out. I found it an entertaining winter read. I enjoyed the discussion as a buddy read in the The Traveling Sisters Group.

Many thanks to the publisher via netgalley and Megan Collins for a digital copy to read for review. Highly recommended!

Thank you to Netgalley, the Publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for a review based upon my honest opinion.

This is the first book I have read by this author and while this story line is a little familiar and not that original, I think it was well written. Sylvie has to move back home to look after her mother, who is dying, but Sylvie and her mother have been estranged for many years, since her sister was brutally murdered and Sylvie's mother started drinking. Begrudgingly Sylvie goes and the longer she is there, the more she needs to know what happened to her sister. Sylvie holds a lot of guilt from that night and she feels that Sylvie's secret boyfriend killed her and cannot understand why he was never arrested or charged.

Sylvie is not the only person who feels guilty about that night and getting closer to the truth means unearthing secrets that she may not have wanted to know. The characters were well written and it was a satisfying ending to a good story. I will definitely check out more books by this author.

I think that if I haven’t read An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks earlier this year, I would have liked this book so much more... Because in the two books, a sister dies because the other sister locked her out of the house a night that she sneaked out. Even if this moment is really more important in Megan Collins’ book, it felt old, you know? But I liked the twists at the end of the book. I admit that I didn’t see who the killer was, at all.

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Although the story didn't ring as completely new to me, I was impressed with Collins' writing and the characterization. Rather than a saccharine relationship between the sick mother and the haunted daughter, it was refreshing to read complex characters handling complicated situations in a way that felt authentic.

Sylvie has been living with the guilt over the death of her older sister Persephone for almost 20 years. She may not have been the one who killed her sister, but she feels that her actions on the night of Persephone's death, as well as the actions she took (or didn't take) many nights prior, played a large role in what happened. She is also frustrated at the fact that the police have never been able to arrest anyone for the murder, despite Sylvie's conviction that Persephone's boyfriend was to blame.

All these years later, Sylvie has returned home to take care of her mother, who became closed off and turned to alcohol after the death of Persephone. While home, Sylvie reopens the mystery surrounding her sister's death. Was her boyfriend to blame? Or has Sylvie had it wrong all this time?

I enjoyed this book and read through it quickly in an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery. While I enjoyed the story overall, I guessed some of the details early on. Some aspects of the ending also felt fairly unbelievable to me; however, I had fun learning about the different characters and the family dynamics as I read along. Definitely a quick and entertaining read.

Plot twist and turns , love and betrayal, the past present and future all come in to play. Get ready for bumpy ride ,

This was not nearly as gripping as I had hoped. Sylvie's older sister Persephone doesn't come home one night and is found strangled by the side of the road 3 days later. Sylvie beats herself up for her role (locking the window so Persephone couldn't get in after sneaking out) for 16 years. When she returns home as a 30 year old the case is cold. And if this review had spoilers, I could sum up the rest of the book in 2 paragraphs. Sylvie is very stuck in her 14 year old thoughts and beliefs and actions. Understandable, but it made me feel like I was reading about a whiny teenager instead of an adult woman. Eye roll.

Thank you to Atria and Touchstone Books for both inviting me to read this book, and Atria for gifting me an E-ARC. All opinions are my own.

I rate this book a 4 out of 5 Stars.

“When they found my sister’s body, the flyers we’d hung around town were still crisp against the telephone poles

Probably one of the most epic first lines in a book that I have ever read. No joke, I was addicted to this story, from that one line. I just knew that I was in for one stupendous ride. For me, the momentum of that first line didn’t fade, it kept pace the entire book, there was not one lagging moment.

I love the baroque prose, the intricately woven history of Sylvie, Persephone, and Annie. I ached with Sylvie regarding the loss of her sister, and the guilt that she had felt regarding the part she played the night her sister went missing. I devoured everything related to Persephone, I wanted to know what caused her to be so angry, what secrets she was hiding, who murdered her, and a plethora of other things.

Megan Collins writes this book in a way, that points a finger to one person, but I knew better than to believe that. What made this book so devourable, was the game, the whodunnit and my complete distaste for Annie. Although, I kind of had it figured out halfway through the book, I still loved every twist and turn. There are more characters in this book, than the ones listed in the synopsis. Some I really enjoyed (Jill) and some, I think added extra depth to the mystery.

If you guys haven’t read this one, I highly suggest it.

I was sent a link to view this one through NetGalley, and the blurb was intriguing enough that I wanted to read it.

This book was a slow start for me. Persephone went missing and was found murdered when she was 17. Sylvie, 14 at the time, has shouldered some guilt for choices she made at the time. Even worse, the killer was never found. In present day, Sylvie gets laid off from her dead end job and goes home to take care of her mother, who is receiving treatment for cancer. Sylvie gets sucked back in to Persephone’s case, digging into the past and trying to figure out what happened once and for all.

I’m not sure what it was about this book that made it feel slow, but it took me a while to get invested in the characters and the storyline. Sylvie’s a bit of a mess, and her relationship with her mother is a bit prickly. In fact, there was really no point in the book in which I felt any warmth toward Sylvie’s mother, which is only exacerbated by the end of the novel and the climactic reveal.

I did love the ending and how it ties up Persephone’s murder. There were so many secrets and so many things that no one knew, and really it all just felt pretty sad to me. I also didn’t feel much resolution for Sylvie, which I honestly would have liked.

I did enjoy this book and still would recommend it. Just be prepared for some fairly unlikeable characters.

More of a mystery than a thriller, this book was not quite what I expected. The tension in the mother-daughter relationship was really the highlight of the story for me. I had a love-hate relationship with the characters but the plot had me compulsively turning pages. The book was well written and I enjoyed it.

One of the best debut novels I've read in years. One detail though: the last tense of slink is slunk, not slinked. That set my teeth on edge every time I saw it. Still, the characters were well rounded and the plot kept me guessing right up to the final chapter. An author to watch.

ARC via netgalley.

This book had me from the beginning. A really enjoyable mystery/thriller that I couldn't put down because I wanted to figure out the ending. This is a debut author and I can only imagine how good her next book will be. If you like mysteries and going home to solve things from your past, you will love this one!

I got this one a while ago via Net Galley (thank you!) and I started it right away and could not put it down! It was a suspenseful read and not easy to figure out. I really liked Sylvie’s character and I had my fingers crossed for a happy (or at least uplifting) ending with a sense of resolution and forgiveness. I was not disappointed! I read it in two evenings because I wanted the resolution.

After taking a bit of a break from the adult thriller genre, I figured I would jump back into it with this book. While it didn't necessarily live up to all of my expectations, it was a unique and interesting story that I enjoyed!

Thanks so much to Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me an eARC of this book for an honest review, as always, all opinions are my own.

This story follows Sylvie - at first in two timelines, but mainly in the present. When Sylvie was fourteen, her older sister Persephone snuck out to see her boyfriend. Much to Sylvie's dismay, this had become a regular occurrence after their mother forbid them from dating. However, that night, Persephone didn't come back. Three days later, her body is found in the snow, strangled to death. Desperate to protect her sister Sylvie tries to convince the detectives to look into her sister's boyfriend, Ben, who just happens to be the son of the town's mayor. Now, sixteen years later, Sylvie has to return home to take care of her cancer-stricken mother - and confront her sister's cold case murder investigation.

I really liked how Collins told this story. So often with this sort of set up, the childhood trauma and then present, adulthood life, the story alternates chapters between the two, which can be distracting. Collins does a great job of keeping the story flowing in a way that gives all those details but doesn't toss around the timeline.

Obviously, this is a traumatic and terrible story with the unsolved murder of Persephone but I just wasn't really able to connect with a lot of the characters of the book. I couldn't bring myself to really feel much sympathy for Sylvie and Persephone's mother, she really showed her true colours, especially at the end. Sylvie herself was an alright character to me and I didn't love the romantic relationship that develops for her... it just really weirded me out.

I'm not sure if it was a stylistic choice or not but half the time I was reading this, it didn't feel like I was reading a psychological thriller. I would say it is definitely a slow burn. Don't get me wrong, things are happening but they are more peripheral. I think because there wasn't an on-going investigation, the fact that it was sixteen years after her death, that things felt more relaxed. Things obviously picked up in the end as the story started to unravel but until that point, it almost felt like a contemporary with darker issues.

Overall, I wouldn't say this was my favourite book but I did enjoy it and I know others will to if this is their sort of thriller.

A pretty good debut mystery/thriller. I admit I am a sucker for books that involve people returning to their hometowns to face their demons. This one also involves the death of a teenage girl and an ailing mother so I really hit the jackpot! It was well paced, lots of detail and while I was a little skeptical due to their fanciful names (Persephone? Really?) but the book did not veer into the silly. I think it would be a great vacation read.

It seems like everyone is feeling the guilt over Persephone's death. Each blaming themselves and each other for the role they may have played in her murder.

Persephone's mom, Annie turned into an alcoholic that shut herself off from the rest of the world. She refuses to communicate with anyone, even her own daughter Sylvie. Is the sudden change in Annie’s health, the wakeup call she needs in order to repair her fragile family?

Sylvie, Persephone’s sister, blames herself for what happened to Persephone that night. And because of that belief, she lives under the weight of that guilt every single day to the point where she's just coasting through life not really enjoying it. But then again, she thinks she shouldn't really get the chance to enjoy her life.

Persephone's boyfriend Ben's life is on an upswing. He's a nurse now and helps cancer patients. During the course of the story I began to wonder how much of an interest does Ben really have in nursing. Is he trying to make amends for past wrongs? Is it because he feels guilty over what happened to Persephone all those years ago? Is it because he murdered Persephone and he feels like this is atonement for him? The author had me questioning almost everyone’s motives.

The Winter Sister surprised me. It's a story that drew me in page by page until the next thing I knew, I was fully ensconced in it...in the lives of Sylvie, Annie, Ben, and of course Persephone. I had to know what secrets they were keeping and what really happened the night that Persephone went missing. The author, Megan Collins does a great job of weaving these characters stories together and creating a suspenseful yet emotionally complex story that tugs at your heartstrings and makes you want to keep reading until you finish the whole book. And that is exactly what happened to me. I read this book in one day and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing what this author writes next.

RATING: 4 out of 5.

This story about love, splintered relationships and grief held my attention. That said, as time went on I disliked the main character Sylvie more and more. Her distrust and constant sniping remarks at Ben, playing the blame game and lashing out were her wearying MO. Meanwhile she carries her own secret related to sister Persephone’s death (a name that bugged me until midway in the story when the author explains the reason for this burdensome name).

Silvie’s grieving felt legitimate but her insensitivity to others’ feelings goes too far. I was disappointed with the implausible ending as the murderer is exposed.

"Let the child pass out."

An absorbing tale about relationships and one that presents the ultimate truth -- some are good for you and some are bad. And how hard it can be to let go...

Sylvie O'Leary was 14 years old the night her sister didn't sneak back into the safety of their bedroom after an illicit night out with her boyfriend. Although Persephone was a senior in high school, she was not allowed to date, and certainly didn't want their single mom, Annie, to know about Ben. The sisters had an understanding -- the secret was to be kept. When Persephone's body is discovered under new fallen snow a couple of days later, the life that Sylvie had known was over. Her mother, always a bit moody, turned to alcohol and shut herself in her bedroom leaving Sylvie to fend for herself physically and emotionally. Thanks to Annie's sister, Aunt Jill, Sylvie finished high school and went off to the Rhode Island School of Design to get a degree in fine art. Now Sylvie is 30 years old and, after living all this time without much contact with her mother, Aunt Jill summons her back to Spring Hill to care for Annie who is dying of cancer. No one has ever been charged with Persephone's murder and it's an almost forgotten cold case -- Sylvie is determined to get answers once and for all. NO SPOILERS.

Although any reader of this type of fiction will know immediately where it's going, it was still an enjoyable trip to the conclusion. I thought the writing was excellent and I really appreciated how Sylvie didn't back down or shy away from getting the answers that she wanted -- because she was finally ready to push for the truth. I had a hard time relating to Annie, damaged as she was, but she's the type of woman and mother that is so tough to understand. This is a quick read that I consumed over the course of a couple of hours on a cold winter day.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the e-book ARC to read and review.

The Winter Sister by Megan Collins is a twisted tale of two families with deep secrets, the pain of terrible loss, grief and in the end redemption of a sort. I really enjoyed the mystery that was Persephone, and that through her sister Sylvie's perseverance she was able to find a murderer and reconnect with her mother in the end.