Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of To Die To Sleep by Stephanie Black.

Unfortunately this is a DNF. First off, Netgalley, I think you've gotten better, but you never let me know that this was part of a series when I requested it. But mostly I can't read it because it's just too silly. The dialogue, the relationships, it's just covered in sugar and I can't stomach it.

Natalie is due for a break, and when she gets the chance to reunite with a favorite cousin, traveling to a mountain resort seems like just the thing! Of course, being Natalie, she finds herself right in the middle of suspicious circumstances pretty quickly. Is her cousin as genuine as Natalie wants to believe? Or is she part of the problem.

The title in this one is a clear giveaway for the Shakespeare inspiration: Hamlet. Again, Black doesn’t follow that plot beat-for-beat, but names and situations clearly come from that play.

There aren’t quite as many subplots in this as in the previous two books, but there are plenty of people to suspect as we work through just what happened to Henry Ellsberg—and why. And once again, the real culprit is not who you might have thought.

Gideon doesn’t make much of an appearance in the first part of this book, but once Natalie is clearly getting into trouble, he wastes no time joining her to try to keep her safe. Their relationship is developing at a reasonable pace, which is really nice to see in a world of “instalove.”

I didn’t mention Gideon’s hobby before: he designs Lego replicas of famous buildings. How cool is that? I love that little touch.

Sadly, we don’t get to see our favorite detectives or Chapman in this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Covenant Communications for providing an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Possible Objectionable Material:
Murders. Danger, Betrayal. Lying. A difficult marriage dynamic. A little gaslighting. Mental illness. Natalie’s somewhat abusive mother is mentioned frequently. There is no swearing and the violence is not graphic. Some people drink alcohol, but I don’t recall anyone being actually drunk. Drug use. Complicated personal relationships. Manipulation.

Who Might Like This Book:
People who like suspense stories. Those who like complicated family dynamics and other relationships. People who like allusions to Shakespeare stories. There is bit of romance here, but it is definitely not the focus of the story.

I somehow missed this book was part of a series. It could have probably been great as a stand alone, but I'm very hesitant to start something without being engrossed in the overall depth of characters. I wasn't able to pick it up as much as I would've loved to. Thank you for the early opportunity though!

I was a little surprised that this was the third in a series. Since I have had it on my virtual shelf for quite a long time, I am unsure of how I missed such a point when I first requested it.
That said, the hints about the lead character's doings were interesting and may even have tempted me into picking up the author's other works if I got the chance. On their own, the past information did not play into the case here, and this can be read as a standalone (as I did).
It is a reasonably straightforward thriller that mirrors old country home mysteries. There is one death, and the chaos that follows in its wake exacerbated by bad weather, the lack of phone signals and the remote location, not to mention that the family that owns this resort where everything is happening is at the centre of all the hullabaloo.
I should step back and talk about the premise of the narrative. Natalie is the seasoned protagonist with (at least I think) two books featuring her solving murders taking some personal time off to repair a family relationship with a cousin she was once close to. The cousin works at an exclusive high-end place characterised by the previously mentioned lack of phone service and can be used to unplug and unwind. The latter is hard when Natalie's arrival needs medical attention, and then things start to spiral, and it is hard to trust any of the characters. We hear a lot of voices in the narrative that adds to the ambience.
I was in the right mood when I started the story. It was simple and straightforward in its method to lead us astray. There were so many suspects thrown in our path that I was left with very little time to stumble upon the actual culprit(s) before Natalie did it herself. However, that was not the end of it, since the thriller aspect of everything comes into play with a few dangerous scenes, but a reasonably happy conclusion satisfied me and probably would any undemanding reader.
I would recommend this to another reader looking for a thriller/mystery placed in very oppressive surroundings.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

To Die to Sleep has a lot of creepy elements to it -- a large secluded castle resort, murder, and mystery. A true "whodunnit" book.

Dr. Natalie Marsh travels to Ellsberg Keep, a secluded resort, for some much needed rest and relaxation and to reunite with her cousin, Lily. But things escalate quickly upon Natalie's arrival. The beloved owner of the resort begins acting out of sorts and after a long night in the hotel's infirmary, ends up dead. But is his death caused by natural causes? Natalie, Lily, and the Elllsberg family are on a mission to find out the truth, or maybe to hide it.

What I appreciated about this book: The author did a good job of keeping the reader guessing up until the very end. Everyone was truly a suspect in this book and I appreciate the suspense at the end.

What did not work for me: I thought the characters were poorly developed and found the dialogue unbelievable. It took me a long time to become intrigued with the plot (though the final pages of the book moved at an appropriate pace).

Ms. Black was able to create a great atmosphere of suspense, the characters were great and I really enjoyed reading it.

I could not get into this book. I stopped at 28%. This book is just not for me. It has great promise and the cover is amazing but I felt like the story was flat.

This book is all about the great atmosphere - it takes place in a castle resort high up in the mountains, where the cell phone reception is nonexistent and the roads are dangerous, and so are the people, apparently. And this deliciously dark resort really delivers the thrills!

This is the third book in a series, but I read it as a standalone and had no problems.

The book starts off with the erratic behavior of Ellsberg Keep owner, who then dies out of nowhere, while in the care of the Keep’s infirmary staff, which includes guest Natalie Marsh‘S cousin, Lily. Natalie then begins to question everyone around her as the rest of the Keep’s leadership team start dropping like flies.

This book had great Hamlet undertones, which really added to the great atmosphere, because there’s those undertones of madness and doomed love as you progress through the book. And with the storylines involving Lily and her boyfriend, the Keep owner’s son, Soren, it’s like just waiting for the other show to drop. I loved it.

The solution to the puzzle was also really great. There’s a lot happening and plenty of suspects, so Natalie is pulled in so many directions looking for the culprit(s). I didn’t guess what was going on until it was revealed, and trust me, it was worth the wait. There’s a lot of family drama going on, which just really adds great layers to everything.

I will definitely be checking out more of this series because I found myself really liking Natalie and Gideon and enjoying their relationship. I really want to see more of these characters, so I plan on going back in the series and watching for it moving forward.

Stephanie Black did it again. This is the third book of hers that I've read in the past three months, and all three had Natalie Marsh as the main character. In the first third of the book I wondered if I'd read too many of her books too close together. By the time I reached reach about 75% of the book, my opinion had shifted 180 degrees!

I became so angry with some of the characters and how they were treating Natalie and Gideon. I wanted to call the police myself to have the authorities rush in and save them. But I couldn't because they were isolated in the middle of a winter storm. The authorities could not have responded to my call. . . Oh, and the minor detail of the fact that this is all fiction. Back to real life . . . Needless to say, I loved this book.

Psychologist Natalie Marsh has been invited to visit Lila, her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in years and who now works as a nurse at an expensive resort known as the Keep. Natalie is expecting a nice quiet vacation but things start going wrong almost immediately. First, even before she arrives, after she gets out of her car to aid a woman who seems to be ill, she is sideswiped by a car and is injured. As she is being tended in the Keep's medical facility, the owner of the Keep is brought in. He appears to be having some sort of psychotic break. He believes he is a king and, worse, that his brother is trying to poison him to steal his castle and his queen. When he suddenly dies as the result of what looks like a medical error by Lila, Natalie is determined to stay and help exonerate her cousin but she quickly finds herself up against a family that seems determined to keep its secrets at all costs.

When I saw To Die, To Sleep by Stephanie Black on Netgalley quite a while ago, it was more the title and its reference to Hamlet that caught my attention. I didn't really expect much from it which is, I guess, why it took me so long to read it but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Once started, I found it almost unputdownable and a lot of this had to do with my enjoyment of its sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle homage to the Danish prince including a maybe visit from the king's ghost to his son.

But even beyond its tribute to Hamlet, this is a well-written and suspenseful mystery that kept me reading way into the night. I won't say it's perfect - at times, as Natalie runs around the Keep repeatedly putting herself in danger only to be caught, confined, eventually to escape and start all over again that it kind of felt a bit more like keystone cops than Hamlet although, in fairness, there was a lot of that in the original play too so...anyway, this didn't interfere too much with my enjoyment of the book. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend To Die, To Sleep to anyone who enjoys a well-written mystery and look forward to reading more by this author and I won't put it off so long next time..

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Covenant Communications for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

I started this without realizing it was a part of a series (and it showed! I was confused) We do not have the other books in the library and may give this one a pass for that reason.

This book is very well written. There is a LARGE cast of characters, some quirky, some funny, some scary! The plot moves swiftly and steadily with MANY twists and turns. I stayed up WAY TOO LATE to get resolution. I did not figure it out until the reveal.

Natalie Marsh’s trip to the reclusive Ellsberg Keep isn’t what she thought it would be. She thought she would finally get some well needed rest and relaxation but more importantly this is a chance for her to reconnect with her long lost cousin Lily, who works as the Keep’s nurse. Her fall down the cliff does put them together as she spends her first night at the resort in the infirmary and Lily is the overnight nurse but this wasn’t what she was expecting. Neither was she anticipating the very sudden death of the owner of the Keep, the eccentric and highly delusional Henry Ellsberg. Everything unravels from there.

Natalie doesn't get much of a backstory, but a lot is alluded to. It makes more sense knowing this is the third in a series. The mystery read like an Agatha Christie mixed with Shakespeare and was an interesting enough premise, but a few "twists" were just too unbelievable and overly dramatic. I didn't care about any of the characters and having to read them repeating their stories to each other over and over again became quite tedious.

3.5 stars

Interesting clean mystery. I did feel a little lost with the main character, Natalie, and her background, as this is not listed here on Goodreads as being part of a series, so I didn't know that this was the third book featuring this character and there are quite a few references throughout the entire book about her past, so I do think it's very helpful to have read the previous two books in this series to feel connected to Natalie and Gideon and the foundation for them as characters and their relationship that was probably laid in the previous two books, that I just didn't feel a connection with in this book because I felt like I was missing out on a lot of their past that was referred to but that I didn't know about.

As far as this book with its story line, it is a bit all over the place, keeping you guessing at the who-done-it all the way to the end, but at times it felt a bit fragmented to me, which, again, could've been because I felt like I was missing information about Natalie and who she is as a person from not having read the previous books. There's a lot going on with the characters who live and work at the Keep and multiple deaths and mysteries intertwined in the book, so there's a lot going on to follow and keep track of. Everything does come together and is explained by the end of the book, but I feel like a second read-through of this book would help me understand things a lot clearer.

Overall, a very clean read -- no strong language. Even with it being a murder mystery, there's not a lot of gruesome details.

I had high hopes for this one. I love an atmospheric story about being stranded in a remote location with a group of people. It started out really well and at about 25% in I would have given it at least ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Unfortunately, as the story continued it became long and drawn out without anything significant happening.

*I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I don’t want to give away anything about this intriguing and suspenseful story, so I’m not going to write anything specific about the storyline. The setting plays a major part in the story and adds to the taut atmosphere that’s all throughout the book. There are several characters in this book, and at first I had to stop a time or two to get everyone in their place in the story. I really liked the main characters of Natalie and Gideon. Natalie is at the heart if all the action in the book, and her strong, compassionate character works well in the story. This storyline had so many twists and turns that the ending was very hard to predict. All in all, this is an amazing Christian suspense novel. This is my first book to read by Stephanie Black, and I’ll be reading more of her books.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

I was surprised by this book. I definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The characters were great and the story was haunting but captivating. Definitely lost sleep reading this cause I wanted to finish it. Really good book.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel -- I was hooked by the end of the second chapter and lost sleep reading for two days to finish it. Characters are all believable, I loved the setting and premise, and the conclusion was fast-paced and satisfactory. I was happy to find a previous Natalie Marsh novel called "Mind Games," which I've now purchased.

I liked this book, the plot was really cool. Suspenceful and intriguing. It was a good story. Thanks for the advanced read #netgalley #todietosleep

This is a book full of twists and turns. Just when I thought I had it figured out a new twist would be thrown at me. The characters are complex and well written. I loved the love and support shown in the relationship between Natalie and Gideon. The friendships between several characters. The familial relationships were crazy. This was a fun book to read.