I must say this book wasn’t bad. I enjoyed how it was witted and it kept me engaged. I have this a 4 star rating.

A trapped snowy mystery?! Sign me up! I was looking forward to reading this novel about a tour group stranded in The Rockies. However, I was able to guess early on who the killer was, and I lost interest in reading more since I wasn't invested in any of the characters who were still alive.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for a free and unbiased review.

Imagine that you, your love, and a small group of people are on your way to a perfect winter getaway... unfortunately, you never make it to the cozy lodge and end up in a wintery hell. A fallen tree in the road leads to a change of plans. While trying to find the perfect mountain view, Christa and her boyfriend, Kiernan, get separated and lost from their fellow travelers. The tour group leads a search and eventually finds a cabin and Christa, but Kiernan is nowhere to be found. Another search is pretty much out of the question - the snow is absolutely blinding. While the group tries to ride out the storm, people begin to disappear. Someone out there is picking off members of the group one by one. Who is behind this and why? Will anyone make it out alive??

Wowza. Dead of Winter is an intense and heart-pounding read!! It has that locked room feel - from the confines of the cabin to the outdoor areas where the characters are limited to roam. I could envision so many of the scenes playing out on-screen (that pine tree - eeeeeek!). The author casts suspicion on pretty much every member of the party, while also leading the reader to wonder if there is an outside force behind the terror. I really enjoyed this book and couldn't wait to see how it ended!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
❄️ wintery HORROR 🥶🥶🥶
❄️ a group “who-dun-it”
❄️ lots of characters
❄️ single POV
❄️ single timeline

I love snowy, wintery thrillers so much!!! I have never been afraid of snow until I started reading wintery thrillers 😬😬😬 Like who did it??? Is there a monster lurking in the snow?? Is someone watching them at all times??
Make no mistake about it though: this one is GORY! I would even call this more horror than a thriller because it was very graphic and may be disturbing to some.
I was hooked right from the very beginning because this book starts with my very favourite format for a thriller: with the height of action right at the beginning ❤️❤️ literally impossible to not keep reading!
I loved the 2 main characters Christa and Kiernan 💔💔💔 The whole time I was just wishing for them to be together but I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t going to be a happy ending 😭😭
There were a lot of characters in this one and honestly it did make it a little tough for me to keep track of who was who.
I honestly had no idea who the killer was boy was I shocked! I love how everything came together and was wrapped up in the end… the “twist” was pretty crazy!

I've read and enjoyed this author's novels before so I was really happy when I received an ARC from NetGalley. This is also a closed circle mystery where the weather/environment is part of the problem (and also trying to kill them), which is also something I really love. And Coates really used the hostile environment to good effect, setting the stakes high from the start to make it very clear why the group aren't trying to escape. The cabin they're stuck in, and the horror unfolding of why those surroundings they were in, was done very well.

Christa, the main character, is immediately struck with grief from the start and is left mostly alone at the start. This was a great way to start everything off because the group had a good reason to avoid interacting with her too much (awkwardness) and she had a good reason not to interact with them, so she could be the silent observer and gave us a chance to get to know the characters. And then people started dying in fairly brutal ways.

The plot itself was more thriller than mystery but Coates does really well in writing the escalation, I think the pacing was done so well. I've read and enjoyed her horror novels and it's for this reason, she knows how to up the stakes and build the tension and she does that in this book. I did sort of consider the twist very early on<spoiler> when Kieran went missing presumed dead and I was like 'he's the one you would least suspect so it's probably him and we never really see his head' </spoiler> but I fully guessed it about 3/4 of the way through, though I still enjoyed the reveal came about. (Honestly I would have found the twist more surprising if Coates hadn't gone the route she did).

I really enjoyed it and it's a great winter read.

There's a cold front coming, so it seemed the perfect time to read a mystery set in the "Dead of Winter". This one blew my socks off! Once I reached the halfway mark I couldn't put it down!

Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan are on a tour to a lodge deep in the Colorado Rockies. But a short hike goes wrong, and they find themselves lost in the storm. Christa eventually reunites with the group but Kiernan is lost to the elements. Then one by one the eight people stuffed into a one room cabin start to die.

They eventually figure out their relationship to each other. Their six degrees of separation comes down to one degree. But this doesn't help them determine who is trying to murder them all.

Wow, I can't say enough for the dread and drama this book provided. At one point, when the lights go out in the cabin, I wanted to scream! We experience it all through Christa's eyes. She is a lot braver than I would be, especially considering her one hand is useless with frostbite.

The book starts with some pretty good action, and then it just keeps building in intensity. The locked room element was perfect here, and having the cold and snow be a deadly adversary only adds to the paranoia. I commend the author for writing such a page turner. Someone needs to turn this into a movie! The script would write itself!

I will be seeking out other books by this author. I'm sorry it took so long to get around to reading this ARC, but it delivered a 5 star read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Darcy Coates, and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Awesome suspense!
This was my first Darcy Coates novel, but it won’t be my last.
A trip to a snowy mountain lodge, a bus with loaded with strangers. The bus can’t get pass a downed tree, so the passengers have to hold up in an empty cabin.
What could possibly go wrong?

Dead of Winter is by far one of Darcy Coates must chilling stories. Set in the Rocky Mountains during a snow storm a tour group is stranded. First they must simply survive the elements but when one of there own is taken and murdered they must survive eachother. This novel is dark, violent, mysterious, and laced with red herrings.

This was a page turner! A group of strangers joins a tour group to explore some remote areas of the Rocky Mountains. AS the title promises, it's winter, which gives the book real jeopardy and lots of chills. The main character is Christa, who is trying to make a fresh start. But when their tour guide is found dead in the snow, it's clear there’s a killer among them.

What makes the book fun is everybody has secrets, and the circumstances reveal each of their characters, for better and worse. There's so much tension because the snowstorm makes them trapped and when they start dying one by one there is nowhere to hide!

This was an intense edge of your seat thriller right from page one.
However, there were so many characters I never really felt for any of them and never could keep them separate or remember what was distinct between them,
It was a fight for survival but at the end when it all came together I felt myself rolling my eyes with how ridiculous the story and the “reason” for all of it was.
Very graphic with murder and physical harm throughout.

Hey everyone! 📚❄️ I just finished reading "Dead of Winter" by Darcy Coates and it’s fantastic! This book is the perfect mix of suspense, chills, and gripping storytelling.

Coates has a knack for creating eerie atmospheres that pull you right in. The snowy, isolated setting is so vivid—you can almost feel the cold creeping into your bones. The characters are well-developed, and you’ll find yourself deeply invested in their fates. One scene that really got me was when the protagonist discovers a hidden cabin in the woods, packed with spine-tingling secrets. It’s so intense and captivating!

If you love a good thriller with a dash of horror, "Dead of Winter" is an absolute must-read. It's a page-turner that will keep you hooked till the very end. Happy reading! 🌟📖

#BookReview #MustRead #DarcyCoates #ThrillerReads 🌨️📚

Dead of Winter has stuck in my brain and every time I think of it I can't help but give a dark chuckle. I love me a good closed room mystery and this one was a lot of fun. Gruesome... but fun 😂. For once, I feel like a book could truly be touted to be a modernized Christie - it definitely has the vibes. Some of the twists in this one are wild and it was a ball to try and figure everything out. If you're looking for a good read to cozy up with, safe and by the fire, this winter, I'd suggest it!

CW: Gore, car accident, alcohol, suicide.

A big thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Darcy Coates changes it up masterfully, just as skillful at the breakneck pace thriller as she is at the ghostly slow burn. The range!! Great characters and a propulsive mystery make this one a must-read.

This was my first Darcy Coates book, and I know I need to read more now. I totally forgot about this book, so this is a late review, but still so glad to have read it. I absolutely love the winter vibes as it seems so realistic with having snow in my state as well. This book had so many twists and turns, and the ending absolutely had me shook. I did not see that coming at all. This book played out like it was a movie and I absolutely love getting lost in a book that way. I really loved the different characters in this and the setting of this book. I cannot wait to read more of Darcy Coates.

Would I recommend? Yes to all the physiological thriller/horror/suspense lovers, that will be okay with the trigger warnings.

I’m an avid fan of Darcy Coates and her ability to weave spine-chilling tales that keep me hooked from start to finish. Unfortunately, Dead of Winter was a departure from that usual spellbinding experience. This one ended up being a DNF (Did Not Finish) for me.

Coates typically excels at crafting atmospheric settings and relatable characters, but something about this book didn’t resonate the same way. The plot seemed to meander, and I found myself getting lost and disinterested. It lacked the gripping tension and clarity I’ve come to love in her stories.

It’s disappointing because I know the potential is there—I’ve seen it in her other works. Perhaps it’s just a matter of personal taste or the mood I was in while reading, but Dead of Winter didn’t quite meet my expectations.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions below are my own.

Christa and her boyfriend are headed for a two week retreat at a ski resort in the mountains. She's thinking this might be when he proposes. When their bus is halted by a fallen tree, their guide ensures them help is on the way and the group takes shelter in a remote cabin to wait out the building storm. They realize they're in a living nightmare when the tour guide is found hours later brutally murdered and he's not the last of them to end up dead before the trip is over.

I would say this one is definitely more horror than thriller, the action never stops and the deaths are gorey and visceral. There are so many great suspects and you are with Christa the whole way as she tries to keep herself alive, find a way to get help and figure out the killer. The deaths were all really creative and I liked how all the clues came together to unmask the real killer and their motive.

Read this one if you liked No Exit.

This is a non-stop action fest of an isolated closed circle thriller that throws you right into the fire (or snow in this case). While I found the "whodunnit" immediately obvious, I think the tense vibes and effective setting made this a really entertaining read, and there was some body horror in here that I think made things even more intense.

What a great page turner. It makes you think about taking a bus trip to a mountain lodge in the winter! A selection of characters take this trip and they are in for the trip of their lives! Thrills and chills are all over the book. Happy reading, you really need to get this book! Thanks for writing such a great book!

I've been on a Darcy Coates kick this whole year because I read her space horror book followed by her ocean horror book and had a brilliant time. Dead of Winter is a completely different vibe to those two because it's set on dry land and the threat is very human. I really enjoyed this isolated wintery mystery set in the snowy mountains. It was very atmospheric. I enjoyed discovering the clues along with the characters and figuring out what was going on. I did find it to be predictable but to be honest I've probably read a few too many thrillers at this point so it takes something really wild to actually shock me. I was hooked while reading this and I think it's a great thriller to read while the nights are drawing in and you've got the fire on.

This is another great example of Darcy Coates' mastery of the classic horror/gothic formula. She follows a familiar structure but does it so well that it feels fresh and engaging. The story starts with a slower build-up, gradually layering on the suspense until the tension reaches its peak in the final few chapters. Coates is excellent at creating that eerie, atmospheric dread that keeps you turning pages.

I also have to say, I usually guess the plot or villain early on in books like this, but this one kept me guessing for much longer. The way the tension builds throughout makes the eventual reveal all the more satisfying. If you enjoy a suspenseful, slow-burn horror with a chilling atmosphere, I’d definitely recommend Dead of Winter!

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Darcy Coates for providing this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.