When Christa and her boyfriend, Kiernan, take a bus trip to a remote lodge in the mountains with a group of strangers, everything goes terribly wrong.
They find themselves stuck in the middle of a snowstorm and everyone on the bus takes shelter in a nearby cabin. One by one, people start dying and everyone questions whether someone in the group is the killer or is someone from the outside watching them...and where are the I owners of the cabin? Christa desperately tries to figure all of this out in a race to save her life and the lives of the others on the bus tour before they all become victims.

This was my first read by this author and I really enjoyed it! It has everything I look for in a good thriller... mystery, suspense, twists, shock value and horror! I definitely look forward to reading more I Darcy Coates' books in the future!

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

Thank you to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for this ARC copy

The writing of this one is descriptive and honestly gave me chills, which I was definitely appreciative of, since summer temps are here to stay!! 🥵 The story follows multiple unreliable characters and just when I had a feeling I knew who did it, I was quickly proven wrong multiple times before the big reveal 😅. The final reveal was definitely a jaw dropping moment for me!

Once I got past the half way point, I caught myself saying, "okay I'll just read one more chapter", only to then end up binge reading the second half of the book. I have no regrets for the hours of sleep lost! Although, the elements of horror in this one might just cause me to lose sleep for days after finishing this one.

The chapters are short and are written with cliff hangers at the end of them that push you to keep reading until everything is wrapped up and revealed!

If you're looking for a page turner thriller/horror read definitely give this one a try!! I will warn you, the descriptions do get gory though! 😵

Things I loved about this one:
❄️ Mysterious pasts
❄️ Snowy locked in trope
❄️ Page turning twists
❄️ Multiple unreliable characters

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I love a good locked room mystery, and Darcey Coates explores this trope brilliantly in Dead of Winter, her ice-cold homage to And Then There Were None. Eight people are stranded in the Rocky Mountains, trapped in an isolated cabin, and are being picked off one by one in grisly, gruesome ways. We get the story from the first-person point of view of Christa, one of the eight, as she desperately tries to figure out who is doing the killing before she herself becomes a victim.

Dead of Winter will transport you from the sunny skies and balmy temperatures of summer right into a frigid, menacing, bitterly cold winter landscape. Coates uses the setting itself as another character, an antagonist that prevents the characters from rescue and threatens them with its unrelenting desolation and chill. The plot proceeds at a lightning-fast pace, with cinematic writing and short chapters that make it impossible to stop reading, and the narrative is laced with tension, terror, and dread. There are plenty of horror elements here (specifically graphic violence), but Coates proves with this novel that she can write a good murder mystery, too.

I sometimes have issues with large ensemble casts; keeping all the characters straight can be challenging if there isn’t enough detail to differentiate them. But each of the characters in Dead of Winter is multi-faceted and memorable and has an integral part to play in the plot. The way Coates weaves everything together is dark and devious and quite brilliant, actually. I will say that I did guess the ending, but that didn't do anything to deter my enjoyment of Dead of Winter; Coates kept my eyes glued to the page as everything unfolded.

This is only the second book I’ve read by Darcey Coates, and I’m absolutely thrilled I still have so much of her backlist to explore. Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the early reading opportunity.

I love a mysterious thriller. This book is just that. If you're looking for a book to escape and a mindless read then this one is for you. Darcy Coates and Dead of Winter will have you guessing throughout this book as Christa, and her boyfriend Kieran, set out for a trip that quickly goes wrong. Kieran disappears when they get separated while outside when their bus is stranded in a snow storm. Kieran is missing and the others on the trip start getting murdered. This is a classic who done in. It was a fun read with shorter chapters. There are many characters that can be a bit to keep up with.

This was a really fast paced thriller that has you suspicious of everyone in the story. A group of people are taking a quiet trip to a remote lodge in the middle of nowhere. But when their bus is detoured by a felled tree and they have to hike to an abandoned cabin - the bodies start piling up!

I loved how creepy the story was and how it kept me guessing who was behind all of it. But the story is completely from one character's perspective and she left me wanting a little. She tended to see the potential good in everyone, which is honestly nice to read from that perspective, but it clouds your judgement a lot when reading the story.

Overall a wonderful read though and I'd recommend it to any lover of #thrillerbooks!

Fantastically creepy and keeps you guessing right up to the bloody end! Stranded in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers you can't trust. People keep dying one by one. It's a horror plot we have heard before, but as always, Darcy Coates keeps it fresh and tense. I definitely will recommend to any horror book lovers!

Thank you Netgalley for my copy of this book. My review is unbiased and my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this amazing ARC!

Easily my favorite book of the year! what an amazing heart-pounding thrill ride this was. Mrs Coates has a way of writing that makes you feel every emotion like you were there.
From the characters, to the setting to the twists this is a must read book that is impossible to put down.

5/5.

I loved this book, as I love most everything that Darcy Coates writes. Very fast paced and entertaining and I flew through it in two days. I wasn't able to guess the killer, which was a plus. Very isolated and snowy thriller/horror tale.

Many thanks, NetGalley and Poision Pen Press, for this ARC! Immediately upon starting this book, I was HOOKED. I could not put down this book once I started it. I loved that I second guessed every single character and their motive. I love a thriller trope of stuck in the same place - I think that it makes for the most exciting hook. I am so excited to recommend this book to others. Murder, mayhem and mystery? Count me in.

Oooh this one was an eerie page-turner! It was definitely one of the more atmospheric books I’ve read! And downright GRUESOME with the murder descriptions.

I love locked-room thrillers and trying to determine the killer. It’s always a fun game of “are you smarter than the characters?” for me. This one definitely gets bonus points because I never did completely guess what was going on! I think the not knowing was definitely what made me so engrossed with this one as it definitely wasn’t the characters. I wanted to shake them all at one point or another!

Although I didn’t completely guess the ending, I wasn’t exactly satisfied with it either. The motive touches on my all-time least favorite thriller trope and l wanted a little more closure than we were given. Consider me needy!

Thank you @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for the opportunity to read and review this arc!

Wow, Dead of Winter constantly had me on the edge of my seat with my heart pounding throughout the book. I was immediately hooked from Chapter 1 and it didn’t let up the whole way through. My head was spinning and every time I though I figured out the killer, I was so wrong. I would have never guess who the killer was or why.

This is my first book by Coates and it will not be my last. Every psychological thriller lover needs to READ THIS BOOK! While it is being released in the summer in the USA, it will make an amazing winter read with its snowy winter setting.

******Many thanks to Poison Pen Press, Darcy Coates, and NetGalley for my gifted ebook, in turn for an honest review.

Will be posting my review on Instagram (thriller_book_sisters) on 7/10/23.

Dead of Winter starts with a bang. The reader is immediately thrown into the thick of things, and the story stays tense. The location is perfect for terrible winter storms and trapping a group of people. A group of very unlikable people at that.

Our narrator, Christa, drove me up the wall. She was too meek, and she clenched her teeth a heck of a lot. She wouldn’t speak up for herself. Even when she woke up to someone trying to kill her by smothering her, she never once calls out that person. Why wouldn’t you mention it to everyone? I don’t understand that mentality at all. Things got a little repetitive at times, slowing down the pacing in the middle. Last, and this is a huge pet peeve of mine, 911 does not need you to be on the line for a “set amount of time” to find you. That hasn’t been a thing for decades, and I’m unsure why authors still try to write it into a storyline as a plot point.

However, I will say this: I didn’t know who we could trust because I mistrusted everyone. I didn’t like anyone, so it made me weary of everyone. And while I suspected why we were in this situation, that didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the novel because I didn’t have all the missing pieces. Even though there were a few hiccups, this is an enjoyable read—my thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for sending this over.

What an excellent introduction to the work of Darcy Coates. Dead of Winter will not be the last book of hers I read, that’s for sure. This is sure to be one of my top horror-thrillers of 2023. I did guess the who and the why pretty early but definitely was not sure up until the final pages.

If you’re looking for a nail biting, fast moving page turner to fill your hot summer night or day then you definitely should not miss this. The icy, snowbound setting also adds to the anxiety and thrills of the story.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc I received in exchange for my honest review.**

Well written - definitely a page turner. Just when you think you've solved the mystery - you're wrong! Great characters - vivid descriptions and story line,

Thank you to Net Galley and Poisoned Pen Press for an ARC of this book.
Christa is part of a tour group that becomes stranded in the Rocky Mountains during a snow storm. After finding a cabin, members of the group begin disappearing.
Although some of the murders are quite gruesome , I enjoyed this very fast paced, well plotted locked room thriller.
Darcy Coates’ well written prose creates a creepy atmosphere. All of the characters are quite suspicious, holding onto their own secrets.

Wow! Wow! A heart stopping, unstoppable read! I couldn’t put it done….. just had to keep going. Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates held me totally spellbound. An amazing story told with simple but gripping narrative.

A thriller mystery that is set in winter in the Rock Mountains and while the weather is rough the murder and mayhem that ensures is even rougher. The characters are incredibly developed and while you don’t want to be with them - you are - and that is terrifying.

Highly recommended read. Definitely a five star rating.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#DeadofWinter #NetGalley #HarperCollinsAu

I really enjoyed this winter, atmospheric, locked- room-ish thriller! I’ve read Coates’ work before and usually it has some supernatural element to it, so I kept expecting that to pop up. I was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t! Loved the reveal of the connection between all the guests. Definitely had a suspicion as to who the killer was, but learning the why and the how still had me captivated. Will def be recommending this to people come winter time!

This is one creepy book! It starts out a little slow, with our narrator describing pushing through endless piles of deep snow (snow gets pushed through and described a lot in this book), but when it picks up it really picks up.

A bus full of people heading for a vacation at a lodge is halted by a tree felled in the middle of the road and some terrible winter weather. The group makes their way to a small uninhabited cabin, but wake up to their tour guide’s severed head on a tree right outside. Someone’s plan is to pick them off one by one.

I couldn’t read this book at night, it was too scary. I guessed part of the amazing ending, but that didn’t take away at all from what a great twist it was (in fact, it made it even better because I felt so successful!). I definitely recommend this book.

The Ten Little Indians trope is old, but Darcy Coates’s Dead of Winter can still make you keep all the lights on while you read on into the wee hours.
Opening with the heroine, Christy, and her boyfriend lost in a raging snowstorm somewhere in the Rockies. The storm worsens causing her to fall from a snow-covered ledge. She comes to eight hours later in a tiny cabin with nine of the ten other passengers of the private tour bus they were on. Missing is her boyfriend, Kiernan.
A fallen tree blocks the access road to the remote luxury lodge they would all be staying at. Before the tree can be cleared, the group searches for Christy and Kiernan. They find her battered and unconscious. No sign of Kiernan or his body. They do, however, find a tiny hunting cabin that offers the group better shelter than the stranded bus.
Sticking with the script, the travelers are grotesquely murdered one by one while the impassable storm howls outside. The area is too remote for cell service of course. Day after day the trapped group’s number is cut down each victim is beheaded and put on display. Recriminations and paranoia grow, while the dark secrets of each traveler come to light.
While I sat sweltering in ninety-degree heat reading Dead of Winter, I could feel my fingertips slowly freezing and driven snow slashing my face.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I found the plot to be very slow, and I found it hard to care about the characters, because I felt like we never got a chance to know them as people. I know lots of other people love this author, so I’m sure other people will enjoy this book, it was just not for me.