First off, I am so glad I read this while the temperature was warming up because I don’t think I could have handled reading it if it was cold out!

Second, I will never travel with a group anywhere there could be a snowstorm.

This is the first book of @darcybooks I have read 🤦‍♀️ and am definitely planning on reading more! The story kept me hooked and guessing from the very beginning. Highly recommend for readers that want a fast past thriller!!

Thanks to @poisonedpenpress and @netgalley for the advanced copy!

Dead of Winter is out July 11 (believe me, you will want to read this in the summer!)

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates – A tour bus is stopped by a fallen tree in the snowy Rocky Mountains. A snowstorm descends and the vacationers become stranded. Nine survivors huddled in a cabin as far away as possible but still so close that we can smell one another's body odor, wait for rescue. The next morning, they discover the severed hear of Brian, their tour guide. As another body is discovered, Christa has a premonition, we are all going to die here. Someone has committed atrocities against our companions. And the kills are so efficient and terrifyingly precise that it's hard to believe the butcher has never taken a life before. One by one Christa's companions are losing their heads. Four bodies now lie in the snow, and still, no one in the outside world even knows that they are in danger. Coates presents a chilling tale of survival and horror that will keep you turning pages!

I enjoyed this book however there were some issues for me personally, for example, the beginning of the book was action packed. On the other hand, there was a lull in the middle of the story. I enjoyed the writing, and thought it was easy to get into and easy to understand, and I thought that the setting was laid out very well. However, one of the most negative things for me personally was how much repetition there was in the story, especially in the middle section. In addition, I thought the ending was well though out. However, I saw it coming (maybe I read too many thrillers!) Overall, I enjoyed this book and will for sure recommend it to people who like fast paced, edge of your seat thrillers.

Thank you so much to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC copy, in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! This is fantastic. Nine people and their guide are going to a lodge for an outdoor adventure. A snow storm quickly comes up and a fallen tree in the road stops them. They are close so they start to walk and find an empty but equipped cabin near by. Then one-by-one they are murdered and decapitated. Which one of them is the killer?

I'm used to Darcy Coates' ghost stories so I was surprised by this devilish thriller. There are a couple of twists that shocked me. I was on the edge of my seat at the final scenes' fast-paced climax. A great group of people with fine character development. An intricate plot that keeps you guessing at every step

An isolated unrelenting horror! This book grabbed my from the very first page and absolutely did not give any chances to catch your breath! This book was Incredible & gory!! I was blown away by the ending and I never had a clue! It kept the twists and turns coming…. a beautiful winter Mountain vacation gone horribly wrong….. or did it????

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for the free book.
Believe it or not, Dead of Winter was my first Coates novel, and now I’m going to be devouring her backlist. This is a fast-paced, tense, edge-of-your-seat thriller. A group of eight strangers are stuck in a blizzard in a cabin when they start being murdered one by one. Christa was the perfect narrator because of her own story and little distrust of everyone. And everyone is suspicious. Coates delivered just enough information to keep me guessing on who the killer was up until the end of the book. She also created the perfect creepy atmosphere. It was so well done!

The first half of this book felt impossibly long and formulaic, to the point where I saw I was a little over halfway through and went “what else could possibly happen?”

Let me tell you, the second half of this book is worlds better than the beginning. Twisty, fast paced, terrifying. There is a legitimate jump scare somewhere around 70/75% through. I entertained the idea of the killer’s identity early on, as the author does lay the framework for a solid reveal. The last half alone would have gotten a higher rating, but because it took a while to get to the good part, I’d give this 2.5-3 stars. Slow to pick up, but ultimately an entertaining read.

I loved almost everything about this book! The mystery, the suspense, the cast of characters. However, I would have liked a little bit more closure at the end. The ending just felt a bit too abrupt to me. I also feel like the book could use a final edit to remove the Australian word choices and turns of phrase since our narrator is supposed to be American.

I have heard amazing things about Darcy Coates and her writing. I was excited to get an ARC of Dead of Winter. In this book we follow Christa who is on a vacation with her boyfriend to the Rocky Mountains. The vacation takes an unexpected turn when a snowstorm sets in and the group that she is traveling with is stranded in the middle of the mountains in a tiny cabin. During the night, the tour guide goes missing only to be found the next morning brutally murdered. Christa finds herself terrified as she is trapped with 8 other strangers and her boyfriend is still missing in the snowstorm. One by one they are picked off and they have to figure out who the killer is before another person dies.

This gave me very And Then There Were None vibes. I figured out who the killer was 3 chapters into the book and so nothing really surprised me unfortunately. I don't think Darcy Coates thrillers are going to be for me. I did enjoy her writing style though so I will be picking up a horror and going from there.

2 stars.

**Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.**

I could easily see this book as a movie, a plot of revenge that includes a serial killer.. There were also enough graphic details of decapitated bodies that I'm comfortable calling it horror. Although it's the beginning of summer here, I did lots of shivering as I read Dead of Winter, and not all of it was because it takes place in the mountains during a blizzard. I thought I knew who the killer was but second-guessed myself because of details and ended up going down the wrong path more than once - those were fun red herrings.

As for what I didn't enjoy as much? Overuse of the word sour. It was used as 1) a taste in a person's mouth (multiple times), 2) the tone of a room, 3) a description of one person's skin (I still don't understand how skin can be sour), 4) an opinion (something soured him on a course of action), 5) a facial expression and 6) the taste of fear.

Chrissy, the narrator, was inconsistent at times. For example, she'd tell herself she wants to keep a closer eye on who leaves or enters the cabin but a few minutes later she's already lost track of people. She found an important clue and misplaced it soon after. For my taste, she veered a little too suddenly between observant and clever & TSTL (too stupid to live).

Overall, though, it was a solid three stars and I look forward to reading Ms. Coates' next book.

Christa is grieving an accident from two years prior. Hoping to finally put it behind her, she joins her boyfriend on a trip to a remote hunting lodge with an assortment of strangers. But a freak winter storm threatens to derail her plans. And when the tour guide is found decapitated, Christa realizes that there is a worse killer after her than just the blizzard.

I've never read anything from this author before and I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did, but it was a tense, claustrophobic thriller that was truly hard to put down. Coates paints a convincing setting of relentless winter, the frozen landscape as much of a danger than the killer stalking the group. Characters feel real and distinct from one another and the twists are satisfying. I'm very curious to check out Coates's backlist.

Special thanks to the publisher for making this book available to read through NetGalley in exchange for a review

Darcy has done it again with this cold weather thriller! She kept me guessing until the end and kept throwing me off the trail. I was super pleased with the ending even though I felt like it lacked closure. Darcy is an excellent writer though and her work never ceases to hook me!

DNF @ 25% - as a reader, I typically 100% go in blind. if someone recommends it, it’s a favorite author of mine, it’s all the buzz, or if I just like the cover sometimes, I’ll typically crack it open. most of the time, it doesn’t fail me - this time it did. if I had read the synopsis and gotten to the severed head, I most likely wouldn’t have picked this one up. anything that is borderline horror to me just isn’t my cup of tea. the writing was so intriguing and I wished I enjoyed it more - I definitely would recommend this to all horror fans alike though because I was loving it up until that point! thank you netgalley and sourcebooks for the advanced copy - I’m sorry it didn’t pan out for me :(

I had never read a book by Darcy Coates before, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them ASAP. This book kept me up late reading furiously past my bedtime to see what would happen next..
This story was everything I hoped for when I picked it up, a cast of characters trapped in a remote location getting picked off one by one. It is a plot that is well known to most mystery fans, but Coates does a great job coming up with a fresh story that grips readers!

Genre: Mystery and ThrillerDead of Winter
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Pub. Date: July 11, 2023

Be prepared to read about being lost in the extreme cold, freezing rain, snow, ice, and high winds ad nauseam. Think of “Ten Little Indians,” with none of Agatha Christie’s talent. Here not ten, but eight strangers are on their way to a ski lodge in the Rocky Mountains. Their bus breaks down, leaving them stranded in a brutal blizzard. There is a high level of tension when the temperature drops. Right about then, one by one, they are murdered. Even with the author throwing in a few twists, I guessed the killer early on—a “whodunnit” survival thriller tale without an “unguessable who.”

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Dead of Winter releases July 11, 2023

4/4.5

This was an unputdownable, chilling and atmospheric blend of a thriller with some horror, and some added elements of isolation, sabotage, and revenge.

A group of 11 individuals are headed up to Blackstone Alpine Lodge during the off-season through an organized tour guide, and have planned to stay there for two weeks.
Only, on the way there, a tree has felled in the middle of the road, halting the bus ride up to the lodge. As they work to configure a safe passage, an oncoming snow storm picks up in speed at the same time as our main character and her boyfriend wander off in search of a lookout.

This story is mainly set in a very small isolated cabin, with dwindling resources.
Beginning on day one, an individual is murdered, beheaded, and displayed for all to see. This anonymous killer amongst them quickly escalates and each day another member of the group turns up beheaded.

Seemingly strangers, this group of individuals are actually all connected to one singular event that happened two years ago — but who orchestrated all of this and is the face behind all of these murders?

I loved the setting here and truly did not know who the killer was until the very end which makes for some really good writing.
I do wish there was an epilogue included, or a one year later follow up to tie everything together, and the characters could have been more fleshed out, but otherwise it was great!

This is my second Darcy Coates book. One part of me hoped that at the end, the ending would be left-open or we would meet some ghosts or other supernatural creatures, however this did not happen. This book is purely human-on-human terror.

In general, the idea is great, the isolated setting, people getting killed one-by-one - a perfect psychological horror. However, for me, it did not fully deliver. I do have to mention that the ending did raise the rating a little bit. The main thing that missed the mark for me, was that somewhere around half-way into the book, I kinda got bored. The suspected killed hopped too fast from one character to another and I could have used more descriptions of the setting, it didn't give me the chills of being isolated on top of a mountain. Not a perfect horror, but decent enough and a fast read. That is always a good point in my book.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions are, as always, my own.

“Dead of Winter” is a first person POV thriller, told by Christa, an ill-fated passenger on a tour bus in the Rockies that is stranded in a storm, with 10 people taking shelter in an isolated cabin. And almost immediately the tour bus guide goes missing and turns up decapitated, his head hung from a nearby pine tree like mistletoe. Being cramped in a small space with an assumed killer is no fun; having Mother Nature ready to kill you as well is equally horrific.

The author drops you right into the action: Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan are lost in a sudden storm after the bus stopped when a tree blocked the road and they went exploring. We know that Christa fell (off a cliff? Into a crevice?) and Kiernan tried to grab her; her hand is ravaged, and she wakes up in that crowded cabin without him. The others can’t find him and they reluctantly search again with her. They’re a varied crew of all ages, from a DJ scouting a venue to a tense married couple. Christa is consumed with finding Kiernan, who the others have written off as dead. The group also comes to realize that the emergency radio has been broken, there’s no cell service, and the bus has been disabled. It's possible no one will be looking for them for 12 days. A full set of human teeth is left on an outside windowsill — so aside from butchery, the killer also has superhuman dentistry skills.

I took some comfort in believing that Christa probably wasn’t the killer, but she could become a final girl. This is my first thriller by Darcy Coates, but it won’t be my last.

This is a non-stop thriller, wonderfully crafted to give you all those awful feelings of being trapped in a horror movie. This kept me guessing and my heart racing! 5 stars!

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Kiernan has pale green eyes and there are lots of frozen eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO As advertised in the title, the novel’s world is frozen and inhospitable with nothing particularly growing (pine trees are used to hang up body parts, but don’t blame the trees).

This entire plot is beyond nonsensical. The amount of coincidences and ability to execute actions with perfect timing without detection beggars belief. There was a neat little twist at one point that kept me going but I found most of this story to be absurd and way too over the top. Plus, I guessed the killer approximately 20 pages in. I also felt that the ending was shockingly abrupt and the lack of epilogue was criminal.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is a heart-pounding thriller with notes of horror. I was hooked by the plot and comparisons to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." The comparison is accurate, but the execution is modernized, winterized and a bit more bloody.

Our protagonist Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan join a tour group heading to a remote lodge in the Rocky Mountains when their bus is blocked by a tree. The guests seek shelter in a seemingly abandoned cabin, and soon their bus driver is killed. Other guests get killed one after another while the survivors attempt to figure who among them could be the killer. There are some good twists and turns along the way, and the writing is strong. It is, of course, a plot driven story with less emphasis on characterization. Christa has a troubled past that she is trying to overcome, but this trip will dredge up that past in a way she cannot predict.

I give the author credit for writing a solid, if not unique, thriller. And although I should have been prepared for the horror aspect, some of the book's grisly details were a little too much for me.

I will recommend this to readers who appreciate the locked room mystery and can handle a bit of gore.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.