I LOVED this book! It was tense and suspenseful, thrilling and unpredictable and disturbing in the best way. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and I just could not stop reading. I loved all the twists and could not predict how it was going to end. It would have been a five star read for me but I didn’t love the very, very end (like the last half page). I wanted a bit more resolution to some of the loose ends and could have really used an epilogue. That being said, this was still one of my favorite books I have read this year and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a haunting thriller with a bit of horror mixed in.

Darcy Coates is one of my favorite authors! To be able to scare me with words should be worthy of an award in itself! And she did just that!!

Dead of Winter was such a suspenseful and creepy book - definitely don't read this one in the dark! The story starts off at a very fast pace, then slows a bit in the middle. The twist is spectacular - I had thought about the actual ending as a possible outcome, but the author does an amazing job creating a whodunit plot going until the very end. With so many other possible outcomes, this is an ending that is hard to predict with any certainty! Though not extremely graphic, there are some horror elements and a little blood, but overall I enjoyed it more as a tlocked-room thriller. I would definitely recommend this book!

I was given a review copy by Netgalley and Kodansha Comics in return for an unbiased review.

Christa and her fiance Kiernan are on a trip with a tour group heading to a lodge in the snowy mountainside. A fallen tree blocks the group's way to the lodge. Christa and Kiernan split from the group to take a bit of a hike but get caught in a blizzard and lose each other. Christa is found by the group where they are holed up in a little cabin. The group believes they can wait out the blizzard and head to the lodge but then they start being picked off one by one.

I think this is Darcy Coates's first foray into the thriller genre. I'm a big fan of her horror books so I really looked forward to checking this one out. I will say it's a decent thriller. Darcy as usual knows how to set a scene and build tension. Some of the strongest moments are when the characters are outside and you can feel the horror of how isolated they are.

Where this book suffers is the characters themselves. They are just okay. None of them really stick out and they are one note. I think the story would have been served better by cutting the size of the cast down. Then we could have spent more time focusing on each character and feeling real pain when one of them is taken out.

Still, this is a fun fast read and I recommend it to anyone who loves Darcy Coates or who are wanting to cool off from the summer heat.

Dead of winter may have you thinking of Agatha Christie. A bus load of strangers go to a retreat in the woods. This snow is heavier than expected and their bus gets stuck in the snow. While they are deciding what to do a man drags his girlfriend thru the woods to see a special place of his. Girl slips and boyfriend disappears. The girl is rescued by passengers and they hide out in a deserted cabin. One by one the passengers disappear. The book keeps you captivated and the characters are well rounded and relatable. It’s a fast paced book with not many places that drag.

If you love a really good horror story, you will certainly love this book! Christa and her boyfriend, Kiernan, are on a tour bus heading to the Blackstone Alpine Lodge in the Rocky Mountains with others assorted vacationers. The bus comes upon a fallen tree blocking the road and when Brian, the tour guide and bus driver, begin working to clear the roadway, Kiernan persuades Christa to follow him to a place that he said has special meaning to him. The snow is falling heavily and visability is very poor which causes Christa and Kiernan to become separated. Lots of really crazy things happen in this book which will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC of this book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Can I say THE BEST BOOK EVER! I love, love, love Darcy Coates and this book just made me an even bigger fan. Stranded in a snowstorm with a bus load of other people. Eight to be exact. They find shelter and although cramped it should be a safe haven for the night or until the snow slows. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Upon waking they find the head of their tour guide impaled in a tree. Someone in the group cannot be trusted but who? The twists and turns are everywhere and the author grabs ahold of you and will not let go. This is one heart pounding novel that will take you on one hell of a ride.


5++++ out of 5



Thank you to NetGalley as well as the author/publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Dead of Winter is my first Darcy Coates novel. I’ve heard great things, so I’ve always been curious about them.
Dead of Winter follows the rules of a classic “locked-room mystery” but makes it hers in horrible ways. I will admit that I am so happy the locked-room mystery is becoming popular again. They’re fun!
In this one, we start with a destination trip in the Appalachian mountains. An unexpected turn of events leads 9 strangers toward a small cabin to wait out the snowstorm and call for help. When people start dying in dark ways, they realize one of them has to be a murderer.
The killings were pretty brutal compared to the usual poisonings and other mysterious deaths that usually happen in the genre, but the unexpected is always a nice surprise.
My only real complaint is that I had a hard time remembering who all the characters were at certain points and wish I’d written down names and descriptions.
Would I read more from Darcy Coates? Absolutely!

4/5
*thanks to netgalley for allowing me to read and review

This was one of the most thrilling horror books I’ve ever read! I love a good “And Then There Were None” retelling, and this one did not disappoint. It was impossible to put down. There were twists and turns all throughout the book. I loved the main character and I really liked reading about the other characters, even though I wasn’t sure of their innocence. I will say that this book is not for the faint of heart. It was one of the most gruesome and gory books I’ve ever read. I personally liked this because it just added another layer of thrill to the book. This story reminded me a lot of No Exit by Taylor Adams mixed with the classic Agatha Christie novel. It was absolutely amazing.

What a fantastic story! Action filled from the get go! I did know who the killer was pretty quickly, and why they did it, but it was still so intriguing to read how it played out! And all of the reveals packed a huge punch. It gave that feeling of satisfaction knowing I had it figured out, but I was still surprised at the way they were revealed. Fantastic job, I will definitely be reading more from this author!

Huge thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

Wow! This book grabs you from the first paragraph and holds you until the last page. Lots of adventure and twists keep you guessing.

Solid but gruesome thriller. Lots of gore (perhaps too much gore) and I am not sure about all of the loose ends, like where did the killer stay the whole time.

These people fell for the oldest scam in the world. If mysterious tickets arrive for you, don't go. Do not go! DO NOT GO. Somebody wants you out of the house and your head on a stick.

Dead of Winter is a good mystery, lots of bloody horror, and lots and lots of snow. Read this on a summer day. It will make you feel icy cold. The antagonist went through an awful lot of trouble, expense, and toe-numbing cold and it seemed like he could do the same things in an easier, cheaper, warmer way, but hey, that would be a much shorter book. Lots of violence and snow. Red shows up so much better on otherwise pristine white.

Thank you to Poison Pen Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read, review, and get the chills from Dead of Winter.

What happens when you are trapped in a cabin during a blizzard with strangers and one of them is a murderer? I made many faces while reading this one, and most of them were worthy of Schitt's Creek "ew" memes. Storyline and mystery were solid, but the actual murders were on-page grisly. I feel like I shouldn't have been surprised at the end, but I really was. If you read Holly Jackson's "Five Survived" this was very similiar in tone. Recommended.

This book was written so well. Even though it was a tad bit slow, especially in the first portions of the book, I was still hooked from the first chapter. I loved the whole plot, and while I did guess the killer from the beginning, once I got about half way, I second guessed myself and thought each of the persons might have been the killer. I never guessed the twist tho! That was great! Really well written, it made me shiver even in the hot summer.

Frankly, I found this book tedious and sanguinary in extreme and therefore disappointing.. The characters seemed to closely mirror one another and were not individually developed in any significant way, and the plot was rather absurd. There were also multiple grammatical errors that one does not expect from a published (or from a soon-to-be published) book, making it challenging to read.

I do appreciate being able to read this book from Poisoned Pen Press and Net Galley.

I enjoyed reading this fast paced thriller that kept you guessing who the killer was. I loved the suspense that was used while you were reading to keep you guessing who the killer might be. I

When a group trip to a snowy, mountainous location turns deadly, who’s to blame when everyone is mighty questionable…and slowly being picked off one by one?

❄️

The way my jaw dropped while reading this…and then continued to stay dropped throughout the whole book???

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dead of Winter is EASILY my new favorite by Darcy Coates and probably even the best horror I’ve ever read. It was truly one I couldn’t put down.

The setting was picture perfect. It was snowy, remote, and eerie. Coates described it in a way that I could picture it as if it were right in front of me.

The characters were interesting, quirky, and not confusing (thank goodness lol). With some books like this, it can be hard to differentiate between the members of a group — not this time. They all had their sus moments but were different enough that you could keep who was who, straight.

The plot was easily the best part, as to be expected! It was suspenseful, bloody, and kept me guessing who the killer could be. The twists really had me going. To me, they were true twists and caught me off guard. The whole time I was like, how can this get any wilder??

I could go on and on about Dead if Winter. I really could. It’s the first thriller/horror I’ve read in awhile that truly kept me on the edge of my seat. I will be recommending this one to everyone from here on out 😂

Thank you NetGalley, Darcy Coates, and Poisoned Pen Press for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Christa is expecting a getaway with her boyfriend in a secluded mountain lodge. What she gets is a vacation from hell, stranded with strangers in bitter cold howling winds after their bus gets stuck. The snow is drifting ever higher, there's very little food, no cell phone service, and a psycho killer is on the loose.
Taking refuge in a small hunting cabin, these strangers must band together if they hope to outlast the storm and the killer.

Dead of Winter is a survival horror that overlaps with the slasher genre. Personalities clash in the claustrophobic little cabin. As the tourists get picked off one by one tempers flare and trust flies out the window when they suspect the killer must be one of their little group. I had my own suspicions before the halfway mark that turned out to be correct. Towards the halfway point, I began to wish they would just get on with it when it began to feel too long and drawn out to get to the reveal. So while I loved the premise and the set up I think I would have enjoyed this more if it was a crisp and clean 300 pages instead of dragged out to 384.

A Grizzly Whodunit

A tour group is caught in a blizzard with two of their members lost while hiking the nearby mountain. The group miraculously finds shelter—they even find one of the hikers. They breathe a collective sigh of relief as they think they have found a safe place to ride out the storm. Until their tour guide turns up dead.

As they search the surrounding area, it becomes abundantly clear there is no one else around. Then another person is killed. Someone in their group is a killer. Mistrust and fear become rampant. Who is killing members of their group? And why?

Dead of Winter is, in many ways, a classic whodunit. The reader can feel the tension and horror building in the group as they realize they are trapped with a killer with no way out. However, the macabre and gruesome details of the killings affected my enjoyment of the book. Dead of Winter may not be the choice for people with a weak stomach.