4 STARS

Another one of my “group trapped in a remote location during a blizzard” reads! I do recommend this - I was surprised with the beginning of the book as it drops you right into a tense situation that I thought would have been the ending. But oh there is so much more!

As each character is brutally picked of by “the butcher” it becomes clear that no one can be trusted. I wasn’t shocked by the identity of the killer as there’s subtle clues throughout, but I was quite surprised by a couple of twists and turns! I have an issue where I usually figure out the end of the book too soon and the book becomes boring, but this kept me engaged with unexpected moments and second guessing myself!

This was such a good locked-room mystery! Gripping in the beginning and tense throughout. Coates’ descriptions made you feel like you’re in the story, freezing your tail off in a blizzard with a group of strangers. I loved that I guessed every single character and was completely wrong. Each chapter was short, suspenseful and left you on the edge of your seat. I couldn’t put a majority of it down. Toward the end, it felt repetitive and drawn out. I enjoyed learning about all the character connections in the end. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this before.

Thank you, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

And then there was….yet another take on “And Then There Were None”.

The pros for me:
*Quick read.
*Well written.
*Does have suspenseful moments.

The cons for me:
*Too much lingering on EVERYTHING. Too long describing scenery, observations, and gore. It all felt longer than it needed to be.
*A very easy to guess antagonist.
*Ending is neither satisfying nor dissatisfying. Just is.

The problem with doing a new take on an old classic is that it’s been done A LOT. The formula has been set for so long that it’s going to be fairly easy to figure out who the bad guy is. Knowing that, you have to make the journey a whole experience assuming that your audience already guessed who done it. If the experience along the way is still suspenseful and enjoyable then hooray! Unfortunately for me, this ain’t it.

This is my first Darcy Coates book. I'd say there's enough in the writing that I would try other books, banking on the fact that they can't all be retellings of another story so I'd be willing to see if I like other books better than I did this one.

I read this straight through! The atmosphere, the pacing, so good! This book is perfect for suspense fans who don't mind a little macabre creepiness and want to feel like they are there watching the scenes unfold. I enjoyed the characters, the plot twists, the setting. The closer to the end you get, the more you feel like you're fighting along with the main character for survival.

I am a fan of Darcy Coates haunted house novels, so I was excited to try something different from her. I really enjoyed the book, but I was able to guess who the killer was from the very beginning. It was pretty obvious, but besides that the book was a good read. Not my favorite from her but good nevertheless.

This is a good mystery/thriller but not a horror book. The group of tourists starts getting picked off one by one and the reason at the end is pretty compelling. The person responsible is a complete psycho but the monologuing is captivating. It's hard to stop reading this. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

I love Darcy Coates's books! I have read all of them and they have been nail biters - Including this one! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time reading and when I wasn't able to read it, I couldn't wait to get back into it! There were so many twists and turns throughout the story and the ending was a complete surprise!

Thank you to NetGalley and the amazing publisher for the ARC of this title! I am so grateful to be auto-approved for this title!
I look forward to reading and reviewing. More to come!

I’m sure if you’re a long time lurker—first time caller—you may know that I absolutely LOVE survival thrillers. This was my first Darcy Coates book and it will not be my last. Her writing is fantastic. Granted, I had a feeling I knew exactly what was happening from the beginning, which was later confirmed for me, but she still kept me in suspense on a lot of the events. It also made me want to keep reading. It was a bloody, gory book, and I felt the tension to my marrow, which is exactly what I love about stories like this.

When Christa’s boyfriend finally convinces her to come on a trip with him into the mountains in winter, she is packed up—if not entirely ready--to go. Maybe this is exactly what she needed to shake the ghosts that have haunted her for the last few years. Plus, Kiernan grew up in the area and is the one person she feels she can trust, so coming out of her comfort zone in order to make him happy is important to her. However, when a sudden snowstorm blows in out of nowhere, separating Kiernan and Christa and stranding the tour group in a cabin in the woods, all bets are off. A member of their group is most likely dead and there’s no way to call for help.

They soon have a bigger problem on their hands as members of their group are brutally murdered one by one, their heads impaled on the tree outside of the cabin door and their beheaded bodies are found in shocking places. Suspicions turn inward. Someone in this cabin is picking them off one by one.

As tensions grow and supplies dwindle, the group needs to figure out who the killer is before they all starve to death or end up as gruesome ornaments hanging from the creepy pine outside.

The descriptions are absolutely horrific and the characters are so well thought out that they feel like real people. You also can’t help but root for Christa, who may have made some mistakes in her past, but is definitely a survivor. I highly recommend this story!

Thanks to Netgalley, Darcy Coates, and Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced e-book in exchange for this fair and honest review! Posting on 6/21/23

A group of people get stuck in the snow on the way to a mountain resort and then they start disappearing one by one.

Overall, this was a fast thriller, but the gore factor was too high for me. In several parts I had to pause and/or skim over because the visceral descriptions of the mutilated bodies was just too much.

Darcy Coates is one of my favorite horror authors so I was thrilled to get an E-ARC of Dead of Winter. This was a FUN horror/thriller. I love me a good slasher read any day. I also love secluded cabin settings like this one so this was a win win for me.

If you're a fan of this author's work, or love the horror and thrillers genres...keep this on your radar. It comes out on July 11, 2023.

I sincerely appreciate the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I read this book within 2 days and that wasn't nearly fast enough. Be prepared to not want to put it down. There is no lull at all and it's hard to put it down once you start reading. I did figure out the killer earlier on thanks to a couple clues, but the storyline still had me 2nd guessing what I thought. Very fast paced and anxiety inducing. I would recommend it to anyone who loves thrillers.

Thank you NetGalley & Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced ebook copy in exchange for my honest review.

Let me just say, WOW! Eight people go on a trip in the snowy mountains, but one by one someone is killing them off. Who is it? Why are they doing it? Every time I thought I had it figured out I was wrong, then that ending just came out of nowhere! Christa is a BA and I was rooting for her to make it out alive. This is my first book by this author, but probably won’t be my last!

Holy cow. I would give this book 10 stars if I could. Perfection. Absolute perfection. This now takes the place of all her other books for me - the new number one. How the heck did she do it?! The book starts off with a bang and when I say it doesn’t stop… it not only keeps going but ratchets up the suspense and horror until you almost can’t take it. You might think you know who the antagonist is. You don’t. I’m calling it - this is my top book of 2023. Hands down. I bow to the QUEEN.

Dead of Winter is my first introduction to Darcy Coates, and I am absolutely flabbergasted. This story is detailed, intriguing, and layered like an onion, leaving you to peel back layers of detective work, gore, and questions of why. My neck and arm hair give this story a standing ovation.
My mind was working like a rubix cube trying to figure this one out, recalling character plot, conversations, and subtle hints. It was not easy for me to figure out, and I didn't! The book did not hold back on gory details. This book was also not profane or over the top. The chapters were short and kept the reader engaged. I found the whole book interesting, but once I hit the 20% mark, no one around me was allowed to talk and I also wanted to be alone in that cabin to read, sort of..in a safe way, in the Dead of Winter.


Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read this outstanding five-star book!

In case you needed a reminder to never go into a remote and isolated forest in the middle of winter - here it is! Coates delivers a chilling story about a woman's survival that will definitely make your heart pound.

Christa is young woman who is on a trip with her boyfriend Kiernan. Taking a bus to a lodge in a remote mountain forest with a small group of people should be a step up in their relationship. It should be a relaxing vacation surrounded by nature. But when the bus can't make it to the lodge the group is forced to find shelter in a hunting cabin to wait out the blizzard that blows in suddenly. Unfortunately it's the wrong time to be stuck together when someone begins killing the travelers one by one. Christa must figure out if the killer is one of them or an outsider killing for sport.

From the moment I started reading I was engaged. I felt like I was there, the description of the winter storm is so vivid and terrifying. Coates does a fabulous job of creating a disturbing and claustrophobic setting. If you are looking for some horror it's here. The characters are well thought out, and, even though I didn't connect easily to some of them, there are a few that I cared about. I did figure out the ending early on but this didn't keep me from enjoying the hunt. The cliffhangers at the end of each chapter felt forced and didn't have the suspense that was intended - in fact I started getting annoyed by them - but other than that the suspense of the action created the heightened emotions Coates was going for. This is a perfect winter scare to cuddle up with on a dark and cold night. Thank you so much, Poisoned Pen Press, for the opportunity to read this!

At first, I didn’t think this book was going to be any different than any other thriller but after reading, this was so fun to read. I stayed up all night to finish it and that plot twist at the end was shocking. I like that there was a large cast of characters because it made it so I was never bored. The only thing I didn’t like was that certain scenes were so dragged out and were repetitive. It felt like there was only so much this author can do in this limited environment that she had to repeat an accusation or mission that we’d already read about. Regardless of that, this book was very enjoyable and I couldn’t put it down🤩

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

“Dead of Winter” is Darcey Coates’s new adult horror novel that takes on the same characteristics of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” and Ruth Ware’s “One by One”, with little hints of Stephen King’s “The Shining” also coming through. The synopsis of this book focuses on a group of strangers on their way via bus to a resort tucked away in the Rocky Mountains for a vacation in the middle of winter. The bus is stalled on an isolated road by a felled tree, prompting the protagonist, Christa, and her boyfriend Kiernan to go for a walk while the tree is cleared from the road. Soon they are lost in a blizzard and get separated. Christa finds herself in a solitary cabin where she and the other occupants of the bus, including the driver, are also hiding out, but Kiernan is nowhere to be found. What seems like a waiting game for rescue or a way to get help soon turns out to be a fight for survival as an unknown assailant—perhaps someone in the cabin?—is killing off the group one by one. Who can Christa trust? What happened to Kiernan? Who is brutally killing them?

This is a fast-paced thriller told from the viewpoint of Christa that will keep the reader guessing as to who the killer is until the final reveal, which is shocking. There are feelings of paranoia, claustrophobia, isolation, and fear as the strangers are forced to come together to fight not only an invisible foe, but the frigid weather conditions, despite the growing suspicion that the killer could be one of them. The killings, while not described too graphically, are brutal, nonetheless.

Coates weaves together the intricacies of complicated relationships and personalities nicely and deftly shows that there are consequences to past actions. She keeps the suspense up throughout the novel and leaves little clues for the reader to guess the killer. While the reason for the violence is explained, the abrupt conclusion leaves some unanswered questions, particularly with the fate of a few of the survivors left behind. Did they survive? How did Christa come to terms with what she experienced as the identity of the killer is revealed? How did the killer manage to display the bodies considering the harsh conditions outside and none of the survivors inside hearing? An extra “Epilogue” or “A Year Later” final chapter would answer these burning questions and give the reader a sense of closure.

Dead of Winter is a great locked in mystery. Deep in the Rocky Mountains, a group of vacationers are being picked off one by one in gruesome ways. With a raging winter storm and no way out, they have to figure out which among them can’t be trusted.

The thing that I found most interesting about this was that the world building and writing was so vivid that even though I figured out the ending very early on, I was still sucked into the story.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is a superb read with a superb plot and characters Well worth the time and recommended!