Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read rage and review this title which is available wide on July 11 2023.

All Hail the Queen of suspense and horror. In my humble opinion. Ms. Coates steps away from the haunted house slow burn books she normally writes for this insidious horror book. I was so engrossed in it that when my kid interrupted me I legit screamed. Oh this book is a keep the light on kinda horror.

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC of Darcy Coates' upcoming Dead of Winter. This was a well done page-turner of a locked-room thriller. Christa, our narrator, and her boyfriend Kiernan, along with 8 strangers and a tour guide decide they are going to get away to the Blackstone Lodge, an isolated retreat in the Rocky Mountains during the worst possible time of year where there is nothing but snowstorms and no way for anyone to reach them. When the tour bus is forced to stop due to a fallen tree in the road, the group finds an empty cabin in which to shelter. Soon after, one by one, the members of this group are found gruesomely murdered and the remaining group fights to survive between lack of resources, mistrust of each other, and in the most inhospitable environment. 3.5 stars

Another awesome read from one of my favorite authors. Every book from Darcy Coates is within the horror genre but completely different. I love that the books are creepy and scary with gore but not so much that I feel uncomfortable with my teen reading them too. Loved it!
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Dead of Winter is an exciting, easy read. Unfortunately I found the killer to be a bit too obvious but still enjoyed seeing how things would play out. I enjoyed the atmosphere and found the overall experience to be relaxing. I prefer the horror aspect of Darcy Coates others works a bit more but it is wonderful to see the author diversifying her work if thrillers are also something they want to dive into. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive this ARC.

I love Darcy Coates. I love her writing, her imagination and her ability to get my heart racing with fear.

Dead of Winter is a ‘who done it’ mystery and thriller. Even though there are no ghosts in this book, I was still frightened. I could feel the cold and fear as she wrote how her characters are freezing and trapped in a secluded cabin.

A group of people are traveling together on a bus up to a posh winter lodge. On their way to the lodge, they end up unable to complete the rest of the journey by bus. They go out in search of help. They find a remote and abandoned cabin for shelter. Then someone gets murdered and the body is found in a very gruesome way. Read on! You will not regret it.

I’d like to thank Darcy Coates, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc.

#DarcyCoates #NetGalley #PoisonedPenPress #mysterythriller #whodoneit

4.5 Stars. Christa and her boyfriend join a small tour group that sends them off to a snowy lodge in a desolate part of the Rocky Mountains. While almost at their location a crazy snowstorm takes them over, so the group has to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Christa was hoping to get away from a traumatic experience she had a few years before the trip, but it seems this trip might be just as traumatic.
The tour guide goes missing and the group find his head on a pike in a large tree. Christa has to watch her back to make sure she’s not murdered next. It could be an outsider or it could be someone in their group that is the murderer. Tensions soar as their small amount of food dwindles, they have no cell service, and slowly one by one they drop like flies.
This book was a page-turner from page one. It was fast paced and perfectly detailed to make you feel like a part of the tour group freezing in your parka. It’s was a more gruesome version of And Then There Were None. I was wrong almost ever step of the way and it was delightful. I felt there were a few loose ends left untied, and a lot of idiocy for a whole group of adults, but overall it was a great book. There’s a “no way!” moment that I didn’t see coming to tie it all together. Read it and see if you’re the detective I was not. Coates did a great job on this one. I feel the frostbite.

textbook who dunnit..

group of strangers go on a tour together and they slowly start dying off one by one. the characters did fall a little flat, in turn i kept forgetting who was who.. maybe could of had a longer intro into the different people before arriving at the lodge ??

i did guess who the killer was very early on, for me the clues where quite obvious from the get go but i still enjoyed reading on as it got more exciting in the second half

I have been wanting to read a book by Darcy Coates for quite a while, so when this one was offered by NetGalley, I jumped on it.

It begins with a planned getaway to a mountain resort. However between Christa and Kiernan getting lost in the woods, blocked roads, and snowstorms, the bodies start piling up. No one is above suspicion, but they have to depend on each other to try and survive. The "who done it" kept changing in my mind, so the author did what she set out to do....keep me guessing.

This book was a good book, and because of it, I will read more of her books. However, I did not love it. Too many characters to keep track of and in writing this, I think if the characters had more depth, I would have had an easier time remembering their stories.

Overall, I recommend this book.

I really wanted to enjoy this one; as I love reading Darcy Coates’ horror but this one was hard for me to get into. I couldn’t connect with the characters & while the idea was intriguing; the plot was slow & underdeveloped.

Darcy Coates definitely knows how to write suspense. The end of each chapter left me juuuust enough on edge to feel like I NEEDED to know what happens next. Her writing is effortless and easy to jump into. This was a great and gorey whodunnit with plenty of little twists to keep you guessing.

Okay, okay it was good… but I didn’t love it. I had a hard time staying engaged with the story and often felt bored during non-thrilling scenes. I found myself skipping through the chapters, just to sort of “get it over with.” Now I will say, this has nothing to do with a lack of good writing and gruesome horror elements (that for sure was there!), but more so to do with my own preferences and attention span.

I still recommend this book (the ending was definitely unexpected), however, it’s a three-star read for me.

MYSTERY THRILLER WITH LOTS OF CARNAGE!! 4.5 stars
A tour group are taking a bus in the winter time somewhere in the Rocky Mtn National Park to a large cabin retreat they received for free. Midway up they cannot go any further because of a tree fallen in their path and blizzards conditions. They have to flee the bus to find shelter. They all find a cabin to hunker down in til help can arrive. Well if that doesn't seem like enough, people start being killed off in the group in gruesome ways. One of them has to be the killer, but who?
My pros:
I liked this book. It was fast paced and easy to read. I was on the edge of my seat at times The third act is the best. This would make an excellent movie. I would go see it. This was my first read for Darcy Coates and I enjoyed her writing style. At no point in the book did I think it was slow. I always hated putting it down. It has short chapters, which I love. It makes me feel like I am accomplishing something faster. This book was tight. No real flaws or gaps in the story. Which you get a lot in horror, mostly everyone made smart decisions.
Cons:
This is minimum. I have been to Rocky Mtn National Park in June and they was a snow storm so bad we could not reach areas of the Park. It doesn't make sense they the Tour group is going in the winter. Maybe they were just oblivious or maybe that is what Northern People do? I live in the South. I don't know.
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance.

This is the first book I’ve read in years that I wasn’t able to figure it out before it ended! It had me questioning things and second guessing who I thought was the killer the whole the time. That is so hard to find in books these days! And I felt like I was out there in the cold. I even had to turn my heated blanket on at one point. Great writing does that. Makes you feel like you there. The only reason for 4 instead of 5 stars was it did start out slow. But once it got going I was hooked. Made sticking through the slow start totally worth it.

Thanks to NetGalley for an arc copy of this book!

First I do want to say this is the 4th Darcy Coates book I have started and the first that I finished. The set up will grab Clue lovers right away. In this one we see a darker more gruesome side of Coates and I must say she did a good job with it. It is a book you wont put down until you find out whats going on!

The story right from the beginning had me hooked, I could feel the anxiety increasing inside me, the feeling of being trapped, the feeling of being hunted down, the feeling of being helpless. Author has so beautifully crafted this piece of art, I could feel every emotion of the story inside my bones. It took me some time to get used to all the characters in the story, considered the fact that there were many, once I got into the story there was no turning back. The spite of having a single point of view, single timeline this book has so much of effect on me. I mean to say is the story was so powerful and was so efficiently written that it needn't had to have anything else.

The characters were lovable, personally I connected to the main protagonist so well that it made me feel that I was right there inside her body. Author manage to create a very spooky environment, truly claustrophobhobic, the right amount of details really helped me create a picture of the scenario in my head. 1 point I would like to highlight is that the amount of details we just perfect, not inadequate, nor excessive. Just the right amount.

The writing was super easy to understand, the work of someone who knew what he was doing. A fastpaced thriller with all the creepiness. The book was almost everywhere on the book is community, it deserves all the applause and appreciation it gets. The book had me hooked. I just could not put this one down honestly I read this one in a day.

Definitely recommended anyone who loves thrillers, suspense, locked room mystery and even horror. Just go for this one.

I didn't really like this book. The characters were not multi-dimensional and I had trouble keeping track of who was who. It started out with a somewhat unrealistic premise and about the third time everyone wandered out in the snow hunting for a missing person, I found myself skimming sections of the story. The book falls into the "horror" genre but was not my "cup of tea". as it was very predictable as to who the killer was.

☁️ talk about a dream come true 💫 thank you to Poisoned Pen Press + NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read & review my first ever ARC!!

See below for my spoiler-free snapshot review of…

DEAD OF WINTER | @darcybooks | @poisonedpenpress @netgalley | release date: July 11, 2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“A bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps across a group of strangers traveling to a vacation lodge, forcing them to take shelter in an abandoned cabin. When overnight the tour guide goes missing, his head later found impaled on a tree, the group realizes they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are.”

❄️ slow burn, exciting as hell - I felt like I was there with the characters while they battled the storm & Coates took her time laying out this deliciously gruesome whirlwind
❄️ UNEXPECTED, juicy, a patiently crafted thriller dripping with carnage & intrigue
❄️ my favorite kind of creepy, macabre, unsettling read UGH YES
❄️ reminiscent of Agatha Christie
❄️ ended WAY too quickly - almost abrupt, even

& my good-to-knows:
🔪 GRAPHIC violence/death, but I loved it
🔪 not for the faint of heart
🔪 unputdownable
🔪 gorey goodness

I enjoyed the atmospheric and eerie setting of the book. While the story had good suspense, I think that survival themed stories tend to feel a bit repetitive and it takes a lot of plot twists to keep readers captivated in the “and then there were none” type plot. It took me a while to get through the book, I almost quit a little ways through but the story because the middle portion of the book starts to drag a bit… especially after the initial shock factor of the first murder, but it started to pick up again later! The extreme environment combines with the intensity of the murders to make a thrilling ending.

If you are ever the beneficiary of a free trip, just say no. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

A small group of tourists are traveling in the winter to a remote lodge that’s high in the mountains and normally closed that time of year. If there is a special group booking, they leave the door open and wish the visitors good luck. Why? Because that time of year has wicked snowstorms and downed trees and blocked roads and no way to ferry guests or get supplies or emergency help. But, hey, it’s free! So, we have twelve people on a mountainous road heading to a lodge when every other rational human being has shown better sense. What could go wrong?

This is a mystery/thriller/horror book, so it won’t surprise anyone when very mysterious and thrilling and horrifying things happen. Like when a freak snow storm descends, downing a tree to block the road to the lodge and covering the terrain with so much deep snow that evidence is buried as quickly as it plops headless in the snow. The intreprid travelers are forced to take refuge in a very cramped log cabin, which they find unlocked and sans the owners. Very scary things happen that make it clear, even to this trusting bunch, that someone is creeping around and killing people in a particularly gruesome manner. It isn’t surprising that the survivors begin to look askance at their cabin mates and think, am I next? Of course you are, you idiot!

Enough. I won’t be able to sleep tonight or EVER! And if you pick up this book, you won’t either. Just sayin’. Oh, and ignore the fact that Colorado is two mountainous, snowy states away from the Canadian border. The author is Australian. Give her a break!

This book will be released in July, 2023. Many thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

What I liked: Fast paced, lots of drama. Twists and turns, some predictable some not. What I disliked: Chapter endings were corny and forced and some storylines could have been more complete.
Recommended For: Thriller fans.