What seems like a beautiful setting for a winter vacation without interference from the outside world, quickly goes horribly wrong. Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan go for a walk, while the tour guide tries to make the road to Blackstone Lodge accessible. But Christa will regret that decision as someone has plans to make certain that no one will leave this trip alive. As the body count rises and the weather worsens, who amongst this group is a killer?
For whatever reason, the book gods were smiling on me while I read Dead of Winter. At about the 20% mark, I made my first guess about the killers identity. Unbelievably( for me), I was right, and I didn’t change my guess even though there were numerous red herrings. The setting made it a perfect locked room mystery, and as the body count grew, the one thing I wasn’t sure about (one of many things) was if anyone would make it out alive. I was so curious about the why, that I just kept flipping pages until I was done.
I could say so much more, but spoilers hide around every corner, buried beneath the snow. So I’ll just say, I really really enjoyed the story and discovering the why.

Usually, Darcy Coates is a sure winner for me. This book however, was not a winner. If felt a little long and drawn out in places making it a slog to read. It may work better as an audio book. I would be willing to try it again on audio.

Entertaining enough thriller.

Definitely has And Then There Were None/ One by One vibes.

Christa and her boyfriend take a trip to the snowy mountains where her boyfriend is from, for a two week stay at a lodge to disconnect from life and relax-maybe have a wedding proposal??

From page one the action starts and keeps up the whole time- between the blizzard and the murders it’s got a lot going on.

I guess I was hoping to care about the characters? Definitely had a lot of shock and gross stuff that gave me chills but I predicted it early and it left me needing to know if I was right but not super caring who died…

Thanks to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for an eARC.

Christa has had a rough couple of years but she's hoping to put all of that behind her. She sets out on a private tour to a lodge in the rocky mountains with a group of strangers. However, a snow storm sweeps through the area, forcing the group to shelter in a tiny cabin in the wilderness. Tight quarters and conflicting personalities create tension. That along with the wintery, remote setting come together to form the perfect atmosphere for a thriller.

Their tour guide goes missing and they soon discover he's been beheaded and his head has been impaled on a large tree just outside the cabin. Someone in the group is a murderer. The weather isn't safe for anyone to leave so Christa tries to find someone she can trust as more and more of her fellow travelers end up dead.

“It would be a mistake to believe too much in anyone’s innocence.”

Darcy Coates has a way of painting the scene so that it feels like I'm there. The setting was perfect and left me contemplating several times "What would I do?". This is the first book I've ever read that literally gave me chills. I was impressed at how Christa managed to think clearly and problem solve even as everything was falling apart. It was gruesome, terrifying and thought provoking. I couldn't put it down and lost a whole night's sleep for it. No regrets!

4.5

This was my first time reading a Darcy Coates book and it won’t be my last. I know she normally writes supernatural horror (which I’m not a huge fan of), so I was excited to a winter suspense/thriller. However, there were horror elements—from brutal/gory killings to an eerie atmosphere, the horror was alive in this one.

Every time I thought I knew who the killer was, a twist came along to throw me off. Coates did a great job at creating a story that kept me guessing without being convoluted, despite having almost ten different characters with backstories.

Not much bad to say besides some parts felt a bit repetitive or drawn out, particularly in the middle.

This was a short chaptered, fast-paced, winter whodunnit that did not disappoint.

I received this as an ARC via Net Galley. This book is to be released July 11, 2023

Darcy Coates never let's me down when it comes to her writing or how twisted and creepy her books are , their the type that will always make me stay up late reading. And this one difficulty had the atmosphere I was looking for and hoping it would have .

Every time I felt like I was nearing the end of this book, something else would happen and just throw a wrench in all my theories. It was very good. Kept me up at night because I couldn’t stop and had to find out what happens next! Thank you @NetGalley!

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. This crosses all genre boundaries and I love it! This book was both creepy and suspenseful and it had me turning pages as fast as I could!

The best thing I can say about this book is that it was a quick read. But I can't say that I really enjoyed it. As other reviewers have noted, the characters are all pretty one-dimensional and I had difficulty differentiating between the secondary characters. This really isn't a big deal, since this novel is essentially a slasher movie in book form (i.e., most of the characters are just there to be killed in increasingly gruesome ways).

Like others, I also guessed the killer from the beginning, despite numerous (rather clunky) red herrings.

But my biggest stumbling block was the setting, which is essentially a main character in terms of the story arc. I don't believe the exact location is ever specified; it's just described as "deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains" -- which is annoyingly vague, given that the Rocky Mountains span over 3,000 miles across Canada and the U.S. It's like the author decided that, "Instead of doing any actual research, I'll just be super vague and hope that the story would be reasonable at some point along the Rocky Mountains." Spoiler alert: It really isn't.

How the characters (particularly the protagonist and antagonist) interact with their environment was so ridiculously implausible that the story essentially leaps into outright fantasy. As someone who has lived in or near the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, I know more than the average reader might know about the REALITY of survival during a blizzard in the type of setting the author places her characters. And it was so consistently asinine that it took me out of the story every single time. A storm described as too intense for trained search and rescue teams to venture out into, is nonetheless just a minor inconvenience for a group of people with little-to-no wilderness skills?

It's not only that the characters repeatedly make outright idiotic choices , it's that the choices they make would have been just as deadly as the human killer. Repeated venture out into a severe winter storm, yet not one of them gets lost. Oh, and hypothermia? It's a thing. A serious thing the main character should have had in addition to the frostbitten left hand that magically is also little more than a minor convenience.

If details like this don't bother you, you'll probably love Dead of Winter. But please, whatever you do, don't consider this an accurate guide on how to survive an ACTUAL winter storm in the Rocky Mountains. Or anywhere, really.

I hate winter. The thought of being trapped in a blizzard in a strange cabin after an accident, with a bus full of people already sounds like a nightmare. Now throw in a killer, who dispatches them one by one, and you have a seriously scary story.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Darcy Coates book, but there’s a reason she’s always near the top of the list when spooky book readers ask for recommendations. This new one is going to please her fans and anyone else looking for a bloody locked room mystery. It is more horror/more gruesome than any of the ones I’ve read previously, so if you’re grossed out easily-beware.

I suspected everyone while reading, and really thought I had it figured out. I was wrong. The ending was the only problem I had. The killer managed to pull off a very elaborate set up, so they must have been the luckiest murderer ever. It was slightly unbelievable how it all played out, even though their motive was solid. But, this IS a horror book and it was scary, so kudos to the murderer for their planning and execution 😆

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the advance copy, I enjoyed it immensely! (And shall never take any winter trips into the wilderness.)

This book had me at "the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin." The synopsis added, "severed head impaled on a tree."

Oh yeah!

The book lived up to the synopsis and more. The number of survivors drops faster than the frigid temperatures during the snowstorm. Fun stuff. Whodunit? Who will survive? Deliciously disturbed reading.

Christa and her boyfriend are on a trip to a remote mountain lodge when a snow storm hits and their bus becomes stranded. They are left with no other choice but to band together with their fellow passengers to find shelter from the blizzard. They do eventually find an empty cabin but not everyone makes it. Death finds the group almost immediately, and soon others begin to get picked off one after another in very gruesome fashion. Is there a murderer in the forest or is it one of their own?
I love "locked room" type mysteries and the author does a good job of ratcheting up the tension and slowly doling out clues as to who the killer is while filling in the backstories of each character. The terrible weather, creepy remote location, and no ability to contact the outside world for help all added to the suspense and kept me intrigued until the killer was revealed after a twist I did not see coming thanks to some clever misdirection by the author.
#netgalley #DeadOfWinter

Dead of Winter grips you in icy cold hands from the first sentence and doesn't let you go until the last. Christa, her boyfriend Kiernan, and a group of travelers are on their way to stay at a lodge in the Rocky Mountains. A storm comes along and knocks down trees as well as separates Christa and her boyfriend from each other. Her purpose becomes clear. She must fight the snow and wind to find and reunite with her boyfriend.

The weary travelers take refuge in an empty, isolated cabin. When the tour guide is murdered overnight and they find his head hanging in a tree, her purpose becomes that of survival. One of them is a killer, but who? The killer starts to pick them off one by one. Fingers get pointed at people at the slightest provocation. As their numbers dwindle, so does the list of suspects. Who will be the last person standing?

The characters are well written. Each individual has a unique personality and story. The setting of the landscape and cabin almost become characters on their own. The constant snowfall and wind become another entity that Christa must fight to survive.

The pacing of this book is fast. Once started, you definitely won't want to put it down. The tension builds in the cabin as its inhabitants start to turn on each other as the tension builds in the reader as they continue to read. There are twists to keep the reader guessing as well. It was hard to figure out "whodunit".

Dead of Winter is the first book that I've read by Darcy Coates and I'm looking forward to checking out her earlier works. She definitely has a hit with this one!

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

Thanks so much Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for an advance read in exchange for this review.

Christa and her boyfriend are on a tour bus going to a lodge in the Rocky Mountains. A snow storm halts their plans and they are stuck in this vacant cabin with no electricity. One by one, bodies of someone in the group start appearing. Who is doing it and will anyone make it out alive?

This was so good and kept me on the edge of my seat, even if I did figure it out pretty early on. The plot is nothing new, and I've read similar books. However, Coates did an amazing job of creating a hopeless yet oddly beautiful location, as well as making it harder for people to figure out what is happening. Christa is obviously the main character and it's from her POV, but all the other characters have a big role in the story as well. This was great.

As always thank you so much for the arc copy to review!

I love Darcy Coates so much and am so happy I was approved for this one! This book was so atmospheric and creepy I couldn't put it down and I couldn't read it fast enough! This story is pretty much the perfect winter vacay gone terribly wrong. Bodies start piling up and I honestly knew who the killer was at the beginning but as the story kept going and more characters started coming in I kept going back and forth between knowing and not knowing. Darcy is so good at writing thrillers in a way where you are second guessing yourself the whole time. This was such a great story and would be a perfect winter read. such a consuming read and i really loved it!

3.5
I absolutely love this author, I’ve read everything she’s published that I can find. I usually would rate the majority 4-5 stars. This one still outshines other horror authors but isn’t a favorite of mine compared to her other writing. It’s still good and worth the read. The setup, story and payoff are great (did not like one area of ambiguity of the ending). Where I had issues is she writes amazing characters that I usually connect to strongly. I didn’t feel much for this mc or most of the others. This author did another murder mystery similar to this called Hunted and I connected to that grouping of characters easily. Not sure what I was missing here.
Thanks to the author and NetGalley for a review copy.

I received this book from netgalley for an honest review. I figured this book out in the first few chapters (who dun it) but I enjoyed the story. Its written in a way that makes you feel like you are there with the characters. I also enjoyed learning why the character did it as that was not clear until much later. It's a solid, fast paced, quick read. Pick up a copy when it releases for yourself.

A gory whodunit mystery. I had to read it to figure out whodunit but it wasn't my favorite. I didn't have to sleep with the lights on or anything and that's my favorite part of a Darcy Coates story! There is some gore, some mystery. The setting is a cabin deep within the snowy wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Good character development and the scenery is spectacular, I can picture it in my head. Overall a decent story with some turns and a mystery. I was able to figure things out fairly early on but details still remained a mystery which kept me reading.

Excellent read. Well
Developed plot and characters. I read this novel in one sitting. I suspected the killer and was correct, but the
Reason behind the cat and mouse chase was not revealed until the end. Good suspense novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Loved this wilderness/locked room type thriller. This had what I considered the perfect mix of thriller and horror with some gore thrown in as well.
I’m not sure how I felt about most of the characters but Christa was definitely the most likable out of all of them.
This one was hard to put down because I needed to know who the killer was!