Despite this being called Dead of Winter I’m reading in the beginning of spring. But it’s still pretty cold here in Ohio so I was able to imagine freezing snow!

Christa and Kiernan are stuck in a blizzard that very well may be the end of them. This is how Dead of Winter begins. We are immediately thrown out into the cold unsure of how these two characters have gotten here. I love when books start this way because it immediately grabs your attention and you are hooked. We don’t find out what happened before the snow until chapter three.

As a rule, I don’t usually read book descriptions. Especially if I love the author. All I knew going into this I learned from the cover. I’ll read anything Darcy Coates writes. I assumed at the beginning that ghosts would be involved somehow. Around 15% into the book things took a turn and I sensed no ghosts would be in this story.

Classic who done it but with even more gore. I love stories like this that have unique characters. Some you trust and love immediately while others you hate from the beginning with no idea why. You know there will be a twist and try to figure it out before it happens!

I managed to start and finish this in a matter of a few hours. I was intrigued and I had to know what would happen to Christa.

This is definitely a deviation from Coates’ normal books but I applaud her effort. If you enjoy thrillers and mysteries I highly recommend Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this. I have written this review voluntarily.

3.5 stars

I received a copy of this book through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

This book starts out with Christa and Kiernan walking in the snow. Christa worries that they’re lost, but she follows behind Kiernan, trusting him. Then suddenly she slips down a crevice. It only goes downhill from there.

This is the perfect read for winter. This is only the second book I’ve read by Darcy Coates. I liked that the chapters weren’t long. The author uses the And Then There Were None trope, which is one I do enjoy. I did guess the who done it, but not the exact reason why. The ending is a bit ambiguous. There are eleven characters to keep track of, which made it a bit hard for me to remember who was who.

I dont know how to feel about this book. For 2/3rds of the book I was certain it was 5 stars but then things got so boring, the chase was so dragged and I just skimmed through pages to get to the end. The entire book was very descriptive but I didn't notice it until the last third when I was like ENOUGH TELL ME WHO DID IT??!!! Stop chasing (literal chase predator and prey chasing each other was drawn out several pages... chaps ...) and beating about the bush..
But I still enjoyed it I DID I DID ... MY eyes were glued to my screen and the short chapters definitely helped me. Why oh why did I start this at 3 am???!!

The characters were so well developed. Flawed and 3 dimensional. And the motive behind the massacre was very well plotted even if it wasn't very original, it was well thought out and made sense.

I knew and expected who the killer was but I still clapped when it was revealed because I was really hoping the author would take this direction, so my satisfaction with how things wrapped up was off the charts.

It's noteworthy that this is very gory so definitely not for everyone. Wasn't for me but yer girl didn't know how gory it was until she was so invested in the story she couldn't put it down. And I have to give it to the author this book was unputdownable from the very beginning. Incredibly fast paced.

Take Frozen's setting (not the animated movie but that movie about 3 friends stuck on a chairlift) take that setting, storms billowing lonely cabins strangers huddled in, no contact with the outside world and then mix in AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.

I have read all of Darcy Coates Ghost books. I haven't read the Black Winter series yet so when I received this ARC I was excited to read something a little different from the haunting stories. I couldn't believe the gory details she told in this book. I had a few UGHH moments for sure. This was a great story about survival and figuring out who the bad person is. I did see the twist coming but I'm ok with that. I didn't see how it was gonna play out coming though. Such a great read but I expected nothing less because Darcy is an amazing writer!!
I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!


Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read this ARC early for my honest opinion.

Darcy Coates has done it again... one of the best thriller books i've read this year, i was gutted when i finished it!

Dead Of Winter is a classic who did it set in a remote lodge with trapped civilians who have no signal, no ways to call for help and are limited for food.. add all that but now they are starting to get killed off one by one and is the killer one of them amongst the group.

Darcy Coates did not disappoint and she did an amazing job at making the readers feel the claustrophobic feel, the way the setting was wrote made if easier to imagine with the snow and the crunch when they are trying to find another way out of the mess they are in. Coates is able to describe a scene so vividly and suck the readers into the story, i couldn't stop reading once i started, the thrill, heart pounding and mystery aspects really reel you in and you won't be able to stop once you start reading.

A tale of survival and the tension was fully there and kept you feeling like you're on the edge of your seat.

An amazing book full of thrill, survival, many twists and turns that you don't expect as well as suspense that will keep your heart pounding and i would recommend to all readers who enjoy a who did it book set in a desolate snowy atmosphere. 5*

Dead Of Winter is released on 7/11/2023 , mark your calendars.

Thank you to NetGalley and especially Poisoned Pen Press for this amazing arc in exchange of an honest review.

The deft writing of this survival horror thriller will have readers feeling chills for more than just the wintery setting. Christa is expecting a romantic getaway to the Rocky Mountains with her boyfriend Kiernan. The past few years have been difficult and she is looking forward to a promising future. However, their plans are derailed when a blizzard hit and strands their bus along with 9 other strangers. Forced to take shelter in an abandoned cabin, they are all hopeful that help will arrive soon but nothing is as it seems.. Christa is first separated from Kiernan in the storm and then their tour guide goes missing only to turn up very, very dead. Soon the group realized that a methodical, brutal killer is hunting them one by one. Who can Christa trust? Are they going to make it out alive?

The narrative is definitely a page turner for fans of the genre and others like Dean Koonts, Peter Straub, Stephen King and Nick Cutter, among others. It is a great whodunnit for readers who love trying to unravel the web of hidden clues and connections. There are certainly some nods to famous literary and cinematic moments (i.e. The Shining). The book definitely kept me guessing until the end.

Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan have booked a trip to a resort in the Rocky Mountains. 🏔 They are told that once they arrive, they should unwind and just focus on relaxing. 💆‍♀️On the way to the resort, they come across a tree blocking the road. Their tour guide, Brian, reassures the group that he has come prepared and has a chain saw to remove the tree. ⛓️🪓🌳

In the meantime, Kiernan suggests to Christa that they take a walk since it will be a few hours before the bus is back on the road. They venture off a few miles and a storm begins brewing, a BIG one. 🌬 It is so bad that they struggle to see in front of them and get back to the bus. While trying to find their way, Christa slips and falls off the edge of a cliff. 😳 With no visibility in the storm, she does the only thing she knows how, which is to try to seek shelter. 🏚

She wakes in a cabin with one of the passengers stitching up her hand and to no Kiernan. She insists on looking for him in the dangerous weather, but no one can find him. The next morning, the tour guide Brian is missing. He is later found outside, with his head impaled on a tree. 🤯 There is a killer on their hands. But who of the eight strangers on the bus is responsible?

Let me start off by saying that the cover to this book depicts the story extremely well. 😍 It is as if the killer is looking through the trees waiting on his next victim. Plus, the red writing makes me think blood. Such a clever design!!!

This is the first book that I have read by Darcy Coates, and I was impressed. Who doesn’t love a book about strangers being snowed in at a remote cabin, with a killer on the loose severing people’s heads off and displaying them on a tree? ❄️🪓 Creepy, right? Throughout the book, I kept going back and forth with who I thought the killer was and who would have motive to kill. And trust me, there were a lot of possibilities with eight characters involved. My one criticism would be the pacing in the middle of the book. The beginning and the end were perfect, but the middle was too drawn out in my opinion. Overall, this was an entertaining read that left me not wanting to go any outings in the mountains involving snow anytime soon. ❌️

Many thanks to Net Galley and the author for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.

She couldn't be more wrong.”

One by one, members of the group begin to disappear leading to gruesome discoveries. Coates writes a thrilling and grisly descript murder mystery that keeps you on your toes with every turn of the page. When you think you’ve discovered who the murderer is, another layer of clues unfolds leading to a plot twist I never saw coming!! This was a perfect winter read to bundle up with during last weeks Nor’easter!!

Thank you @netgalley, @darcybooks and @poisonedpenpress for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!!!

Thank you to Net Galley for an early copy for review!

I had high hopes for this one but it didn’t do it for me. I loved the beginning, we were thrown right into the drama but it really dragged after that. It did briefly pick up again around 70% but fell back into the same “I’m ready for this to be done” as before.

I didn’t have a good idea of who the characters were. I kept thinking Blake was in her 30s based on how she acted but she was retired? Everyone was pretty flat and made awful decisions constantly going off on their own.

The ending wasn’t shocking at all and I was glad I was finally done with this a whopping 22 days after starting it.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this book. It was more medium paced and packed with twists. I changed my mind about who I thought the “butcher” was so many time.

I wasn’t totally shocked once it was officially revealed. But I wouldn’t say it’s obvious either.

I recommend this one for fans of no exit, unreliable characters, winter thrillers, and gorey scenes. This had plenty and I was fairly unsettled!

This book kept me up reading well past my bedtime. I always love locked-room mysteries set in blizzards and snowstorms with no way out. These are my perfect reads. This book had a perfect mix of flashbacks and what was currently happening. In my opinion, it has borderline horror elements (but I'm kind of a wimp) but it's mostly thriller suspense. I couldn't it down because it was so fast paced. Thank you very much for this review copy!

I finished this horror novel in just a couple sittings. Although it was pretty predictable and the characters were a bit one-dimensional, the plot was incredibly propulsive.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-copy.

When Christa joins a tour group going to a remote cabin in the snowy Rocky Mountains, she is hoping to finally put the past that has been haunting her to rest. Secretly, she is also hopeful that her boyfriend may be planning to propose to her as well. But when a fallen tree and bad storm derail their plans, they are forced to seek temporary shelter. During the night, their tour guide goes missing, and when he is found the next morning, it’s clear someone in the group is a cold hearted killer. With no one to trust and no way to call for help, the group is forced to to do whatever it takes to survive.

This book grabbed my attention from the very first few sentences and didn’t let it go! Christa’s desperation, fear and sense of impending doom were palpable. In true Darcy Coates’ fashion, there was some gore woven into the story as well - definitely not one to read while you’re eating dinner (as I was at the time!) But it was twisty, entertaining and the secluded winter setting added to those factors. I did have an inkling on how it was going to end, but that didn’t stop me at all from enjoying it. With its fast-paced short chapters, I read it quickly. I will say, that while I loved it, I felt like it could have used a little bit more at the end (perhaps an epilogue). Thank you to Netgalley, Darcy Coates and Poisoned Pen Preess for the ARC! “Dead of Winter” releases July 11th!

This will be shared to my instagram blog (@Books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)

✨Ｂｏｏｋ Ｒｅｖｉｅｗ✨

Dead of Winter 📚 by Darcy Coates

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪


😱 OMG!! Best thriller I have read in awhile folks! This is a classic who dun it but it is so geniusly done you will never guess the ending or the twists that keep coming! I will have nightmares over this one but it's a must read!!

Thank you to @netgalley and Poisoned Penn Press for the arc! This book is released July 2023 📖


#thriller #justread #bookstack #booklovers #netgalley #deadofwinter #alwaysreading #readersofinstagram #bookreview #instareads #goodreads #bookworm #bookaddict #readersofig #bookreviewer #bookaddict #bookstagram

this was a majorly creepy thriller, but so so good! Imagine you are headed to a remote lodge with the love of your life, looking forward to two weeks in romantic seclusion. Suddenly, the bus comes to a halt as there is a downed tree blocking the road. As the snow starts to come harder, it seems unlikely you’ll make it to the lodge tonight, so everyone starts seeking shelter. Someone ends up dead, who is the killer? Stuck in a remote cabin with no way out and no way to seek help, everyone is simply trying to stay alive. SO creepy.

This is my first Darcy Coates book and will certainly not be my last. I love locked room thrillers, and set in a creepy remote setting is my absolute favorite. So so good

This book is released 7/11/23

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Darcy Coates book and I get the hoopla now! A well done, fast paced read with unpredictable twists throughout. I thought it might get repetitive after a few hundred pages but it never did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be reading more of her stuff now. Thanks to netgalley for the arc!

I think my favorite thing about Dead of Winter is hands down the setting. An isolated cabin in the middle of a blizzard? Yes, please! Coates does a solid job of creating an unsettling atmosphere.

While I wanted to love the book (the synopsis hooked me!) it definitely had some weaknesses. One of the main issues is the lack of character development. The characters felt flat and under-developed, making it difficult for me to significantly care about their survival.

Another issue is that the story was altogether too predictable. While some parts were genuinely creepy, I guessed the “mystery” and unraveled the entire plot way too early in the book to ever be on the edge of my seat.

Despite this, Dead of Winter was a creepy read with pacing that kept it from being boring. It’s a good choice if you don’t mind predictability in your “whodunits” and you’re looking for a fast-paced wintery thriller.

*A huge thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with the ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.*

(3.5 rounded up for NetGalley)

My full review of this book will appear in Rise Above - A Community Sampler, publishing in April 2023 by Wintry Monsters Press.

"Dead of Winter is a mix drink of Scream, The Shining, and Clue concocted in the mountains during a snowstorm. It’s violent, exciting, and cold. There’s no doubt heads will roll."

Great atmosphere, I'm a sucker for snowed in horror. Coates does a great job creating a claustrophobic setting for this survival tale. I found it an overall fun read, somewhat predictable, but still page turning.

Arc received from Net Galley

Wow. Wow. Wow. Darcy Coates does not disappoint. I could not put this book down. If you are looking for a very intense, terrifying thriller this is it. Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan join a private tour group as it heads to a lodge in the Rocky Mountains for a romantic 2-week winter retreat. The bus soon comes across a fallen tree on the highway. As the group attempts to clear it a brutal snowstorm quickly sets in… forcing them to take refuge in a nearby remote cabin. When their bus driver goes missing the next morning, they make a horrifying discovery. Could it be one of them? A brutal tale of survival. The tension building was crazy. I’m pretty picky with thrillers and this certainly delivered. I could not predict the ending at all. I absolutely loved it. A perfect rainy day read. This comes out in July, so I highly recommend pre-ordering. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.