A Killing Cold is the third book I’ve read by Kate Alice Marshall and she continues to write thrillers that are binge worthy.

I will say, the plot had a lot of similar vibes to The Last One at the Wedding, but without the insanely annoying main character. (Sorry not sorry) Thankfully Marshall had her own ideas and twists to the story that I didn’t feel like I was reading the exact same book.

Definitely a thriller that I would recommend if you like wealthy family dramas with thriller twists.

I read and listened to the audiobook version of this and both were incredible. I have read all of this authors books and they continue to keep me intrigued. I look forward to her next title.

I don't know-- this one was so far fetched. You had to really believe in fate for this plot to work. There were so many twists that it was hard to keep characters and plot lines straight.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

moral of the story: never trust rich people, they can cover up anything 😶 (for legal reasons, this is a joke)

kate alice marshall always writes the most heart-pounding non-stop thrillers, and this one was no exception! I lost track of how many twists and diversions there were by 3/4 of the way through 🫨

when theo meets her fiancé’s family over the holidays, in the middle of nowhere ski country, she’s immediately drawn in by classism with severe flashbacks to the past she could never remember 👀 and although the characters seemed fine chalking the entire plot of the story up to fate, I wanted a deeper meaning!!!! I wanted a plausible explanation!!!!

the slow burn mystery was well written with the pacing of each action and event keeping readers on their toes until the very end! 2025 is shaping up to be the year of thrillers - I’m so happy to be out of my reading slump!

thank you to netgalley and flat iron books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!!

rating: 4 stars
wine pairing: new zealand sauvignon blanc

This book started out promising - set in the winter, isolated in the woods, a rich family with dark secrets. However, the plot twists seemed a bit over the top and I found myself becoming a bit bored with the book and its characters. I did think it was a quick read though and I'll plan to check out other books by this author.

I don't want this review to discourage anyone from reading it. Based on the reviews so far there are plenty of people who really enjoyed this book!

Thank you to Kate Alice Marshall, Flatiron Books, and Netgalley for this ARC.

There's nothing that Kate Alice Marshall can write that I won't love and A Killing Cold was no different. Usually, I see a few twists coming, and a few still surprise me. This book was refreshingly surprising, and while some of the plot twists and behaviors were a little "unrealistic", I'm always going to suspend "reality" and go for the ride. I usually hate when we can't trust our own narrator, or things are hidden from them and from us...why do things feel familiar, why is there a picture of her...you know how it goes. I want all the info right away, cause I'm greedy like that. But, I love the way we're let in on things and the way reveals come.

All in all, another win from an auto-buy author.

𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙔𝙤𝙪 Flatiron Books for my complimentary copy!

𝑨 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒕𝒉𝒚 𝒇𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆’𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕—𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒆’𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆

𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧: Kate Alice Marshall
𝙋𝙪𝙗 𝘿𝙖𝙮: February 4th

📖 I have absolutely loved Kate Alice Marshall's other thrillers #WhatLiesInTheWoods and #NoOneCanKnow, so I have been so excited for this one, and I thought it was great! This book kept my attention, and kept me guessing with all of the lies, secrets, twists and turns throughout. I love a "locked room" mystery, and this one is set in an isolated retreat in the middle of winter which was perfect. It has an overall eerie feeling where you know danger could be lurking in any corner... The last part of the book was shocking and had me racing to finish and see what happens.

"𝘐 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘯𝘰𝘸. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵."

𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮:
• fast paced
• suspense
• secrets / lies
• locked room mystery
• cat and mouse
• lots of twists
• unlikable characters

This suspenseful winter thriller comes out next month and you will not want to miss it!

A woman is invited to a retreat with her fiancé’s wealthy family to get to know them all better and win them over. As time goes on, she starts to realize that the family is hiding a huge secret and that she remembers being at the retreat before.

This is my third read from author Kate Alice Marshall with “What Lies In The Woods” and “No One Can Know” being the first two outings.

I can say that Marshall is an auto buy author for me at this point. She has yet to disappoint.

This book in particular has to be my favorite from Marshall. She has a knack for locking you into the story from the first chapter and never giving you the full clues of the mystery. When you think you know the big reveal, you never see it coming.

These are the books that keep my interest.

“A Killing Cold” comes out on February 4th and do I think you should read it? Absolutely. If you like family drama, a great whodunnit, and a broken memories story then this is the read for you!

I loved this book - it was just the right amount of twisty.

Theo is going to meet her fiancé's family for the first time. They got engaged only 6 months after meeting, but when you know, you know. However, there is a lot they don't know each other, both have some dark secrets, and Theo discovers she has more of a connection to the family than she ever thought possible.

I loved the suspense and tension throughout this one. Secrets were revealed to both Theo and the reader at the same time, which made me feel even more connected to the story. Theo is forced to unravel such a dark and twisty web of family secrets to get to the bottom of how she fits in.

Marshall used a similar writing method for her two previous thriller books, where the reader and the main character think they know the answer, but more plot twists keep coming. It doesn't always work for me, but this one really really did.

I recommend this one to all thriller lovers.

Ugh, my worst nightmare. Theo is trapped at Idlewood, an isolated winter retreat of her future in-laws who are rich and don't like her. She has also been getting creepy messages warning her to stay away.

Connor and Theo met at a friend's party and quickly fell in love with each other. 6 months later, she's his fiancé and they are visiting his family at Christmas. Now at Idlewood, Theo gets flashback to her childhood, her mother, and other people she vaguely recognizes. She doesn't have many memories of her childhood and was put into foster care when she was very young. The Daltons are rich, powerful, connected, and will protect their family at any cost.

This was a perfect winter thriller. So many family secrets make this a suspenseful page turner.

The first 1/2 of this was a little slow moving, but once it picked up the pace I could not set it down. Everything was almost *too* mysterious at first. I liked how the story randomly included ambiguous flashbacks as we slowly unraveled the truth. Once the halfway point hit, the pace definitely picked up. Rich people behaving badly is almost too relaxed of an explanation for this one. Diabolical rich people. This was definitely a twisty story. I never knew what to believe and Everytime I thought I knew…wrong. I’m hovering between a 3-4 so in my heart it’s a 3.5.

4.5 *

This was a fun fats paced read! I went into it somewhat blindly and chose not to read the blurb (I'm sure that I read it at some point but I sure don't remember 😂).

I loved the amnesia part of this story because our FMC doesn't remember her life before she was adopted and I mean I'm sure most people would want to know but even her adoptive parents werent great and it seems like there was more to the story there as well.

Theo and her fiance are going to his family's cabin! Yes they are LOADED. And with money comes judgement, a lot of judgement and seeing if this new lady is worthy of joining the family. They were all so concerned with Theo's secrets but it seems like Connor and his family may be the ones that need to be worried about secrets.

And let me tell y'all, the secrets SPILLED OUT! Definitely had fun with this one!

Thanks netgalley!

A

✨A KILLING COLD ✨

4.5/5⭐️

READ IF YOU LOVE:
📖 Short Bingeable Chapters
🧮 Complex plots
💰 Wealthy/Dysfunctional Families
🤫 Uncovering Secrets
🔒 Isolated Locations

SHORT DESCRIPTION:
Theo, and her fiancé, Connor, fall in love and get engaged within 6 months. He then asks her to meet his (very wealthy) family and spend time with them for a few weeks at their private mountain estate. The problem is that she is receiving warning texts about Connor and the Dalton family.

Once she arrives at the estate her reoccurring nightmares return and she starts to have visions. The only issue is that they’re fragmented and not from great memories either. Something bad clearly happened, but what?

REVIEW:
Kate Alice Marshall has yet to disappoint me with her novels. She has an incredible talent of painting the scene as if you’re right there with the characters. Her characters themselves also have so much depth that it’s hard not to root for them, specifically Theo and Connor. The twists and turns were SO good that I audibly said “What the f***” several times out loud. THANK GOD MY KIDS WEREN’T AROUND.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest feedback.

Thank you to Kate Alice Marshall, Flatiron Brooks, and NetGalley for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review. Set to release on February 4, 2025.

This is my second book by this author. My first was What Lies in the Woods and it was one of my top reads of 2024. I enjoyed this one a little less than her previous book I read. This story centers around Theo, who is invited to her fiancé's, Connor, family retreat. Theo has little to no recollection of her earlier years. She was adopted at the age of 4 and only has fragments of her childhood memories. When she finds a photo of herself as a child, taken at this very same retreat, she begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The only problem is that Connor Dalton's family, although initially warm and welcoming, have a hosts of secrets that they are determined to keep hidden. They are rich, entitled, menacing and they always get their way.

What I enjoyed the least was that it starts off as a slow burn, but then towards the middle, it becomes crazy, frantic, and seemingly rushed. There were all of these "coincidences", but after I finished the book, it started to feel like in reality, they weren't even close to plausible.

Aside from that, I love a locked room mystery and I found the title to be true, as some of the twists and turns were truly "chilling", making for the perfect winter read. I was constantly questioning Connor and his motives for bringing Theo to this secluded cabin in the middle of winter and with all the red herrings, I found myself not knowing who to trust, which carried throughout until the very end. I found the parts where Theo's memory started to come back very tense and had me on the edge of my seat and I was pleased with the conclusion.

If you're a fan of locked room mysteries, secrets, twists, a strong female character, and super sus dark and twisty rich families, this is the book for you!

I received a free eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of Kate Alice Marshall’s books, usually as a Book of the Month choice (and of course, it’s on the list for this month! At least I didn’t buy it). This ended up being weirdly similar to The Ghostwriter, which I read right before, so I’m already starting to mix the plots together in my brain. Like Olivia in that novel, Theo has a mysterious past she’s hiding from her partner (although he’s obviously MUCH more involved in the story than Olivia’s husband was). There’s also some interesting overlap about how memories work, and how unreliable they can be, even if we think we know exactly what happened.

After a whirlwind romance of only a few months, Theo is engaged to Connor Dalton, one of the heirs to the Dalton Family Fortune (they…have a company. It’s a little Succession-ish. Big family fortune, lots of shady stuff happening on the side, lots of talk of protecting the family’s image, and of course lots of evidence of how easy it is to get away with stuff when you have enough money). As his fiancee, Olivia is invited to the sacred family retreat, where they all gather in their mountain cabins for some unspecified amount of time before Christmas (it’s seriously weird - there’s no mention of how long they’re supposed to be there, and there’s also no cell service or WiFi up on the mountain, so how are these big time Company Folks actually doing their jobs? At first I thought they were just going for Christmas week, but they’re there for a really long time and it’s just…like random festive activities, but Christmas never actually seems to come). Usually such a short relationship wouldn’t “qualify” someone to be invited, but since they’re engaged, the family made an exception. They’re about as welcoming as you’d expect.

Olivia has a tragic past she’s been keeping hidden - her mother died when she was a little girl (she has recurring nightmares about it, but only seems to remember the barest details - it was winter, there was snow, there was a scary man with antlers, and her mother wore a red scarf), and she was raised by a foster family. Things with the foster family were grim, and didn’t exactly end well (we do learn the specifics on that eventually). She’s sketched the basics for Connor, but they haven’t been together that long, and although she didn’t pursue him *because* of his money, it certainly doesn’t hurt to know she’ll be taken care of with him as her husband. But being at the family compound seems to make her nightmares worse. She knows for a fact she’s never been to this place before, but something about it feels familiar, and the older members of Connor’s family seem like they recognize her. But when she finds a photo of herself as a child, she realizes this place may actually hold the key to her past, including what really happened to her mother.

It’s fun and twisty, and I think I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not read it literally *immediately* after I finished The Ghostwriter. It’s just too similar! Without giving too much away, the whole unraveling of the final night is weirdly similar (that thing where you think it’s one person and you construct the whole narrative of what went down…but then it turns out that story is incorrect and THIS is what happened - we go through that a few times). This isn’t quite my favorite flavor of “rich people behaving badly” - it’s actually a little too realistic on that front! The ways the Daltons are able to just do whatever they want because they have money and lawyers (and money to hire more lawyers!) is truly infuriating.

Money will make you do crazy things to protect your fortune, family, and reputation. The rich seem to believe they are above the law as long as they are protecting their interests. I enjoyed reading this story of a woman trying to find out where she came from and what those secrets may mean for her future. She finds herself immersed in a family that is hiding some major secrets and she is trying to figure out the truth vs the lies they have told. There are a lot of characters both living and deceased to keep track of, which can make it confusing at times, but totally worth the read.

I literally squealed out loud when I got an ARC of this book, and now that it’s one of BOTM’s January options (check out the link in my bio!) and about a month away from pub day, I have no hesitations about telling you that I loved loved loved this book. It starts out slow, but I promise you that by the middle you’ll not want to put it down. Between the remote location, the narrator’s memory loss, and the surprise ending, this was an instant hit for me. You’ll want to add this to your preorder list ASAP!! Thanks to Kate Alice Marshall, @flatiron_books , and @netgalley for my advanced copy, which in no way affected my honest review!


𝗦𝗬𝗡𝗢𝗣𝗦𝗜𝗦: Theo is finally going to meet her fiancé Connor’s old money family at their remote winter retreat, and she’s already on edge. She’s been receiving threatening texts to stay away, and Connor has been asking more questions about her past: questions she can’t answer because she can’t remember anything about her life before she was school age. The Dalton’s are less than welcoming, someone’s been spying on her every move, and the place gives her a disquieting sense of déja vu, but all of that pales in comparison when she finds a photograph of herself as a toddler in one of the abandoned cabins. Theo has been here before, the memory buried deep within her psyche. But uncovering the answers about her past means uncovering Dalton family secrets, and putting herself in mortal danger.

I may have the unpopular opinion with this one, but I didn't love it. I have mostly enjoyed this author's YA books. Rules for Vanishing is my favorite. I previously enjoyed What Lies in the Woods, but was pretty disappointed with her other adult thriller No One Can Know. This one falls somewhere in the middle of those two for me. I liked the atmosphere. It is definitely perfect for this time of year (winter). I wasn't super invested in any of the story though. I have a really hard time getting into stories where the main character has amnesia and the entire plot is just them trying to remember stuff. It very rarely works for me. I didn't think this book was bad. It just wasn't for me.

Theodora is engaged to Connor, who is quite wealthy and a member of the elite Dalton family. They instantly fell in love and six months later, he's brought her back to his family's isolated winter retreat to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo starts receiving threatening messages to stay away from Connor and has the sense she's been at this cabin before.

I have read the author's previous two books and this is by far my favorite of her recent books.
I love a good locked room mystery and the remote cabin setting in the middle of winter was perfect right now. This is very bingeable with some really good family drama, lots of hidden secrets, and some fun red herrings to keep you guessing up until the end.

Highly recommend on audio - narrated by Karissa Vacker who is one of my favorite thriller narrators. The story is single POV but she uses different voices to narrate for the large cast. .


Recommend if you enjoy:
Locked room mysteries
Rich people behaving badly
Remote winter cabin setting
Winter thrillers
Family secrets

A Killing Cold is an atmospheric psychological thriller set at a wealthy family’s estate in the dead of winter. The protagonist is there with her fiancé to meet his family. After she arrives, she has strange flashbacks that indicate that she might’ve been there before. Strange things happen and mysterious circumstances are slowly revealing until the intensely riveting conclusion. The winter setting drew me in. For fans of Lisa Unger and Mindy Mejia.