Ashley Winstead simply does not miss for me. Even if she does things I don’t like in fiction. Cheating MC in a romance novel? Give it to me. Heavy Twilight influence in a southern gothic? Sign me up. My love for her truly defies all logic and I think that’s a huge testament to what an excellent writer she is.

This Book Will Bury Me jumped to my top 3 favorite Winstead books. A commentary on true crime junkies and sleuths set against the backdrop of a character struggling with the grief of her recently deceased father? I mean, I have no notes. Winstead hit it out the park with this one. It was a slow burn mystery that unfolded in a satisfying way. Great twists, but nothing left field. Everything made sense and was perfectly explained. I loved the found family component as well. I know this was loosely inspired by a real life case, but I never heard about it so nothing was spoiled going in.

Overall, if you have ANY thoughts about true crime junkies, you will likely enjoy this one. A+++ thriller.

Janeway Sharp is devastated when she learns that her beloved father passed away from a heart attack. She has to have answers. Why him? Why wasn't he taking his medication? Why was he sneaking unhealthy food? This desperate drive to find answers leads her to find an online true crime forum. When Jane proves herself to be vital in solving her first case, she gets invited into a small group of true crime lovers. When a devastating case evolves in Idaho, this group of amateur sleuths decides they need to take a trip to the scene of the crime; however, they aren't ready for how messy this case will turn.

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. Typically, I do not enjoy books that are written in chat style; however, when they were typing in the forum I found myself feeling as if I was there with them behind my computer. I felt as if I was helping them solve the murders and look for clues. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to dip their toes in the thriller genre. It is an incredibly fast paced read, and the found family in this novel is top-tier.

My only critique of this book is that there is slightly too much foreshadowing. You know who the killer is going to be pretty early on, so it is more of unraveling how they committed the crime instead of who committed the crime.

I’ve loved Ashley Winstead’s previous books so I was excited to read her newest one. This book hooked me immediately and I had to force myself to put it down. The story follows a group of amateur online sleuths who solve murder cases, written from the perspective of Jane as she recounts the full story in her own novel. I loved the way this book was written as Jane attempts to give clarity to the high profile case they worked on. The case itself is interesting and it keeps you guessing. I did figure out the big twist a little over halfway but the way it’s revealed and all brought together was really satisfying. The only thing that bothered me was a lot of the chapters would end with what felt like the same sentence over and over again: “little did we know what would happen next”. After the third time it felt cheesy, but it was a minor thing that I could get past. I highly recommend this book for any mystery/thriller fans, one of Winstead’s best! (4.75/5)

**This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**

This book is hauntingly accurate. I could not put it down, and I so appreciate its commentary on our society’s obsession with true crime and the consequences of that.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the author and publish let for this book.
I loveddd the twists and turns in In My Dreams I Hold A Knife, so I was excited for this one.
I really enjoyed it! Similarly to IMDIHAK, there’s some twists and turns along the way. I figured out who dunnit pretty early on, but it was still a great read and there was an additional little twist I didn’t see coming at the end.
I’m not into true crime at all, but it was fun reading a little fictional version of it here. The book was a little lengthy but overall a great thriller.

If you're a fellow true crime junkie like me you will also enjoy this book. I was sucked in quickly and didn't want to have to put it down (life made me though, boo!!).
I really liked that the book made a point to show how dangerous it can be to be an online sleuth. I loved all the characters and the unexpected twist.

I did think it was a bit insensitive how similar one of the crimes were to the Idaho Murders but hopefully it will help people realize they need to stop interfering and thinking they can solve a crime via social media.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC! *This Book Will Bury Me* by Ashley Winstead is a chilling psychological thriller that grips readers from the start. The story centers on a true-crime podcast host, struggling with the disappearance of her sister, who stumbles upon a case that feels eerily familiar to her own loss. Winstead masterfully builds tension, delivering twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. Her exploration of trauma, grief, and obsession adds emotional depth, creating a protagonist who is both relatable and deeply flawed. Fans of dark, suspenseful narratives will find this novel both unsettling and impossible to put down.

Thank you Sourcebooks for the gifted ARC!

Do I have a new favorite Ashley Winstead book? Methinks I do! This Book Will Bury Me was SO good. Twisty, suspenseful, thrilling, and many times really uncomfortable but hard to look away from. Winstead's writing is at its best in this gruesome thriller.

I got to buddy read this with some Bookstagram pals (you know who you are!) and I think it definitely added to my overall enjoyment. We all tried to guess how everything was going to wrap up, and making ourselves stop at a certain chapter every night was SO hard but ultimately allowed us to really savor this one. (Trust and believe I easily could have read this in one sitting!)

Winstead continues to prove to me that she walks on water. I feel lucky to get an early peek at her books.

This Book Will Bury Me pub date is March 25, 2025.

I am completely obsessed with this book!

Ashley Winstead, you have done it again! This is my second book of hers, and the second five star review I’ve given (which is saying something because I do not give five stars lightly).

So first of all, you will especially love this book if you love true crime. It delves VERY hard into that realm, exploring a fictional world of online detectives and armchair sleuths.

I really don’t want to give too many specific details because this is one book you will definitely want to go into blind. But I loved the found family our FMC finds, and I will say that the end of this book SHOOK me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for days! I really loved the twists and turns throughout.

The entire book has a unique perspective—literally, with how it is written and the story peels back layer by layer with hints at things coming. I seriously could not put this one down! I’m writing this review early because I actually HAD to talk about it, but it is a must read!

I am very upset that the publisher for this book allowed this story to go through. I’m shocked really. I truly think this book that copies down to the small details, a real life crime case that hasn’t even gone to trial is completely insensitive to the families. Very poor taste to profit off of this tragedy specifically since it hasn’t even gone to trial. The state it happened, the details… it wasn’t even changed!

I seriously just love Ashley’s writing so much, I could slumber in it😂
I truly loved this story, the depths of it, the emotions and the buildup of this was all done expertly. Winstead truly is a heavy hitter author in mysteries, definitely recommend!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my eARC

Thank you for the arc!! This book started off with a bang - the story is in a memoir style. It was definitely unique because i’ve never read a sleuth style true come book. as a true crime fan, this intrigued me! it was a bit hard to get around how the cases were like real life cases. i’m not sure if that was on purpose of not. the author did a good job of writing grief and trauma throughout the book. I would read another book by this author

I love the way the book is set up, with the main character explaining her story in chronological order/past tense, but hinting that it's leading to a crazy ending. I also thought the topic of true crime sleuths to be interesting and unique. I did predict the twist after a bit, but I think that you're meant to, not that I'm smart. 🤔 I didn't think the part about her dad was really needed in the story, and the fatphobia bothered me, but I was able to look past it and enjoy the story.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

After her father passes away, Jane is desperately searching for answers. While she may never truly find them, she does find some comfort in a new community - a network of online true crime sleuths who have devoted their lives to solving cases that the police cannot. Her new obsession comes at a price when Jane finds herself the center of attention after a serial killer tears through a college campus. While the middle of the plot did drag a bit, it was still compulsively readable.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eArc of one of my favorite author's upcoming releases!

This Book Will Bury Me immediately launches us into the unfolding action of a group of internet true crime investigators. Although our protagonist Jane doesn't meet her new friends until a decent way through the book, these characters were brought to life so well and I felt like I was on the forum with them. Not only does this book take us through a major case the group attempts to solve, we also get a glimpse into Jane's grief journey after losing her father. I was not the biggest fan of the way this book ended, but I think that may just be me. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a cozy thriller that takes you along for a wild ride from the first page to the end.

My first Ashley Winstead, but certainly not my last!

This Book Will Bury Me is formatted as a book written by online crime sleuth Jane Sharp about her and her amateur detective friends’ investigation into a series of cases that seems to be inspired by a combination of the Monroe, Idaho murders and Ted Bundy’s Florida State University killings. Throughout the book, Jane is also grappling with the sudden death of her father, and conducting an internet investigation (including reading some charming Star Trek fan fiction!) to try to understand who he really was.

This was a compulsively-readable thriller, and I flew through it in under 24 hours. I definitely found one major plot point predictable, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I was still on the edge of my seat until the very end, waiting to see how the rest of the story shook out, and I was really satisfied by the ending.

I also found the sections about Jane dealing with her grief over her father’s death very touching. There’s a real human element to this book that I sometimes find missing in certain thrillers. Jane and her friends felt like real flesh-and-blood people to me. I love thrillers, and rate them four stars very frequently. It’s rare, though, that a thriller is a five-star book for me, but this one was; more than the twists and turns, it was the depiction of grief and family and friendship that won me over.

Honestly, what is better than reading and loving a book by a new-to-you author and realizing that you get to read through their backlist? The first thing I did when I finished the book was to order two of her previous books! Can’t wait to read more!

I am really torn over rating This Book Will Bury Me.

This Book Will Bury Me has potential to be a five star read. The reason I am stuck at two stars is because of what seem to be shortcuts the author has taken to have a thicker plot or to try to bring a new audience in. If the desire is to reach the passionate web sleuths / true crime armchair detectives, using parts of new and active cases blatantly was not the path to take.

Ashley Winstead sets the reader up as if we are reading a memoir/tell-all style book. There is a parallel storyline of grieving loss of a family member (trigger warning for this topic).

The spiral downward begins when Ashley Winstead blatantly uses huge details and some press conference quotes from two major ongoing cases where the trial is are underway (Delphi Indiana, Abby and Libby) or trial is not yet started (Moscow Idaho, Madison, Kaylee, Xana, Ethan). The bulk comes from the Moscow case.

Similar street names (swapping King for Queen)
Nina Grace instead of Nancy Grace
The method of killing and how the victims were found
A suspect being a criminology grad student
The party house rhetoric
THE CC TV FOOTAGE OF THE GIRLS GOING TO A FOOD TRUCK

The only reason I reviewed at two stars instead of one is because the ending veered away from mainstream crime information.

An AI bot could have changed the details more.

People who are not actively into true crime will love this book. Anyone who follows real cases will see these details and likely label as disrespectful to use for public gain.

I am absolutely appalled by this book. I’ve been disappointed by the author before, but using real life murders and fictionalizing them to sell books with some bogus plot twist? Absolutely not. It is a shame anyone let this book go to publication. It is a disgrace and inappropriate.

Thank you so much to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for an ARC of this book for review!

After losing her father, Jane takes to true crime forums- partly a distraction and partly to right pasts wrongs- in a way to help victims in a way she was unable to help her father. She is quickly sucked into and addicted to the true crime world. Then, she gets invited to join an elite group of four other web sleuths who are the best at what they do. Following cases of college students who have been killed, Jane and her new crime-solving family are determined to find who committed these killings while the police seemingly remain clueless.

I absolutely devoured this book. The opening completely sucked me in and I was hooked. When I wasn’t reading it, I found myself thinking about it and wondering what would happen next. Winstead is an amazing writer and did such a great job telling this story. She did so well, that I found myself googling whether any of these victims or characters were real. I read so many books where an amateur is trying to investigate a crime. It’s redundant normally, and that is not at all what I felt while reading this book. Here, Winstead broke us readers into the web sleuths of the dark web, made us love them, and then tore our hearts out. Our family of sleuths were well-respected and accepted to consult with the FBI, which gave the reader a reason for why they were searching so hard for answers. Jane’s search to do something right to almost avenge her father’s death pulls at the readers heartstrings. I felt myself so drawn to Jane as a strong willed young woman and was rooting for her until the last page.

If you enjoyed Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, you will love this book.

Good trigger warnings, death of a parent was explored way more in depth than I expected it to be and was definitely hard to read. But it became such a force throughout the book and explained why Jane did the things that she did.

The annotations are such a fun addition to this book, though sometimes they were hard to follow on kindle. I imagine a physical book would read much easier when you can just turn a few pages to the end of the chapter.

What a fun and emotional read.

Jane’s father died and the way she copes is by diving into an online chat network of crime sleuthing. It’s a tight knit group of “armchair detectives” that work to solve crimes together as a hobby and they begin to fill the family void that Jane is craving after her dad’s passing. The group meets up in real life to consult for the FBI for an emerging serial killer on a college campus in Idaho.

It was really fun to crack the case and work all angles alongside Jane and the crew- I felt like a member of their little group at points. I was starting to suspect someone and I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t upset at the outcome because of the fun ride to get there.

And I seriously need to throw props at Ashley Winstead for her writings about grief. She conveyed it so authentically and well- the stark contrast of Before and After a devastating loss, the emptiness, the loss of identity, the way you claw at all and any loose ends to try and hold on to your person… the way you try to learn as much as you can about a person after they die in attempt to feel closer.. just all of it. The way she needed to have the viewing with her dad’s body to make herself see for real he was dead and not just missing… I felt all of this deeply.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.