After not loving her last couple of books, I am happy to report that I am back to being an Ashley Winstead fan. I really liked This Book Will Bury Me. I think I liked it since it's based true crime sleuths on the internet trying to solve murders. The murders were a bit gory so heads up for that. The only reason I removed a star was 1) it was longgg. perhaps a little too long? and 2) the whole finding info about her deceased father didn't make much sense to me. I understood how it fit, i just didn't think the amount it was discussed was necessary for the story.

Thanks to SourcebooksLandmark & NetGalley for this ARC!

Oh wow! What a fun book about the world of true crime. I really enjoyed the diverse characters, their backgrounds and interactions. (Bonus points for including someone from Iowa, my home state!) Although I had predicted one of the killers early I loved all of the twists and turns that led to the reveal. The ending was EPIC! I would never have predicted what happened at the safe house. I truly enjoyed this book and found that I couldn't put it down. I would definitely recommend it to friends and am now excited to read other titles by this author. I appreciate the opportunity to read the book and give feedback.

I really enjoyed this book! I liked the writing style and the flow of the story. It kept me wanting to keep reading so I could find out what happened. I really like Ashley Winstead books and I was so excited to get an Advance Readers copy of this book through NetGalley. It was the perfect spooky read for October!

As a true crime fanatic, I adored every second of this book. Winstead writes a compelling narrative that is one part crime thriller and one part coming-of-age story.

I really wanted to like this book. I liked it until i realized the entire book was a retelling of the Idaho murder case. At first I just thought it was an inspiration but the small details even matched up. As a lover of true crime these victims have not received justice. I find it so wrong that the author wrote a book that is detail to detail of the Idaho murders. I wish I could have loved it but it was not for me.

WOW what a book. A little long winded. But I absolutely loved the journey and our imperfect narrator. This book is going to sit with me for DAYS

As someone who loved In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, I'm really disappointed to say that This Book Will Bury Me felt underwhelming and disappointing.

Based on the premise and the positive reviews, I expected to really enjoy this book, but the pacing and plot were both challenging for me. For the first half of the book, very little actually happened. And while I understood that things were being set up to provide context for later events, it seemed as if too much time was dedicated to things that ended up being unimportant in the end. Once things started to pick up, I had a difficult time putting the book down, largely because Ashley Winstead knows how to end a chapter in a way that keeps you invested. But the "twist" felt obvious to me; I knew what the "reveal" was going to be long before it happened thanks to the many, many hints that were dropped along the way. On the one hand, that made sense. Throughout the book, Jane mentions several times that things should've been more obvious to her and the other members of the main ensemble, and it seems it was intended for the reader to pick up on the clues they missed. On the other hand, that made the "reveal" feel extremely...uneventful. The last quarter of the book just fell so flat for me. I'd already called the twist. The wrap-up felt rushed, like it was more of an afterthought than the build-up had been. The "third massacre" was, to me, a little bit too outlandish. Overall, it just didn't work.

All of that aside, I was really shocked by how closely the crime in this book mimicked the Idaho college murders that took place in 2022. So many aspects are basically identical, and then described in gruesome, gory detail. While I have no problem with more graphic depictions of violence or crime, especially in thrillers, this particular instance felt exploitative of real people's pain. Had the author changed more of the details and used the real case as a looser inspiration, I don't think it would've bothered me as much. But the man who murdered those four college students in Idaho two years ago hasn't even gone to trial yet. His victims and their families haven't gotten justice. Sensationalizing their tragedy in this way just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I would encourage others to think critically about that as they read this book themselves.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was right up my alley! It was intriguing and twisty and had a satisfying ending. I enjoyed the character development as well. If you like a good thriller you’ll really like this one. I highly recommend this book.

This book was amazing! I read it so quickly and just could not put it down. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2025 and I already got to enjoy it! Ashley Winstead writes characters you love and are simultaneously suspicious of the whole time. This one was no different! Everytime I thought I figured out the twist I was so wrong.

This was mostly really good!!!! In the first 100 pages thought it was going to be a new favorite, with a fast paced intro, intriguing premise, and interesting characters. The middle dragged a little though, slowing the pace and losing my attention, but the ending ramped back up, and got me hooked again. I did predict the twist pretty early on, but I still found the ending to be satisfying and gripping. Notably, and something I didn’t care for: the author chose to use the Idaho murders (a real-world, very recent) crime as the backbone of this story. It felt insensitive (the trial is literally still ongoing), and took me out of the story because I kept going back to the real case to try and figure out what was fact versus fiction.
Overall though, would definitely recommend!

Honestly very disappointed with this story. I was super excited to read it based on all of the positive reviews I’ve seen, but I was truly shocked at how much I was let down. First, the plot was all over the place and there were so many hints that a big plot twist would happen and it just…didn’t? I guessed who the killer was before I was halfway through the book because it was pretty heavily hinted at throughout the story.

Plot aside, the most glaring problem I had with the book was the real life murder case this was based on. I genuinely was sick to my stomach by how many details of the real crime were the same (explained in detail) and it feels very insensitive to the families who still haven’t seen justice served for their children. Overall just very disappointed in some of the choices the author made.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

So great. Jane was a dynamic narrator. I loved the way the author used the story of Daniel to tell the story of the killings. It was beautifully woven together. I did guess the big reveal, but it did not detract from my enjoyment. I thought it was unique and interesting throughout. Highly recommend.

Thanks to Net Galley for the book to review.

Another excellent thriller from master author Ashley Winstead! This book is great for true crime fans 👏 it's a fast paced read that's also a tender exploration of grief. I loved the footnotes throughout. Highly recommend

I was really looking forward to this book. The first page, right off the bat, grabbed me and I thought I was in for a great read. Unfortunately, everything after the first chapter just dragged. I had to make myself pick up the book to read and that’s never a feeling I want to have with a book. I really did not enjoy just how closely some parts of the book mirrored the real murders of the Idaho college students. Not my cup of tea

This was a great book! It was fast paced and had tons of twists and turns along the way. Unfortunately I was able to guess and predict the ending, so that took away from the experience for me, as I would love to be genuinely surprised! Other than that it was very good!!


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Wow! What an intense, slow-burn, mind-numbing, twisty ride that makes you feel like a part of a dysfunctional true-crime family! Dear Ashley Winstead, congratulations again on creating something so unique, unusual, highly disturbing, and strangely engaging. It’s quirky in a way that brings out my own true-crime obsessions and puzzle-solving skills! This is another well-developed, exciting journey. Even though it’s a bit long, I still devoured most of the pages, captivated by the strange bond between the motley crew of characters whose only common interest is catching serial killers and bringing justice—each with different motives, thinking like detectives, victims, killers, and saviors.

I loved the references to Star Trek and Heathers, and I’m seriously planning to rewatch Heathers as soon as I finish typing this review!

Janeway Sharp, 24, reminds us of the goth phase of a young Winona Ryder, between Beetlejuice and Heathers. She’s recently dropped out of college after the sudden loss of her father to a heart attack. Her need to do something in his memory is intertwined with her grief. Focusing on true crime boards and joining online communities starts as a distraction from her pain. When a middle-aged woman’s decapitated body is found in trash bags tossed into a lake, Janeway’s amateur sleuthing helps find the killer, leading to an invitation to join a special crime group consisting of five members, including her. There’s a 65-year-old librarian with grandchildren, a retired police officer, an ex-army vet, and a computer wizard working for Amazon—they become her crime family, and she shares everything with them.

When shocking deaths—the massacre of three college girls—occur in Delphine, Idaho (the dorm murder scene reminded me a bit of Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women), the amateur sleuths race to the scene, trying to solve the case and gaining short-term fame on TikTok, turning themselves into independent detectives. Janeway’s group begins to cook up theories, suspecting someone, which sparks another media storm and tarnishes their reputation. But when Janeway discovers a clue no one else has noticed, it gives them a chance to stay five steps ahead of the other sleuths. They decide to meet in person in Idaho to try and stop the killer.

Will they be able to piece the clues together and bring the killer to justice, or will they endanger their own lives by walking straight into the lion’s den?

The big twist was a bit predictable for me, especially after the slow-burn character analysis and seeing their flaws—it was inevitable to put the pieces together. But I still enjoyed the creepy, dark, intense tone. While I found the author’s previous book, Midnight Is the Darkest Hour, a little more enjoyable, I appreciated the eccentric, dysfunctional family dynamic of these five crime sleuths, the shocking events that followed, and the slow-burn pacing that made me feel like something disturbing was lurking around the corner.

This is one of the best thrillers I’ve read, with a unique, non-cliché tone. It gave me flashback vibes to the scenes from A Murder at the End of the World.

Many thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for sharing this intense crime thriller’s digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Meh. I really wanted to love this. I've been seeing some glowing reviews lately and was excited to dive in. Like with most thrillers, I went in blind. I should probably stop doing that.

I'll give it to Ashley Winstead - she writes propulsive books. This one is decently long and I read it in 4 days and accidentally stayed up way too late hooked by short chapters last night. But that didn't make up for the many things I didn't like/connect with:
- For starters, I am not at all interested in true crime. If you are, I can see you being more excited with the baseline premise of this book.
- This book requires a high level of suspension of disbelief. Without spoilers, SO much information is supposedly shared with amateur internet sleuths and I just couldn't get over how unbeliavable it was. I liked some of the commentary on true crime fanatics and how it can mess with police work, but the plot took it too far and I didn't buy any of it/the commentary didn't go far enough to warrant its ridiculousness.
- The actual mystery was very, very obvious??? I wanted to be at least a bit surprised by any details, but wasn't. I'm genuinely not sure if it was supposed to be obvious or not.
- Since I am not a true crime girlie, I didn't know the central murders are based on a real case. I've since looked it up and am not sure how I feel about the significant overlapping in details...why was that necessary? I'm not sure what this was trying to achieve by using real details.

I have a feeling people are going to really like this one, but overall it's just wasn't really for me.

Definitely saw the twist coming from a mile away, but still really enjoyed this and liked the way it unfolded!! I found myself speeding through the end to see how everything would shake out. This was definitely a fun and fast paced thriller!

this was a fun book! I kept constantly wanting to pick it up again and keep reading. honestly, the first part felt like an entire different book to me than the second and third parts, but it was all a fun ride. the ending was a little far-fetched and some of the sad stuff felt out of place, but I really enjoyed reading this one and had a lot of fun with it.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc! definitely recommend picking this one up on 3/25/25 when it’s released!

I loved this book. I am hoping for a second book. I loved the main character and her journey as “searcher” and I loved the side characters too Will be recommending. Can’t wait for the audiobook to listen to.