I can't decide how I really feel about this. I really love the concept and the plot was really refreshing and new. I did really enjoy the characters. I felt like this story was too long and dragged in certain spots. It was also really predictable. I really like Ashley Winstead's writing and will pick up her next book.

THIS BOOK WILL BURY ME by Ashley Winstead ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ WHEW! Sweating! This book was hard for me to rate. It was a weird mix of making myself pick it up the first chunk to staying up way too late to find out what happens by the end. I did predict the killer about 60% in, but I mean, still had to see how it unfolded! Turns out, I didn’t predict everything! By the end I was completely sucked in. If you’re in the mood for a good serial killer, psychological thriller, this is a great pick!

After the murder of three college girls in Idaho, internet sleuths are determined to find the killer. At the start, they make amazing discoveries, but it eventually gets away from them in ways they never imagined.

Pub. Date: March 25, 2025.

Perfect if you like:
•Serial killer murder mystery.
•Internet sleuths.
•True crime.
•Found family.
•Grief journey.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️
Mood: 🍿🫗

⚠️: explicit language.

"This Book Will Bury Me is impossible to put down once you start. It’s both an engrossing mystery and a compelling exploration of grief and the mysteries loved ones leave behind. True crime fans will devour this one!"

The story flowed well and the characters were well developed. I recommend this book and look forward to more from this author.


****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****

Oh my god 😳 True crime, amateur sleuthing, serial killers, multiple twists and misdirections…… This story had me hooked from start to finish. Wow this was excellent!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC 💛

This book offers a thrilling ride that stands apart from her previous works. While it lacks the dark, gritty tone she's known for, it still delivers an engaging and fast-paced narrative, perfect for fans of popcorn thrillers. The book leans into the world of true crime forums, making it a great pick for readers who enjoy that niche. Overall, it’s a fun, suspenseful read, though different in tone from her usual style.

Thank you, SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the copy of This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead. I loved how Jane told her story as a book within the book so it felt very personal. After Jane’s father dies unexpectedly, Jane finds solace in a true crime website and some amatere sleuths. I was drawn into her story immediately and enraptured by how she and her online friends investigated and solved cases, even though parts were far-fetched and hard to believe. I had a sneaking suspicion of the identity of the culprit, but was still surprised at the reveal. The book is long, but the fast pace and the well-defined characters kept me interested the whole time. Jans’s ongoing reaction to her father’s death is woven into the story, but in the end I felt it was less interesting than the amateur sleuths, although it did explain why Jane got so wrapped up in the investigations. I loved this book and you will too if you appreciate great writing, amazing characters, and an enthralling story! 5 stars!

this was...okay. I had high hopes because I loved her previous work, but this missed the mark. this was very obviously based on the moscow murders and that just didnt sit right with me. I just think its still too soon to write a book about this when a trial hasn't even happened yet. I will say the ending did surprise me!

Ashley Winstead is amazing. Period. I will request and/or pre-order all of her books. I was stoked to get this approval, and I think this is my favorite of hers so far!

THIS BOOK WILL BURY ME is a book within a book: Jane's tell-all memoir. From the get-go, she refers to how the investigation of the Delphine Massacres took a disastrous turn, and she starts the story from the beginning. After the sudden death of her father, Janeway Sharp finds solace in a group of online sleuths. They solved multiple crimes together virtually, then ventured across the country to work on a new case that has captured attention worldwide. What went wrong?

This may be a good fit if you enjoy:
- a deep dive into the internet sleuth community
- dark thrillers that also tug at your heartstrings
- stories about friendship & found family

I could not put this book down! For being just shy of 500 pages, I was shocked how it flew by. There are so many books about true crime, but to me, this one had a unique approach. Jane begins her story with the death of her father. The way Ashley Winstead writes about grief is hauntingly beautiful, and it explained perfectly how Jane could get so caught up in the true crime world as a way to cope. The tell-all format of the story had a unique foreshadowing element that I loved.

While some folks read thrillers for the shock-factor, I think this book was more about the journey: the whys, the nuances, the humanness...all things that I associate with Winstead's books. I had ideas of the reveal, and I wanted to be right. I didn't want an out-of-left-field surprise because I think it would have done a disservice to the story, the characters, and the relationships they built.

"Even after all the evil I've seen, I still love humanity for its small mercies."

Rating: I loved it! (5)

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Nope. Sorry. This wasn’t inspired it was a carbon copy. So wrong. It felt icky to read which is too bad because it was a great book (minus profiting off a tragedy that’s still an active case). How would you feel if it was one of your daughters and someone wrote a book like this. Detached much?

Too soon
Doesn’t even mention the victims
Hope the family doesn’t read

Loved the armchair investigators
A fun format

This story has such a unique take and I loved every moment!

The beginning of this book had me wondering “where are we going?” And once I got about 80 pages in, I had a clue and I was ready for it. This story had a lot of depth and truly was so original! I really enjoyed the read and recommend it.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted ARC

this was such a huge disappointment for me :(

i LOVE ashley winstead and was so excited to get approved for the ARC of this book. however, the story fell super flat for me for a multitude of reasons, the two biggest being:

1. the similarities between the crimes in the book and recent crimes that have occurred in real life were distasteful imo, and other reviews touch on that more eloquently than i could.
2. it felt like she teased the twist in the first 15% of the story so when the eventual reveal rolled around i was bored and left thinking “thats it?”. i actually thought maybe her earlier teasing was a red herring. i was wrong

bummed i didn’t love this one but maybe next time

I really liked this book & the premise of it. Very similar to the Idaho murders which is a very interesting case. I also liked the characters and the growth of the main character throughout. I was shocked by the ending and the twists. The book was a little longer than I thought it should be but overall great!

This was a hard one to rate. And I still can’t quite figure out if I liked it or not tbh.

On the one hand, this book managed to really pull me in, it stayed with me even when I wasn’t reading. I think the author did a fantastic job with this cast of characters, especially Jane, she was complex and well written. She wasn’t necessarily likeable, but I don’t mind that in a thriller. I felt for her at times, but I also despised her for some of the choices she made. I found it truly fascinating how the author managed to simultaneously make me like and dislike her.

This played nicely into the commentary on true crime. Jane getting involved with the group and then watching her slowly but surely become obsessed with solving these cases was very well done. It also served as a great way to show how some of the people who engage with these true crime cases and ‘investigate’ will think themselves helpful and important. But what they’re actually doing is often times insanely invasive and disrespectful to the victims and their families and just plain irresponsible and dangerous for the (innocent) people they think are guilty.

On the other hand, though, I felt like it was too long. The pacing was just a bit off.
Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting and well written for the first like 60%, but it also dragged. It only started to really get going after around the 60% mark. All of a sudden, things were happening left and right.
I also struggled with the group’s ‘investigation’ and what goes on towards the end, all of that seemed very unbelievable to me, honestly ridiculous. At the same time, I don’t know anything about the whole true crime thing because that shit really weirds me out, so what do I know? Maybe this actually does happen?

Now with all that said I’d have given the book a solid 3.75 stars.

With the rise of internet sleuthing and true crime podcasts I was immediately drawn to this book. The author admits at the start of the book that was born from a real true crime case. It is maybe too similar for an ongoing case? Two sorority girls that are friends, ordering food before the mixers happened, boyfriend being an initial suspect after being phone multiple times and the roommate that survived even someone dressed in all black walking down the hallway. Don’t get me wrong the book kept me interested from the start but I feel like it could have been a 5 star read if it was based on a fictional crime..

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Here’s the thing about mortality: the human brain isn’t designed to process it. Think about it. You spend your whole life in active subliminal repression of the fact that one day you will cease to exist. You have to forget this fact in order to get up and eat breakfast and work your menial job and pay the bills. Otherwise, you’d be a sobbing, terrified ball on the floor.“

“And I’m not one for gender binaries—I believe if grown men cried more often, the world would be a better place”

“It’s what we will never know about the ones we love that binds us to them.”

In an attempt to cope with the unexpected loss of her father, Jane falls into an obsession with true crime - And quickly finds her way to TheRealCrimeNetwork.com. What is at first a means to distract herself from the grief, becomes a full-blown, head-first dive into sleuthing. Jane connects with four other amateur “armchair detectives” in this online forum, branching off separately from the larger group network. They work together and race against other sleuths in an attempt to solve the deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho. Theories are thrown around and details don’t add up, leaving reputations tainted and the media in a frenzy.

This story is Jane’s version of the events that took place a year ago in response to the book that tarnished Jane’s reputation.
I have so many thoughts about this novel. This is my third Ashley Winstead experience, and probably the one I struggled most with. While I found the tone and suspense to be what I look for in a mystery/thriller, the pace wasn’t consistent. It wasn’t until I hit just past the halfway mark that I really got into the story. I enjoyed the cast of characters and how their varied personalities added to the story, but they felt somewhat one-dimensional. Especially when we encounter the “romance,” or the possibility of a romance. It felt forced and unbelievable. I had some other moments where I struggled to suspend my disbelief, mostly when it came to the police and FBI.

Normally, when I read mystery novels, I’m just along for the ride - I very rarely predict the twist or the killer correctly. So, I was actually pretty bummed when I guessed things very early on. I enjoy second-guessing myself in these types of stories. The ending also left me feeling unsatisfied.

While I’m not completely versed in the real University of Idaho murders (2022), I am aware of the controversy online surrounding This Book Will Bury Me. It makes me uneasy knowing that that crime, among others, inspired this novel.

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

This Book Will Bury Me - Ashley Winstead
Pub Date - 3/25/25
Page Count - 480
Trigger Warning(s) ⚠️ - loss of a parent, misogyny, sexism, kidnapping
Summary - When her father passes away suddenly, Jane drops out of college and discovers a true crime forum where helps solve a crime close to where she lives. Then news breaks about the murders of 3 college girls in Idaho and the forum goes crazy. Shortly after, 3 more girls are murdered from the same University only miles away from the first. Jane and her friends are wrapped up in these cases, trying to find a serial killer responsible for these crimes.

Thoughts - Thank you to Netgalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Ashley Winstead for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I am a fan of Ashley Winstead's stories, and was very excited to read this upcoming 2025 release. For me, this book was a struggle to get through. The premise was very engaging and the story was well done, but it DRAGGEDDDD and took me over 5 days to finish. I liked how Winstead incorporated the POV of sleuths/armchair detectives, while also highlighting that crimes are part of someone's life and another human has lost a family member/someone close to them. Being a true crime commiseur myself, it's sometimes hard to remember that aspect. Overall, a good story if you can stick through it.

4 🌟

An engaging, fun, and ultimately satisfying novel that will delight any thriller or true crime fan.

Despite being a little cheesy at times, I enjoyed this book a lot; I found the depiction of Jane's grief to be relatable and the twists and turns exciting. There was a little bit of everything here, and it's well worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I really enjoyed This Book Will Bury Me. It was fast paced and kept me engaged the entire time. I wouldn’t have known it was almost 500 pages because of how fast I was able to read it. I really enjoyed how it was written, but I could see how some might not. It was also very similar to real life situations, which some people might not like. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC. I recommend reading when it comes out March 25, 2025.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
WOW this book was SO good. I was completely immersed in the true crime aspect of it.
I will say that the details of the case in the book was definitely inspired by a real recent case. Which I can see why some people have had some issues with that.
That being said it did not affect my review of this book.