First, I want to thank Gregg Olson, Bookouture, and NetGalley for providing me with this book so I may I bring you this review.

I have fallen in love with Gregg Olson as a writer and his new book Snow Creek!!! It was just the book I was craving to read! I am a huge fan of true crime books and even though this was fiction-it seemed so real!! Not to mention the huge cliffhanger at the end of the book!! Thank God it is a series as I must know what happens to Detective Megan Carpenter!!!!

The cover on this book was so unique and different than any other cover I had seen before. It went perfectly with the book. So, thumbs up to the graphic designer on this one.

Gregg is a phenomenal writer in that his storylines totally fascinated me to know end. From the very beginning of the book hooked me and could not take my eyes off my kindle until I was done!

Snow Creek does have some graphic violent scenes that I was not expecting. That part was a little too much for me. However, it did work well into the story.

Gregg is very creative and choose some very unique characters for his stories. He put them in settings many would not even think of. The character building was just brilliant.

Even though this is a serious book with some intense topics-Gregg still found a way to get in some humor.

As I was reading it, I thought to myself this series would be killer for Netflix! Everyone would be watching it!!

Thank you, Liz Pearsons, for the recognition that Gregg needed to write this masterpiece! I am grateful you were able to make it happen.

I was grabbed from the beginning. Megan is a complex character. The setting is unique. The mystery is complicated and full of suspense. There were several shocking twists that left me stunned. I enjoyed the author's style so much I went looking for more of his work. I stumbled across the Vengeance series which focuses on Megan's life as Rylee. I am delving into these next. We get glimpses of the story from the tapes in this one. I am curious to see how the author will add to the previous books in this new series. There is a riveting cliffhanger ending that left me anxious for the next book. I can't wait to see what happens next to Megan. This is quickly becoming a must read author for me.

I really like Gregg Olsen’s books. This is a brilliant start to a series. There is a lot of action and well developed characters. I was hooked the whole way through.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Snow Creek is a fast paced mystery with false leads and switchbacks and a terrific tale to tell. Our heroine Detective Megan Carpenter is a complicated woman battling the demons from her past which make her uniquely qualified to see through the lies and obfuscations. For a great puzzle read Snow Creek.

"In the mostly undisturbed magnificence of the Pacific Northwest is a spate of murders, dark and ugly as any could imagine."

Detective Megan Carpenter lives in Port Townsend, Washington, and works for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Most of the crime there is fairly mundane -- until the cases in the hills above nearby Snow Creek shatter the peace. It starts with a missing person report. Ruth Turner is concerned about her sister, Ida Wheaton, who lives off the grid up in those isolated hills with her husband, Merritt, and their two children, Joshua (19) and Sarah (17). Ruth claims that Merritt is very controlling and liberal with "discipline" and she's not heard from Ida in awhile but that she was a "little off" the last time they talked. Megan agrees to do a welfare check and they visit the secluded farmhouse finding that the two teenagers are home but the parents have supposedly taken a trip to Mexico to work at an orphanage and should have returned by now. Megan verifies with La Paloma that Ida and Merritt never made it there and, in fact, weren't even scheduled to work. The investigation into the Merritts is heightened when a burnt out truck with the body of a dead woman is found in a nearby ravine. Is it Ida? Where is her husband? And the case really takes off with one shocker after another. NO SPOILERS but you can't even guess where this is all going!

Wowza was this a complicated crime thriller! Not only is there the police investigation aspect, there's also a huge backstory about the main character, Megan Carpenter. I admit that I was more interested in the murder case than I was in Megan's history and interspersing the content of the tapes with chapters dealing with the present was jarring at times. She works the Snow Creek case by day but every evening goes home to eat, drink and listen to recordings made with her therapist. She did something bad in her past. We don't find out what. I guess the typical hot mess female detective so common in this genre. But, she's smart and she sure unraveled this mystery.

This is what I liked -- the plot was complex and very absorbing to the point where I couldn't put the book down. Gregg Olsen knows how to tell a story, and what a tale it is -- keep focused so you can try to keep track of all of the different pieces and characters. The details about Snow Creek and its inhabitants were quite interesting and the characters were quite the collection of strange folks. There was so much going on and so many different threads to pull together for Megan to solve this that it made my head spin at times. And, quite a thrill for me, I could never have anticipated all of where this was going so kudos to the author for surprising me.

It needs to be said straight up -- this books ends in a massive cliffhanger. You've been warned. I absolutely detest when this happens as I am the kind of reader that likes everything tied up neatly with all the answers at the end. Waiting for a next installment to finish a good story is problematic especially since I admit I don't always remember the details a year later. I'm sure this was done as a hook for the second book in this new series, but it did leave me feeling peeved. I also understand that there was an earlier book, published in 2014, RUN, that features the main character and focuses on events that occurred when she was a young teenager -- I did not know it was related and had not read it. Will I read #2? Yes, I'd like to as long as I'll get my answers so I can wrap it all up and perhaps understand Megan a bit better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend.

Thank you to #NetGalley and @Bookouture For the advanced copy of Snow Creek by Gregg Olsen

This is book 1 in The Detective Megan Carpenter series

An enjoyable book with lots of twists and turns, well written and interesting, however the ending was a bit of a let down for me

3.5 Stars

I love this Author, but for some reason I could not get into the storyline. It was a good read just not for me.

A fantastic opening book in Gregg Olsen’s new crime series. The reader is introduced to a well-crafted, cleverly enigmatic character, Detective Megan Carpenter. The plot weaves through dynamic narrative shifts and intriguing subplots. Olsen delivers just the right amount contextual information on his new character to keep the reader eagerly engaged and yet omits just enough for future narratives to expound upon. Readers are wise to keep this in mind as they will not find a neat and tidy conclusion in book one. The story yields all the trepidation one is to expect from Olsen’s writing while furnishing all the emotional engagement. A must read! 5 stars.


Thank you to #NetGalley and @Bookouture for this ARC of #SnowCreek. It was read & reviewed voluntarily by Wayward Readers Book Review (@wayward_readers)

Additional Reviews & Mentions:
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48203564

Oh my! This is an EXCELLENT book! Mysteries galore! This is a first Gregg Olsen
book for me but it will not be the last! I have already purchased 3 more of his
wonderful books. The book held my attention all the way through, no slow spots
at all. The ending wrapped up very nice leaving a nice cliff hanger for Book 2, I can't
wait!

Thank you very much, Gregg Olsen, for your Publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me
to read and review this great book!

Thank you NetGalley for the copy of Snow Creek by Gregg Olsen that I read and reviewed.
This is the first book in a new series by Gregg Olsen and if it is any indication of what we have to look forward to with this series I can’t wait to read more. I loved Megan Carpenter, the lead character, and all the questions that surround her past. There is so much more to learn about her that I can’t wait for the next book to come out and Olsen set it up perfectly for the reader to want more.
As for this book it was a great introduction to this series with a great story that I could not put down. This is definitely an excellent mystery that some of it I had figured out and some of it was like just crazy I did not even think of.
Snow Creek gets five out of five stars.

3.5 stars, rounded up
It’s always fun to get in on the ground floor of a new series. Therefore, thanks to netgalley and Bookouture for an advance copy of this book.

Megan Carpenter is a detective in Port Townsend, Washington. One morning, a woman walks into the Sheriff’s office claiming her sister is missing. A trip to the sister’s home finds the woman’s two teenagers but neither parent. The next day, two young people find a burned out pickup truck with a blackened body of a woman in the back.

The story is a lot more convoluted than my brief outline. Megan has a dark past, complete with a name change and lots of therapy. In alternating chapters, Megan looks back at her own youth and what caused the split with her younger brother. There are a lot of moving parts in this book and it keeps the reader on their toes. I was confident I knew the truth about the current day murder. But i was in a right church, wrong pew kind of way. And I never saw the many weird twists Olsen created.

This is a fast paced book and it’s entertaining. But I can’t say the ending totally worked. There were a few leaps of faith needed.

The book ends with a big cliffhanger, so I have to assume there will be a second in the series.

After reading the fantastic true crime book, If You Tell by Gregg Olsen, I am definitely curious about the author’s other books. I am excited to start Snow Creek. Have you read anything by Gregg Olsen? This one has me very curious.

SYNOPSIS:

Detective Megan Carpenter is no stranger to evil. Escaping the horrors of her old life, she’s vowed never to let anyone hurt her or those she loves ever again. Joining the small police force in Jefferson County’s Port Townsend, Megan is determined to get every victim of a crime the justice they deserve.

So when Ruth Turner walks into the Sheriff’s office claiming her sister Ida Watson has been missing for over a month, Megan’s instincts tell her that she needs to do more than just file a report. Arriving at a secluded farmhouse in the hills above Snow Creek, she finds Ida’s teenage children alone and frightened.

Then a few days later, close to the Watsons’ home, the blackened body of a woman is discovered in an abandoned pickup truck. Megan must unravel the disturbing secrets of the isolated Snow Creek community if she is to catch the killer.

But Megan has dark secrets of her own too…

Hidden in the back of her closet is a box of tapes containing every single recording of her therapy sessions with Doctor Albright over thirteen years ago. As Megan begins to play the tapes, she’s taken straight back to her terrifying childhood, back to the time she was a kid called Rylee, fighting to survive. Can Megan finally confront the past she’s spent years trying to block out and will listening to her own painful story help her solve the complex case she is now entangled in?

I’ve seen Gregg Olsen’s name come up all the time when I am looking for books. He has a huge body of work to comb through. Tons of books to read! I love finding a new (to me) author.

Order the book here. Also, be sure to read If You Tell, it’s a must-read non- fiction book.

REVIEW PROVIDED BY: Kelly
NUMBER OF HEARTS: 3 3/4
Snow Creek is the first book in the Detective Megan Carpenter Tapes series and my first book by Gregg Olson. I enjoyed this book.

There are a lot of twists and turns that had me guessing until the end. Throughout the novel we learn snippets of Megan’s life before she became a Detective. But there are still so many questions unanswered. I am already looking forward to the next book in this series to find out more about Megan.

If you like a good suspense book you need to pick up a copy of Snow Creek.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley & Bookouture in exchange for an honest review. This review is my own opinion and not a paid review.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I found it very hard to put down. Megan Carpenter is a detective in a small town looking for a little excitement. When a dead body is found in the Snow Creek region, this is an area where people go to live 'off the grid', then she gets a lot more than she bargained for.
Megan soon discovers there is a lot more to this than a straightforward murder and soon abuse, fundamentalism and outright weird are coming to the surface.
Then on top of all of this is finding out who Megan is, her past identity and what she is desperately trying to hide from herself.
This is quite a confronting and macabre story but also impossible to put down once you start. A great first book in this series, I can recommend it. Thank you Bookouture and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I totally loved this book which is the first in a series and I can’t wait for the next one. The story line is fresh and keeps you reading until the end even though you know you should put it down.
Megan Carpenter is a detective in a small town where nothing serious ever happens until Ruth Wheaton’s body is discovered in Snow Creek which is a place outside town where loners and misfits live. Her husband Merritt is quickly suspected of being her killer and the hunt is on.
As the story continues we learn bits and pieces of Megan’s own background which seems just as horrific as the new murders but at the same time know that there’s so much more to learn which of course makes you even more eagerly anticipating the next installment.
There’s isn’t a thing I didn’t like about the book other than I finished it too quickly.
Thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture and especially Gregg Olsen for letting me read this advance copy in exchange for my honest review. I will definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery/thriller.

Snow Creek is another awesome detective thriller from Gregg Olsen! I loved Olsen’s Nicole Foster thrillers. And now Olsen introduces us to a new character, Detective Megan Carpenter.. Megan is a complex woman with a past. But she is also a determined sleuth who doesn’t back down.. In Snow Creek, Megan works hard to ferret out the truth of who’s who, and who did what to whom. In spite of her own troubled mind, Megan won’t turn loose of this case until she exposes who’s innocent and who’s guilty. of the violent murders.. I totally enjoyed the mystery solving in Snow Creek....and I can’t wait to learn more about Detective Megan Carpenter!

This is a really good story with a lot of twists and never a boring moment. Normally I'm not a fan of side stories from a detective's private life, but here it's a separate mystery in itself. I also normally don't like a story spread over several books (this is the first in a series), but I also understand an author's need for making money. And this book has a perfectly good main plot in itself as a stand-alone, and we can always read the rest of the series later.

Snow Creek - Gregg Olsen.
Very enjoyable first book in the Megan Carpenter Tapes series. Detective Carpenter is assigned the case of finding Sarah and Joshua’s missing parents. The plot is carefully pieced together and interwoven with chapters about the Detective as she listens to a series of tapes from the past.

I loved how the story started right in the thick of a murder scene and developed from there. It caused a great deal of tension with parts of the investigation linked to the detective and her past. I will be looking out for book two of this series. Published 18th November

This was a very intense read that I could not let go of. I wasn't to sure what I was getting as usual but I loved it and I need book two now. This creepy and very addictive story is one that will keep you in its grasps from beginning to end. Detective Megan is one character you won't soon forget! And she is one that you just feel drawn to as the story unfolded. This dark intense read was so good!! Don't forget to add it to your TBR list!!

Snow Creek is a place where people live off the grid, and Detective Megan Carpenter has to investigate the disappearance of a middle aged couple. It's kind of a complicated plot by the end of the book, and I think there were too many stories tangled together, but it was not bad. I liked Megan's story and want to read more about her in the next book. 3.5 rounded to 4 stars.