A thrilling page-turner that will keep you guessing in this cold and twisted murder mystery punchbag.

I read this over a few hours. I could not put this down, when I tried to I found myself another chapter down. The main character is very likeable along with a strong supporting cast.

An unexpected 4/5 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very reminiscent of <i>And Then There Were None</i> but set in a cabin the middle of the Rockies instead of a deserted island. Our main character Christa travels with her boyfriend Keirnan to a 2 week getaway with a handful of others. However, disaster strikes and they're forced to take shelter in a tiny cabin. They wake up the first night and their tour guide is missing - they find his severed head in a tree (not a spoiler since it's in the book description). Then, others start to get picked off. Christa has to decide who's doing the killing and who she can trust.

It's a very well written book. It took a bit to get used to who all the characters were but overall, the author does a great job of differentiating everyone. I also appreciate how the author just stuck with Christa's POV. The last few books I've read have all had shifting POVs and sometimes you need a good murder mystery from a single narrator.

I guessed the murderer very early on. The author tries to give evidence for and against each character so it wasn't too obvious other than that I read a lot of murder mysteries, which made it obvious. Though I was doubting myself at various points because of the evidence against this person. I was very excited when the murderer finally was revealed and I nailed it.

This was definitely a well thought out and engaging story. I'll throw a bit of a gore warning out there - it wasn't too bad but if you are very squeamish, you'll want to avoid this one (which probably was assumed by "his severed head impaled on a tree" in the book description). It was very enjoyable to watch as Christa tries to figure out what's going on. It was a little predictable and followed some of the horror movie tropes, but still a good read.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this advance review copy.

This was my first Darcy Coates book and woah!! First of all, I'm never taking a trip to a lodge in the woods in the winter! The way the book is written made you feel like you were actually there and freezing right along with the characters. I did kind of guess who the killer was in the beginning but I was still so enthralled by the story that I finished the book in 2 days because I had to know for sure. Great story!! Definitely recommend.

What a great ride this was!!! Darcy Coates has weaved together an incredibly intense and shivering story here that I won’t quickly forget. It had me turning the pages to finish it . I had to pause on it due to a surgery that came up for about two weeks but it was super easy to jump back in. The cast of characters are all easily likeable and there isn’t anyone who was annoying or overly cliche. It kept me in constant suspense to try to figure out who the killer was. I had an idea that it may have been who it ended up being but I still didn’t 100% guess it correctly. The atmosphere was excellent and I could visually see what was happening here. This is definitely a thriller I could read again because of the wonderful details and story telling. Kudos! I’ll definitely be checking out more reads from Darcy Coates!
Also a plus was no foul language or graphic sex scenes! That gets an extra star from me! Definitely pick this one up when it’s released!

Thank you yo NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was horrible. Boring, long and with highly predictable end twist. Honestly, I don't get the hype surrounding Darcy Coates. In the subgenre of isolated thrillers, "Shiver" by Allie Reynolds is so much better. Even "One by one" by Ruth Ware - which I rated 2 stars- is better than this.

What a wild ride this book was! Darcy Coates has such a way with words to make you feel everything the characters are going through. Her descriptive and gripping storytelling had me invested in this mystery that was full of suspense and the gore/horror she’s known for! We follow our main group of characters stuck in this blizzard as they’re picked off one by one by some deranged murderer. Each character at one point or another seem to be the guilty party and the end takes such a wild turn with a story wrap up that I wasn’t able to guess!!

Again Darcy knocks it out of the park. When Kiernan and Christa embark on a vacation in the Rocky's their trip is suddenly haulted due a tree blocking the road. Deciding to wander a bit, Kiernan takes Christa NE up a hill in which they get overtaken by snow and wind. Christa is on the brink of death when she awakes, in a small run down cabin along with the remaining tour members. Kiernan is no where to be found. Then everything goes downhill from there, starting with the decapitation of their guide; Brian. Darcy has such a great way of bringing you in, I devoured this book in a single afternoon.

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Genre: Suspense / Horror
Pages: 384
Goodreads: 4.1

The best kind of suspense/mystery books are the ones that keep you guessing the whole time and Darcy Coates did just that.

I struggled with keeping interest in the first half of the book simply because of the repetition. Once things started rolling though, I didn’t put it down. I NEEDED to know the answers! And boyyyyy was I not ready for that ending 😳

Dead of Winter publishes in July this year and is a great book to pick up if you like the final destination movies, enjoy a good suspense that will make you question everything, or like short chapters.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

From a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness, you learn you can’t trust anyone. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run. When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm. She couldn't be more wrong. One of them kills for sport...As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.

As always, thank you to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for the digital ARC. I appreciate it more than you know and I can’t wait to read more!

Dead of Winter starts off by pushing you to the edge of your seat and absolutely keeps you there until the very last page. This novel is tense, claustrophobic, exhausting, chilling, and stressful. Darcy Coates does not waste a single word on the page writing such a descriptive novel truly capturing the biting cold and tense situations, vividly describing the environment, emotions, exhaustion and physical pain these characters are experiencing. By the end of the book the reader themselves will feel they have been on this exhaustive journey as well. The book follows a small tour group on their way to a resort in the Rocky Mountains, but they hit a roadblock in their trip when a snowstorm prevents them from continuing further causing the group to have to take shelter in a small cabin. Their tour guide goes missing overnight, to be discovered dead in the morning. Tensions run high as the bitter cold begins to take effect and a lack of food supply is of growing concern and the fear of which member of the group will be picked off next. Every time things seem to be settled Coates ends up tossing in more that just keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next. This is an absolutely claustrophobic and anxiety inducing novel with everyone packed together in the confines of a cabin, with persistent inclement weather, venturing outside, brings vision down to almost nothing. You can feel the tension dripping from every page, truly not knowing who to trust and which direction you’ll be turned towards. A solid work of art, “Dead of Winter” truly is such a well written thriller that will keep you in a chokehold from page one until the very end. A “chilling” novel in every sense of the word!

An absolute, without a doubt, 5 star read!!

"Dead of Winter" has an expected publication date of July 11th, 2023 by Poisoned Pen Press

Darcy Coates? Locked room thriller? Say no more.

When Christa's new boyfriend, Kiernan, suggests a 2 week mountain getaway, Christa is thrilled! After a tragic accident 2 years prior, it's taken her quite a while to feel like she deserves to be happy. But when a fallen tree and a snow storm block their way to Blackstone Alpine Lodge, their party is stranded in a run down hunting cabin. As members of their group start getting picked off one by one, no one is safe from suspicion.

This book is claustrophobic, heart-pounding, and will keep you guessing all the way until the end. The queen of horror has once again, left us with a thrilling story that will keep you awake well into the night turning pages as she brings the story to a riveting conclusion.

Christa and Kieran, along with seven other strangers set out on a week long holiday touring trip to Blackstone lodge deep in the Rocky Mountains. Suddenly their tour bus stops as there is a huge tree blocking the road. While the tour bus guide is figuring out how to get the tree out of the way, Christa and Kieran set off down a trail to site see. Suddenly a blizzard comes out of no where and the pair become lost and separated. After hours of wondering the land and searching for Kieran, Christa comes across a cabin where the other seven have already found shelter. And so the story begins. One by one, someone disappears and is found murdered in gruesome ways. Soon Christa realizes, no one gets out alive!!!

Until I read the terrifying underwater horror From Below which also featured on my Horror DNA Top Ten of 2022 I had avoided reading Darcy Coates as I had pegged her as an author of ‘cosy’ horror. Darcy is very prolific and so she has plenty of other novels to choose from, with her latest Dead of Winter blending a who-dunnit style thriller with horror. This book is far from ‘cosy’ as the setting is an isolated part of the Rocky Mountains and although much of the violence takes place off screen enough heads roll (literally) to keep the horror end of the thriller market entertained.

Fans of locked-room thrillers of old-school style Agatha Christie mysteries will have a lot of fun with Dead of Winter where the killer is either one of the characters in the room or somebody else lurking outside which is being kept hidden from the reader. For the most part the story kept the reader on their toes and it could have been either of the scenarios until far into the novel. The narrative was in the first-person present tense and did not deviate from one character, I felt this was a weakness as it limited the scope of what could be done with other characters as either suspects or victims. If we the reader are given a clue it is only because the narrator Christa picks up on it and because of this we never really get to know the ensemble of other characters/suspects as well as we should have.

This novel will definitely have you turning up the central heating as almost all of it is set in biting cold temperatures, where is the killer does not get you the weather definitely will. Darcy Coates does a great job of recreating the Rocky Mountains, with treacherous weather, every bit as well as she did deep under water with her ghost ship in From Below. There were some vividly drawn sequences when members of the group were out searching for a disappeared colleague and could not see further than the end of their noses with the danger level rocketing the party might not find themselves making it back safety to the cabin. However, considering the book was set mostly in the same location it did feel slightly too long and took too long to end. Having said that Darcy Coates does her best to avoid the Final Girl trope, but as the main character is the narrator it is relatively easy to see the direction the plot heads into (even if you don’t know who the killer is) and this kills suspense somewhat.

The story kicks off with a group of holiday makers heading for a lodge in the Rocky Mountains, the weather is terrible and a fallen tree causes them to work together to try and move it. Christa goes for a walk with her boyfriend Kieran and they get turned around in the weather and get lost. The rest of the group find an uninhabited cabin where they hole up. After a terrifying ordeal in the snow Christa finds the cabin but loses Kieran (I found her whining over his disappearance to be very repetitive). Not long after, when the group are waiting for the weather to improve, their tour guide disappears and his severed head is found in the snow close to the cabin. What follows is a diverting survival novel blended with a murder mystery.

Clues are thrown (via Christa’s narrative) thick and fast and at various times you will undoubtedly change your mind on who the killer is. All the characters seem slightly dodgy in some way or another and in finest Agatha Christie tradition Christa (who has her own secret history which is told in flashback) begins to wonder whether everybody is connected in someway and they are being targeted for some reason. Although I did not immediately guess who the killer was, I did find some of the plot to be rather telegraphed, but the claustrophobic setting and short chapters made up for it.

This novel indicates that Coates is equally skilful with non-supernatural content as she is with her more familiar haunted houses. The concept of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers is a scary prospect and as Christa is not particularly outgoing and seems reliant on Kieran, makes for an intriguing scenario.

Christa joins her boyfriend on a vacation to Blackstone Lodge, deep in the snowy Rocky Mountains, but when an unexpected snowstorm suddenly sweeps in, the group of strangers have to seek shelter in an nearby abandoned hunting shack, and soon Christa finds herself trapped in the small isolated cabin. When their tourguide is discovered the following morning, with his decapitated head impaled on a tree branch, the surviving group must decide who to trust, or they'll never leave this mountain.

My favorite Darcy Coates tends to be the ones with no ghosts, I know right who even am I, like From Below, Hunted amd now this. This is a fast paced, dark, bloody, claustrophobic and twisted read that keeps you guessing at every page. You think you know who the killer is, but you dont. The atmosphere in this book is exactly what it feels like to be trapped in a tiny shed with strangers, no one of them able to escape the snow covered mountain, while anyone of them might be a cold blooded killer...

I enjoyed this well enough.

The setting was great, and it got off to a great start, but some parts felt a little long winded and a book that should be a real page turner took me quite a while to get through.

There was a lack of depth to any of the characters, I just wasn't invested in them and I wish I'd been rooting for them.

Thank you for the arc!

This was my first Darcey Coates and I’m blow. Away! She’s so descriptive in her atmosphere, I felt like I was freezing along with the character! I’ll definitely read more of her books!

I am a veteran Darcy Coates reader, and generally a huge fan. This was no exception! It was such a twisty and turn-y thriller with a super cool setting (I love the cold and winter so maybe I am a bit biased). It's an interesting blend of horror and thriller elements, too. With lots of different characters, each with pretty well fleshed out backstories, and the twists and turns this novel provides, I think a lot of people will really like this! Coates cranks out such high quality thrillers-- I can't wait to see what she writes next!

My first Darcy Coates read and it was a wild ride! If you’re looking for a thriller that will keep you guessing until the end, this one is for you!

Christa and Kiernan are headed on a romantic getaway. Christa struggles with anxiety but she seems content to be headed into the wilderness with her boyfriend and a bus load of strangers.
The tension in the opening chapter never lets up. I found myself asking if this was a thriller or horror, it has elements of both. This book has a pile of characters but it was easy to keep them straight. I’m a big fan of following the story were the writer leads. Coates did a great job of explaining the back stories, making them seem plausible without giving too much away.
This was a twisty tale that I couldn’t put down. It was entertaining and left me guessing until the end. I throughly enjoyed it and look forward to my next Darcy Coates read.

Thank you to Net Galley and Poisoned Pen Press for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I've read several books by Darcy Coates and really enjoy her writing, especially her ability to create an atmosphere. The descriptions in Dead of Winter paint a vivid picture of the isolated, snow covered mountain and the small, claustrophobic cabin. It's the perfect setting for this type of story and I was stoked to read it.

I burned through this book in a day. The short chapters keep the pace going and the story is good, though it is quite predictable. I had the killer figured out right away. The reason not too long after. Maybe I've just read too many thrillers and nothing really surprises me anymore. I do wish I'd had someone to root for in this book. Main character Christa is so full of guilt and self-loathing that she spends most of her time in her own head. Since she is our only POV, we miss out on a lot of the interactions and character building that you'd expect from this type of story, especially once their numbers started to dwindle.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest and the tension builds steadily until cranking way up in the final quarter of the story. The ending wraps things up well though it leaves a couple fates hanging, so an epilogue would be a great addition. Definitely looking forward to the next book.

Thank you to Darcy Coates, Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

After Christa and her boyfriend joins a tour group to Rocky Mountains everything change. One bad move and her boyfriend is missing, Christa is found by the group and they find a cozy cabin to catch their breath for a while. But then things get really ugly: the tour guy absence is raising questions so when the group goes out to search him, they only find his severed head impaled in a tree.

And here is where everything goes south. I mean, not literary. This book was so good at keeping a creepy and icy vibe. I mean they are freezing to death there and they still have time to kill people, that is just to much energy guys. Yes, there were a lot of good moments and I simply enjoyed the first 300 pages for its descriptions, the characters and how they were made and how real and vivid everything was. I feel like I read a very nice movie, but without the clips. Not gonna lie, I really was there for the character's performance and personality growth. Even if it's a thriller book (a good one as well) I found it really nice that there existed such close resemblance to the real world when it was coming down to the group.

Everyone acted like a human being would act. They beg, they cry and when they don't get their way, they try to kill. It's actually quite simple. And this group did exactly that. I was kinda proud of them even if II wasn't fond of everyone to be honest.

And now sure, the tension was so good and everyone kept pointing fingers and they were afraid but still kicking was more than good. I mean, a thriller where there is no reception, there are a lot of snow storms and a group who's getting murdered by a killer who impales their head into a tree? Damn right it should be good.

But what was with that ending? I feel like it could've been done so much better than this. I didn't get why it had to be done like this and there again everything seems for nothing if you put it that way. I expected that killer from the beginning for a thing Christa mentioned that stuck with me a lot more than I thought it would. <i>Sometimes you just have to believe in yourself.<i> and I wanted more from that ending but I have to get satisfaction from the rest since it isn't easy to find such a good thriller book.

<b>A cold way to get away with murder in this icy cinematic book full of tension, panicking and pointing fingers.<b> <i>and I'm pretty sure it wasn't easy for the killer either.<i>

Imagine to hunt people down in that frozen place while they are cozy inside and you freeze outside. The work put in it is quite humorous.

“Dead of Winter” by Darcy Coates is an upcoming thriller that’s creepy, atmospheric and suspenseful! You won’t find any slow and dull moments with this snowy locked-room mystery thriller.

We follow the story through the eyes of the main character, Christa. Her and her boyfriend, Kiernan, head off to a winter lodge retreat in the Rocky Mountains with a group of other tourists. On their way there, they become stranded on the tour bus in the middle of a snowstorm. The group thinks they’re finally safe when they find an abandoned cabin nearby to take cover until the bitter and chilly snowstorm passes. It isn’t until they find their tour guide’s head impaled and stuck to a tree outside of the cabin, that they realize they’re far from safety and the snowstorm is no longer their biggest worry.

This claustrophobic thriller will have you wondering who the murderer is and if someone else will be next. Who can you trust and who will make it out alive?

This book is easy to read and an enjoyable page-turner, but I do wish there was more depth to each of the characters involved to bring more to the story and make the plot more interesting, meaningful and complex. I loved the suspense and the ride it took me on though!

“Dead of Winter” by Darcy Coates will be loved for those seeking a whodunit-style mystery (gore included) that takes place during a freezing snowstorm inside of an abandoned cabin in the woods.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this eARC that is set to release on July 11, 2023 in exchange for my honest review.