I don’t know what I was expecting with this novel but it wasn’t that! I was so surprised but in a good way! This was so good and so entertaining. I found myself really wanting to know what happened so much so that I couldn’t put it down! I stayed up way too late both nights reading this.

I loved the creepy secluded setting of the woods and the cabin. I loved the snow storm aspect as well.

I loved Christa and I loved her will to survive. I was so hoping that we would get a Christa and Alexis reunion scene at the end but that’s okay. The plot twists at the end made up for it! My jaw was on the floor! Soo twisty and good.

While I enjoyed almost every aspect of this book, it was a bit graphic for me at parts. I think I was expecting more of a thriller and this seemed to be more of a horror novel and some people will really love that but it was a bit much for me at some parts.

Overall though, this was a fantastic and fast paced read. It was entertaining the whole way through and has me definitely intrigued in trying more books from this author.

Disclaimer: I'm a big bIG BIG fan of Darcy Coates. So it'll be no surprise that I loved this book.

Christa starts off the trip believing that it's going to lead her into a new phase of life, and for the most part, she's not wrong. Unfortunately, rather than getting engaged, she ends up in the remote wilderness, fighting for her life against mother nature and an unknown murderous psychopath. But it's probably someone in her group...

This book was twisty and tense and heart wrenching at every turn. Darcy Coates does an amazing job of convincing you someone is safe, only to betray your trust two pages later. As always, her FMC is strong and smart and reliable, but also super relatable. Only drawback is that my yearning for secluded mountain retreats may be spoiled for awhile yet.

I received this ARC from Netgalley and the publishers to read and review. All of my statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this book.

I'm a big fan of Darcy Coates! I especially her ghost horror books. This was the first murder mystery of hers I've read. It jumped straight into the story especially fast and the pacing jumped around. There were several characters and possible suspects. I guessed correctly but it took awhile to figure out why, without giving away plot. I enjoyed the main character Chrissy. She was likable and very determined. I think if there were a few more explanations and the pacing was a little more cohesive I would have enjoyed the book a little more but overall it was a fast and exciting read! Very brutal and creepy for sure! Being stuck in the middle of nowhere with strangers is awful enough but add the freezing weather and a killer and you have a terrifying nightmare for sure! Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this fun book!

There’s nothing more intense than a locked room thriller. And Darcy Coates delivered that vibe perfectly! The whole book had an eerie feeling that kept me on the edge of my seat.

This is my second book by Darcy Coates and there are so many twist and turns in this book, I loved it! I will say that I figured out who the killer was halfway into the book, but I wasnt 100% sure about it. The clues are all there though. Even knowing that I was really engrossed in the story. I do wish that the ending revealed everyones fate, but I guess thats something we’ll have to wonder about.

Dead of Winter is a fantastically thrilling addition to the locked room genre. I did figure out the killer pretty early on, but it’s a testament to Coates that the story didn’t lose any steam after that. I’d recommend to anyone looking for a fast paced, scary, and entertaining read.
The story does get pretty graphic and brutal at times so that should be mentioned.

A Darcy Coates book is always a good time and this one was a locked in mystery to be savoured. I really enjoyed the claustrophobic atmosphere and the fear of the characters. The perfect book to curl up with on a cold snowy evening... if you dare.

Holy creep-fest! This was so intense! It was sheer psychological tension with horror tossed in for good measure. So many secrets and lies. Such a gruesome game of who-done-it.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

As always Darcy came through. I have to have a physical copy to reread. It was that good.
This was an action packed, gory isolated winter thriller. I loved every minute. The very first scene is so claustrophobic, and terrifying. You will not be able to put this down. I am such a Darcy fan. I have loved everything I have read. This might be my new favorite. I loved the tension, and thrills.
We follow a group who is stranded in a horrible storm. They are getting picked off one by one. You have to pick this up asap.
This book is set to release in July 2023.
Thank you to NetGalley and Poison Pen for an eCopy of this amazing book

This is a perfect mash up of thriller and horror a thrillhor if you will. In true Coates fashion this is an absolutely unsettling read. Giving And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie with much more sinister circumstances, Dead of Winter is a super slow burn who done it, mystery massacre. However, if you have the patience for it (it pays off!) once the (snow)ball starts rolling, it's an avalanche of atrocities that will bury you alive. This is my second Darcy Coates novel and will not be my last.

Your classic who dunnit.

Christa goes on a winter cabin getaway with her boyfriend and a bus full of strangers. They encounter a snow storm and a tree blocking the road to the cabin. People start getting murdered, and they have no idea who is responsible.

The whole story is told from Christa’s POV, which I honestly preferred rather than needing to keep track of multiple POVs.

The middle DRAGGED on. I found it quite slow and overly descriptive where it wasn’t necessary.

The beginning and the end were decent.

While this novel had a decent amount of suspense, it didn’t keep me glued to my kindle. I would pick it up, read a couple of pages, and find myself scrolling my phone 2 minutes later.

Wasn’t my fav, but wasn’t bad!

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

Despite this being called Dead of Winter I’m reading in the beginning of spring. But it’s still pretty cold here in Ohio so I was able to imagine freezing snow!

Christa and Kiernan are stuck in a blizzard that very well may be the end of them. This is how Dead of Winter begins. We are immediately thrown out into the cold unsure of how these two characters have gotten here. I love when books start this way because it immediately grabs your attention and you are hooked. We don’t find out what happened before the snow until chapter three.

As a rule, I don’t usually read book descriptions. Especially if I love the author. All I knew going into this I learned from the cover. I’ll read anything Darcy Coates writes. I assumed at the beginning that ghosts would be involved somehow. Around 15% into the book things took a turn and I sensed no ghosts would be in this story.

Classic who done it but with even more gore. I love stories like this that have unique characters. Some you trust and love immediately while others you hate from the beginning with no idea why. You know there will be a twist and try to figure it out before it happens!

I managed to start and finish this in a matter of a few hours. I was intrigued and I had to know what would happen to Christa.

This is definitely a deviation from Coates’ normal books but I applaud her effort. If you enjoy thrillers and mysteries I highly recommend Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this. I have written this review voluntarily.

3.5 stars

I received a copy of this book through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

This book starts out with Christa and Kiernan walking in the snow. Christa worries that they’re lost, but she follows behind Kiernan, trusting him. Then suddenly she slips down a crevice. It only goes downhill from there.

This is the perfect read for winter. This is only the second book I’ve read by Darcy Coates. I liked that the chapters weren’t long. The author uses the And Then There Were None trope, which is one I do enjoy. I did guess the who done it, but not the exact reason why. The ending is a bit ambiguous. There are eleven characters to keep track of, which made it a bit hard for me to remember who was who.

I dont know how to feel about this book. For 2/3rds of the book I was certain it was 5 stars but then things got so boring, the chase was so dragged and I just skimmed through pages to get to the end. The entire book was very descriptive but I didn't notice it until the last third when I was like ENOUGH TELL ME WHO DID IT??!!! Stop chasing (literal chase predator and prey chasing each other was drawn out several pages... chaps ...) and beating about the bush..
But I still enjoyed it I DID I DID ... MY eyes were glued to my screen and the short chapters definitely helped me. Why oh why did I start this at 3 am???!!

The characters were so well developed. Flawed and 3 dimensional. And the motive behind the massacre was very well plotted even if it wasn't very original, it was well thought out and made sense.

I knew and expected who the killer was but I still clapped when it was revealed because I was really hoping the author would take this direction, so my satisfaction with how things wrapped up was off the charts.

It's noteworthy that this is very gory so definitely not for everyone. Wasn't for me but yer girl didn't know how gory it was until she was so invested in the story she couldn't put it down. And I have to give it to the author this book was unputdownable from the very beginning. Incredibly fast paced.

Take Frozen's setting (not the animated movie but that movie about 3 friends stuck on a chairlift) take that setting, storms billowing lonely cabins strangers huddled in, no contact with the outside world and then mix in AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.

I have read all of Darcy Coates Ghost books. I haven't read the Black Winter series yet so when I received this ARC I was excited to read something a little different from the haunting stories. I couldn't believe the gory details she told in this book. I had a few UGHH moments for sure. This was a great story about survival and figuring out who the bad person is. I did see the twist coming but I'm ok with that. I didn't see how it was gonna play out coming though. Such a great read but I expected nothing less because Darcy is an amazing writer!!
I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!


Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read this ARC early for my honest opinion.

Darcy Coates has done it again... one of the best thriller books i've read this year, i was gutted when i finished it!

Dead Of Winter is a classic who did it set in a remote lodge with trapped civilians who have no signal, no ways to call for help and are limited for food.. add all that but now they are starting to get killed off one by one and is the killer one of them amongst the group.

Darcy Coates did not disappoint and she did an amazing job at making the readers feel the claustrophobic feel, the way the setting was wrote made if easier to imagine with the snow and the crunch when they are trying to find another way out of the mess they are in. Coates is able to describe a scene so vividly and suck the readers into the story, i couldn't stop reading once i started, the thrill, heart pounding and mystery aspects really reel you in and you won't be able to stop once you start reading.

A tale of survival and the tension was fully there and kept you feeling like you're on the edge of your seat.

An amazing book full of thrill, survival, many twists and turns that you don't expect as well as suspense that will keep your heart pounding and i would recommend to all readers who enjoy a who did it book set in a desolate snowy atmosphere. 5*

Dead Of Winter is released on 7/11/2023 , mark your calendars.

Thank you to NetGalley and especially Poisoned Pen Press for this amazing arc in exchange of an honest review.

The deft writing of this survival horror thriller will have readers feeling chills for more than just the wintery setting. Christa is expecting a romantic getaway to the Rocky Mountains with her boyfriend Kiernan. The past few years have been difficult and she is looking forward to a promising future. However, their plans are derailed when a blizzard hit and strands their bus along with 9 other strangers. Forced to take shelter in an abandoned cabin, they are all hopeful that help will arrive soon but nothing is as it seems.. Christa is first separated from Kiernan in the storm and then their tour guide goes missing only to turn up very, very dead. Soon the group realized that a methodical, brutal killer is hunting them one by one. Who can Christa trust? Are they going to make it out alive?

The narrative is definitely a page turner for fans of the genre and others like Dean Koonts, Peter Straub, Stephen King and Nick Cutter, among others. It is a great whodunnit for readers who love trying to unravel the web of hidden clues and connections. There are certainly some nods to famous literary and cinematic moments (i.e. The Shining). The book definitely kept me guessing until the end.

Christa and her boyfriend Kiernan have booked a trip to a resort in the Rocky Mountains. 🏔 They are told that once they arrive, they should unwind and just focus on relaxing. 💆‍♀️On the way to the resort, they come across a tree blocking the road. Their tour guide, Brian, reassures the group that he has come prepared and has a chain saw to remove the tree. ⛓️🪓🌳

In the meantime, Kiernan suggests to Christa that they take a walk since it will be a few hours before the bus is back on the road. They venture off a few miles and a storm begins brewing, a BIG one. 🌬 It is so bad that they struggle to see in front of them and get back to the bus. While trying to find their way, Christa slips and falls off the edge of a cliff. 😳 With no visibility in the storm, she does the only thing she knows how, which is to try to seek shelter. 🏚

She wakes in a cabin with one of the passengers stitching up her hand and to no Kiernan. She insists on looking for him in the dangerous weather, but no one can find him. The next morning, the tour guide Brian is missing. He is later found outside, with his head impaled on a tree. 🤯 There is a killer on their hands. But who of the eight strangers on the bus is responsible?

Let me start off by saying that the cover to this book depicts the story extremely well. 😍 It is as if the killer is looking through the trees waiting on his next victim. Plus, the red writing makes me think blood. Such a clever design!!!

This is the first book that I have read by Darcy Coates, and I was impressed. Who doesn’t love a book about strangers being snowed in at a remote cabin, with a killer on the loose severing people’s heads off and displaying them on a tree? ❄️🪓 Creepy, right? Throughout the book, I kept going back and forth with who I thought the killer was and who would have motive to kill. And trust me, there were a lot of possibilities with eight characters involved. My one criticism would be the pacing in the middle of the book. The beginning and the end were perfect, but the middle was too drawn out in my opinion. Overall, this was an entertaining read that left me not wanting to go any outings in the mountains involving snow anytime soon. ❌️

Many thanks to Net Galley and the author for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“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 by one, members of the group begin to disappear leading to gruesome discoveries. Coates writes a thrilling and grisly descript murder mystery that keeps you on your toes with every turn of the page. When you think you’ve discovered who the murderer is, another layer of clues unfolds leading to a plot twist I never saw coming!! This was a perfect winter read to bundle up with during last weeks Nor’easter!!

Thank you @netgalley, @darcybooks and @poisonedpenpress for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!!!

Thank you to Net Galley for an early copy for review!

I had high hopes for this one but it didn’t do it for me. I loved the beginning, we were thrown right into the drama but it really dragged after that. It did briefly pick up again around 70% but fell back into the same “I’m ready for this to be done” as before.

I didn’t have a good idea of who the characters were. I kept thinking Blake was in her 30s based on how she acted but she was retired? Everyone was pretty flat and made awful decisions constantly going off on their own.

The ending wasn’t shocking at all and I was glad I was finally done with this a whopping 22 days after starting it.