With thrillers, it’s best to not know much before going in yet with Dead of Winter, the plot seems to unfold very quickly from the beginning. We follow Christa who is set to go on vacation at a snowy lodge with her boyfriend and everything seems great until a snowstorm hits, leaving everyone trapped away from the lodge.

From there, things start to pick up with Christa and Kiernan getting lost, Christa not remembering what went down and everyone in the group being suspicious. Honestly, I don’t want to talk too much about the plot but I will say that Dead of Winter is such a thrilling read from the very first page.

Within the first three chapters, Darcy Coates had me sucked in and I wanted to see what happened with these characters, their stories, and how everything was connected. As this was my first Darcy Coates, I really enjoyed her writing and felt like the way the story was plotted was amazing. She kept me engaged for the majority of the story which I loved.

Modeled after Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, you hold your breath, not knowing what will happen or who will be next. As this is a thriller, I don’t want to give away any twists or turns but I was pleasantly surprised with who the culprit was and how everything was connected.

I’m not normally a thriller reader, so this criticism might be completely off-the-wall but I do feel like there were a few too many red herrings. Then again, that might be the fun of the story or something this author has done in previous works. Either way, it sort of felt like whiplash toward the end of Dead of Winter.

All in all, if you’re looking for a fun and engaging thriller, then Dead of Winter won’t let you down. If anything, this makes me want to go back and read more of Darcy Coates’ massive backlist as she’s such a huge fixture in the horror/thriller genre.

Good Darcy Coates horror book. I felt like I was right there with the characters in the cold. Suspenseful and mysterious. Thank you for allowing me to read the story.

This book was hard to put down from the get-go. Once I started, I didn't want to stop until it was finished. A true nail-bitter thriller, with enough mystery to make you question the things going bump in the dark around you.

Christa is anxious about the winter trip but is encouraged by her boyfriend, Kiernan, to enjoy the adventure. Along with 8 other travelers, they are on their way to a remote lodge in the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter. All have reasons to be on this trip, and when one by one they are killed, it’s apparent one reason is murder. This was a fast paced murder adventure that keeps the reader engaged and guessing to the end.

I did like this somewhat. I am used to Darcy Coates' ghost stories and this was a little too slasher for me. Given the ending, the point of the book was to be a slasher, not a thriller. I didn't like the ending. It was like she got bored and decided to end it where she was. Thus the proliferation of bodies near the end. Not great but I do love her writing. I also appreciated that the main character, though young, isn't a dipshit.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is the story of a deadly winter vacation. A private getaway in the Rocky Mountains leads a group to question why they are there and how they are connected. One of them has a motive.

Christa and her partner are going on their first major trip together. They don't even make it to the cabin. Well, they eventually do.

The bus that's supposed to get the tourists to the cabin gets stuck in a snowstorm because of a felled tree. Two people get lost.

The others get to safety by finding a vacant cabin. That's when the murders start.

Who is targeting this random group, and why?

The answer is August eighth.

I enjoyed reading the story. It's a fun thriller that's great for summer or for anyone looking for an easy read. I hardly doubt that the reader will guess the ending.

Get lost in this thriller!

Christa and a tour group head into the Rocky Mountains for a week at a cabin in the woods. They quickly encounter a tree in the road and a snowstorm leaving Christa separated from her boyfriend and with the group in an old hunting cabin. 9 strangers quickly learn that one of them is a killer.

This book gave me nightmares, but I still enjoyed it and read it very quickly. It is not for the faint of heart and has a lot of gore! Although I did guess the killer, there were still a lot of unexpected twists leading up to it!

Thank you netgalley for this ARC.

A solid thriller, surprisingly fun to read in the summer heat.
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review!

Dead of Winter follows a group of travelers stranded in a storm in the Rocky Mountains. Soon their misfortune turns to horror as they begin dying gruesome deaths.

The red herrings are thick as the situation devolves and the cast of characters stew in their fallibility. The book amps up the suspense and suspicions until the chilling, satisfying end. The gore level was disturbing but not extreme.

Had I known anything about Darcy Coates prior to this, I would have held off starting the book until I had more free time. Instead, I got completely sucked in and sacrificed sleep because I constantly needed to know what would happen next. It may be a tiny bit predictable, but everything about Dead of Winter is entertaining.

This is the best mystery I’ve read so far this year and it’ll be extremely hard for anyone to top it.

Thank you, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to review this advanced reader copy of the book.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is a fact paced thriller/horror that mostly takes place on one snowy vacation as a small bus full of tourists are stranded by a small hunting cabin in the mountains. As they try to find help, they begin getting killed off one by one and the only explanation is that the killer is one of them. But will our main character, Christa, figure it out before it’s too late?

I have read a few books by this author and I always love them more than I think I will. She has a unique writing style that I would describe as “cozy horror” that almost feels like a straight to streaming scary movie but in the best way. And while I feel like this book had a similar general vibe, it was much more gory and thrilling than I was expecting. With extremely short chapters, this book flies by while you are reading it. Christa as the main protagonist doesn’t have a ton of personality but it lends itself well as being easy to relate to her. She is a great example of a self insert character done well.

I really only had two issues with this book. The first being that the cast of characters was just really big right from the start so I had a hard time caring about anyone because I didn’t really know who they were. I was confused a few times about who everyone was. I think this story could have still been the exact same with half the characters but it would have been a lot easier to follow. There was also a point when it felt like the author sort of had to shoehorn in some foreshadowing for the twist at the end and it felt very awkward to me and took me out of the story completely. I’m sure there are some readers that wouldn’t even notice it but it was something that annoyed me a bit.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes locked door mysteries that are fast paced and thrilling with some horror elements. This is a great book to pick up when you just want to fully immerse yourself in reading for a few hours. I would give this a 3.5 star rounded up just because of my few issues but overall, this was a good time.

Dead of Winter is a locked room mystery that takes place in a snowed-in hunting cabin located in the Rockies. When their charter bus is no longer capable of handling the mountain roads, the driver and eight of its passengers make their way to this isolated cabin. Two passengers are missing, having lost their way in the woods. While trying to make it to safety, only one of them makes it to the cabin. Soon, these unlucky souls begin to be murdered; their heads severed and hung from a tree. Can it be one of them, or is there someone—or something else—committing these gruesome slayings?

I like a locked room mystery where it seems the most logical explanation is a supernatural one. Someone is not who they appear to be, and the red herrings begin to pile up. Once you think you have it figured out, you realize you are wrong; and that’s okay. However, this did not happen to me in this book. Sadly, I solved the puzzle too quickly, and there wasn’t much more to make this a thrilling read.

I think that I would have liked the snow and cold weather to be more present; to help build up the claustrophobia and fear. Yes, they were stranded, and in need of heat. But there was a sense of climate inertia: shouldn’t the wind and snow come into the open cabin door, seep through the windows; and when they go out to take care of their bathroom needs, shouldn’t their butts either freeze or get stuck in the snow? Also, how do ten people fit comfortably in a one room cabin?

I am the type of reader that likes to be masterfully manipulated by a writer; to be able to say ‘damn, you tricked me!’ However, although I am a Darcy Coates fan, I was left wanting more.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was non stop action and tension from start to finish! It was gruesome, gory, and had some scary moments. My suspicions kept jumping around and the mystery definitely held my interest. I love isolated thrillers, especially when the characters start getting picked off one by one! I guessed part of the twist but the motivation was a total surprise. I only wish I had read this during a snow storm lol

Darcy Coates' Dead of Winter is not her typical gothic horror novels. Instead, like with From Below, she is exploring different horror genres -- this time a slasher.

Slasher novels are some of my favorites, and this one is no exception. A group of tourists heading to
mountain retreat find themselves trapped in a small cabin during an intense snow storm. One by one, they are murdered. Is the murderer one of them, or someone hidden by the storm? The claustrophobia and paranoia builds as the story progresses. There are not one but two red herrings, and several twists.

This novel is gory, and may not be suitable for some readers. It is a slasher, after all. There is some spousal emotional abuse that may be upsetting, as well.

Dead of Winter would be great for horror fans who don't mind gore. I'd recommend it to fans of Stephen Graham Jones' slashers. If you've never read a slasher novel, but love slasher movies, check it out!

I was provided an ARC through netgalley for an open and honest review.

This might be Darcy Coates best book yet!

The remote cabin with a snowstorm outside is a fantastic setting and I was flipping the pages because the dread and unease doesn’t let up.

"Dead of Winter" starts with a bus load of strangers heading to a resort in the Rocky Mountains for some winter fun and vacation time.

Christa is a bit nervous but excited for the trip that her boyfriend Kiernan planned for them. She’s had a bit of a rough time for the last few years and feels like this trip will be a great experience for them as a couple, and help her put some past demons to rest.

As they head toward the resort, things start going from bad to worse. The group finds safety in a remote cabin that’s not too far from the resort. If they can just bunker down for a few days to let the snowstorm pass, they’ll be able to hike there for help.

But there’s a killer among them and this killer has other plans for the group of strangers. Not only is Kiernan and Christa in deep trouble, but so is everyone else.

"Dead of Winter" has the same feel of Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None". I loved it!

I think I might be the exception with the fact that I guessed who the killer is but here’s the thing.
I also think Agatha has fine tuned my abilities of mysteries and I might be a bit warped with figuring this one out. hahaha
The great thing with this book is I had an idea of who it might be, but Darcy Coates still keeps me guessing all the way to the end.

Kudos to her on producing a thriller that has you gripped with tension and dread! The gore, action and madness of this one was just top notch. I loved it!!

I just read “Dead of Winter” by Darcy Coates. I went in blind but assumed it was horror based on what I’ve heard about the author. It’s not horror but a great, fast paced thriller!
A group of people find themselves isolated during a snow storm and start getting brutally murdered one by one. Not a new concept at all but I still found myself doing the “just one more chapter” thing late into the night.
I will definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a thriller!

Great story full of twists and mystery. The added suspense of the storm and being trapped in the middle of nowhere gave this one an even more eerie and spooky vibe that I really enjoyed.

I received a digital advance reader’s copy of Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates via NetGalley. Dead of Winter is scheduled for release on July 11, 2023.

Dead of Winter follows Christa, a woman on a bus tour deep in the Rocky Mountains. A felled tree, followed by a massive snowstorm trap the group of relative strangers in a tiny cabin with no way to call for help. On the first night in the cabin, the tour guide goes missing, then is found dead. As the bodies begin to accumulate, the chances of survival dwindles. Christa’s only hope is to figure out who to trust and who among them is the murderer.

For me, this was a book of two halves. The second half of the book was very tightly focused on who the killer was, and why they were killing these people. As secrets unraveled, and characters began to find commonalities, and work together to find a way out, I kept reading to find the answers to my own questions. While I did see the big twists coming, the pieces of the mystery fell together in a way that made sense.

The first half of the book was less successful for me. Honestly, I almost stopped reading after the first two chapters. In the opening chapters, we are with Christa and her boyfriend. They have gotten separated from the group, and are fighting to get back to the bus through an ever worsening storm. We have no sense of who these characters are, or why they are in this situation. It was difficult to care what happened to them. From these chapters, I thought this was a wilderness survival story, and almost put it down.

After those chapters, we jump back in time to the bus ride up the mountain, where we meet the rest of the group and find out where we are and where they are headed. This set-up for the story felt very clunky, with explanations for why this group of ten or so people was headed to a lodge that was supposedly closed for the season.

With this many characters and only Christa’s point of view, I did not get a good sense of who any of the characters were, which made it lack impact when characters began disappearing and dying. Despite being with Christa for the entire story, at the end I had no more understanding of who she was than I did when we met her in the snow at the beginning.

Overall, Dead of Winter had a premise with potential that did pull together toward the end. With more character development, and some adjustments of the set-up, this could have been a solid isolation thriller.

Eleven people climb onto a bus set for a lodge in the Rocky Mountains, located literally in the middle of nowhere. After stopping due to a tree fallen in the road, Christa and Kiernan wander off to get a view of the scenery. A storm sets in and the pair get lost, but Christa is miraculously found by her bus-mates and pulled into a tiny shack in the woods. The tiny cabin is too small for the 10 people from the bus, but it is keeping them out of the elements for the duration of the storm. During the night, Brian the guide goes missing. His head is found the next morning impaled on a tree near the cabin (and what of his body...?). Apparently the nightmare is only beginning.

This book was very Agatha Christie, but that didn't stop it from being really quite good. I will say that I guessed the villain around the halfway point, although the author did make me doubt myself repeatedly. I just could NOT put this down. In fact, my Kindle died at the 55% mark (RIP, dear friend) and I absolutely panicked. But I needed to know how it ended so badly that I did something I hate and read nearly half of it on my phone. This is my favorite Darcy Coates book yet.

4 1/2 stars.

4⭐️

My first read by this author. The fear of missing out was real as I’d heard some good things about it on social media I had to read it asap.
This is a combination of a very claustrophobic closed circle mystery/ but veers more to slasher horror. It’s dark and blood thirsty! With some quite graphic description. It’s got a decent amount of action too.

It starts with a great level of fear and tension with Christie and Kiernan wandering around in a blizzard totally lost fearing death. I think that section is my favourite of the book.

There’s quite a large group on the bus, so a number of names to get to grips with.

Christie & Kiernan- a couple lost in blizzard
Steve- trucker. Miri his wife
Hutch -DJ
Blake-911 dispatcher
Simone - ex army
Alexis- about her not readily revealed
Denny-mechanic and son Grayson
Brian - guide/bus driver

It would make a great horror film for sure! I really liked Christie, badly debilitated by frost bite, but still plucky and a very proactive member of the group, and wanting to do the right thing for the group.

Slasher horror is not my go to genre, it’s very well executed and keeps the reader on the backfoot for the duration. I enjoyed it, one for you if you love horror, may not be for you if you prefer locked room / closed circle mysteries.