I mean.....it's a single house, almost single room who done it mystery.

It's fine. It was fine. It's not going to break any best sellers records, but it was fine for a quick weekend read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

The Snow Storm by Triona Walsh was an amazing and enjoyable read!! It was beautifully written and offered stunning descriptions of a small island off the coast of Ireland. As a reader, you could almost feel the cold winds of the raging storm and see the smashing waves of the sea. The island itself seemed to be a living character in the novel, playing a key role in the mystery that unfolds as the story is told.

The novel was well-paced, making it almost impossible to put down. And the characters were so well developed in my opinion. Cara, our protagonist, is a character you grow to love as she struggles with a past tragedy, all the while trying to solve a mystery close to her heart. As I got closer to the end of the novel, I found myself slowing my reading down — as much as I wanted to see the mystery solved, I didn’t want the book to end. If you like thrillers, twists, and atmospheric storytelling, I think you’ll love this one!

Thank you to NetGalley, Triona Walsh, and the publishers at Bookouture for giving me the early release of this book! I appreciate your trusting me with an honest review!!

I got to read this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book starts out with a gathering of old friends meeting up for the first time in years. There’s a big snow storm approaching when Cara drives to her old friend’s house. She is a police sergeant, and soon, she has a murder to investigate, with the snow blocking anyone from coming to or leaving from the island off the coast of Ireland where Cara lives.

I liked Cara as a main character. I thought the author did a good job of describing the setting. There is some Irish slang that I’m not familiar with as an American, so that did take away from the story a bit. The plot held my attention. The twist wasn’t expected. Overall a great read!

I have never read anything by this Author, but I really did enjoy this book!! I love books that are set in bad weather so this was perfect!! It started slow, but finished very exciting and thrilling!! I highly recommend this book!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

This was one I couldn’t resist for the description. Maybe not my typical choice but a good choice all the same.

Cara is the only police officer on a tiny Irish island. She is a widow with two small children, who lives with her grandmother.

Old friends are visiting the island and the old gang is reunited, to spend the 10th anniversary of Cara’s husband’s death celebrating his life.

The island is cut off by a storm and the electricity goes off. No phon signal either. Then one of the friends is found dead and Cara is forced to investigate.

I really enjoyed it. The suspense was built slowly and there was many red herrings. I loved the clever use of the Irish language throughout and adding to the final conclusion.

I had high hopes for this book as it sounded right up my alley - an isolated location with a group of friends who hadn’t seen each other for ages, then one of them turns up dead. However, it didn’t live up to my expectations. The opening chapter set the story of to a good start, but everything after that seemed to drag it down. I also found most of the characters to be unlikeable and off-putting; normally I love an unlikeable character but it’s a little different when they make up most of the characters. I know that people will like this, but it was just a miss for me.

4 🌟🌟🌟🌟 for The Snowstorm by Triona Walsh
Publish Date: Feb. 2, 2023

The Snowstorm follows a group of six friends that grew up on a remote Irish Island. The group split after a 7th member of their group died and had not been in much contact since. 3 friends have remained living on the island and stayed close with each other, while the other 3 moved off the island. They all come together to celebrate the life of their friend on the anniversary of his death. A deadly winter blizzard has stopped all travel from the island and the entire population of 900 people are stuck until the storm passes on New Years Eve. One of the friends goes missing and is found murdered. Who did it? And why? Everyone has secrets in this chilling story.

The Snowstorm takes aspects from locked room mysteries and applies them to a larger scale, in the form of an island cut off from the mainland. The story starts off quickly and keeps a steady pace throughout. I guessed a few of the twists, but overall I didn't figure out every aspect of the ending and was pleasantly surprised. I didn't have some issues with the areas of the book that were in Irish and the way that they were written and then translated after, it could be confusing in places. The ending also felt like it wrapped up really quickly, all of the characters gathered in a room and the explanation of who did it and why was spelled out for the group, it just felt a little quick, though the twists and conclusion were satisfying.

Over all, Triona Walsh tells a compelling story that will grab you from the start and keep you guessing and trying to figure it out right up until the end. I recommend giving this one a read!! I will be keeping an eye out for future books from this author as well!

The Snowstorm is one of those books that I picked up due to the genre, and the obvious conventions that it was going to include, but I didn't love it; I finished it with my feelings very in the middle.

It tells the story of Cara and her small group of childhood friends as they reunite after not seeing each other for a decade, only, tragedy hits and one of them dies before their reunion. To make matters worse, they are reuniting for the anniversary of Cara's husbands death.

I went into this one so sure I was going to love it, for obvious reasons; it has the perfect story to tell in an even better location, but there were so many times I found myself becoming confused with how the story was told. I'm not sure if it was just me, but it felt a bit too much for the length of it; there was too much information but not enough time to tell it.

A short one, but, as always, thank you to Bookouture for the ARC!

This book was absolutely amazing! I received it as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had never read Tríona Walsh’s previous work, but I love a good thriller. This book did not disappoint. Set on a small island off the coast of Ireland, a group of friends come together the week of New Years’ to honor one of their own. Little did they know they would be caught up in mysterious happenings throughout the island.

The book was paced well and hard to put down. It was easy to picture the island and it’s cast of characters with descriptions that weren’t too lengthy. I felt what the characters felt, as if I were right there watching it all. The story was told from the perspective of Cara, the lone police officer on the island during the snowstorm and part of the group of friends. Cara was smart and clever, but also human. She struggled with balancing her feelings, her different roles, and with trying to think like a detective when she wasn’t one.

If you like a book that feels like Agatha Christie blended with Tana French you will enjoy this one.

It's difficult to write a review about this book. Normally, I know straight away what I am going to write, but this time, there is a storm in my head as well.

When a read the 3 sentences on the cover of the book, I was sold. When I started reading the book though, it felt like is was not quite what those sentences had promised. 

This being said I loved the first chapter of the book. It was bull's eye from the first throw and to me it was clear who the victim was. After that opener the story fell a bit slow and I also thought is was a pity the cover already said one of the friends was going to be named the killer. It took a part of the suspense away. Also because one of them was dead, one of them was the police officer. It makes a very short list of suspects in the end...

I also figured out what the tragedy was that happened those ten years ago, the reason for the reunion, but I did not mind that.

In the end our clever sergeant Cara Folan figured everything out, but I left me thinking how she could have done all this being trapped on the island with no phone signal except for that one moment of research she did at the station.

But on the bright side, I liked the way Maura reached out and helped her friend Cara to uncover the truth or part of it and I felt a lot of sympathy for Patrick Kelly. 

I did enjoy the book, but unfortunately it was not one of my favorites. There were a lot of things I liked but I had the feeling that the glue that had to bring everything together was sometimes not the right one. I like to play detective too and I missed to many things to be able to string it all together. 

I am sorry, because I know how much an author invests in a story. 3,5 stars.

Thank you

I liked this book. It was a little slow at first and it was a little difficult for me to follow a few times because of the Irish words and phrases but I did like how it was translated. I do think the book drug on a little bit but the last few chapters were super interesting!

The story starts with six friends reuniting on New Year's even even though there was an icy storm brewing in. They were reuniting after ten years when a tragedy tore them apart. However the reunion soon becomes a nightmare when one of their friends was found murdered and was dumped by the cliff. And as you go further, you see there are deep secrets among your friends--a secret that might threaten to ruin their friendship and one of them could be a murder.

If you have read Ruth Ware's One By One, this book did sound similar to that book. I have to say, I did like the pitch and the plot of the story however, I felt or maybe it was just me that the pacing of the thriller book was slow. I couldn't really get into the story like I really wanted to and I felt there weren't much twists or thrills. However, towards the middle, it got a bit interesting. The story itself is also unpredictable although the ending wasn't as predictable as I thought it would be. However, I did like the Irish names, the Irish words and the descriptions of the sceneries of Ireland which made me imagine what Ireland look like. Overall, in my opinion, it wasn't really a great thriller but it was an OK thriller. If you like a book set in winter storm, then you can try this book. Worth three stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

Thank you NetGalley, bookouture, and Triona Walsh for allowing me to read a free advanced copy of The Snowstorm in exchange for an honest review. All of the opinions are my own opinions. Due to be published February 2nd 2023.
The setting is the Aran islands where six friends cara, Seamus. sorcha, Ferdia, Maura. And Daithi gather together after ten long years to celebrate the anniversary of Caras husbands death. Cillians death caused a very big dent in all of their friendships. With a bad storm raging and no way off the islands lots of secrets are being told and along comes a death .
Overall the writing was phenomenal but I couldn’t really get into the story line till the middle of the story . The beginning was very slow for me and the character names were very hard to pronounce. But all in all this was a fantastic read and I’ll be recommending to anyone I can for days to come.
I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading more from this author.

We have yet to have a snow day all winter in my part of the world, so I figured it was time to get my fix with an action packed, snowy thriller. ❄️

This one started off a bit slow for me, but once I got a hang of all the characters it started to pick up pace. I thought I had it all figured out but was pleasantly surprised with the amount of twists that were thrown my way!

I thought the setting of this novel was extremely unique, and would love to visit Inis Mór one day if I have the chance. This is my first thriller set in Ireland, and most certainly will not be my last.

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for an ARC of this story to read and honestly review!

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC. Friends meeting up after 10 years to commemorate a friend they lost, a body found in the ocean, a snow storm that has everyone stuck on the small island—what’s not to like! I enjoyed this read and found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. However, I never truly connected to the characters, so I read this without any emotions tied to it. It was a fairly quick read, and everything was well written and ended the way I suspected. But the lack of character connection ultimately leaves it at 3 stars.

Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture and Triona Walsh for allowing me to read The Snowstorm before it was published. I did enjoy the reading of the book, but I found it unbelievable. Some things in this book I just couldn’t see actually happening. I also found it pretty predictable. There were some twists that I didn’t predict and I did like how the last half was pretty fast paced and twisty. The first have I struggled to get into and found somewhat boring.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.
3.5 stars
This could easily have been 4 stars if not for unnecessary repetition, sometimes within the same paragraph. Also, I really had to suspend my disbelief in how seemingly easily Cara (and others) moved around the island in blizzard conditions. (if you don't live in an area with harsh winters, maybe you won't care so much about that) At one point she mentions there are no snow plows, then is somehow able to get in her car & drive right off.

Having said that, I enjoyed this book and it really picked up speed towards the end. For the last 10% I couldn't read fast enough, and I liked the satisfying epilogue. Even with some unlikeable characters, you want to find out what happens to them all. Definitely recommend.

I found this wasn't the isolated thriller I expected it to be with ruined some of the atmosphere for me.
While this sounded like my type of book I found this to be underwhelming. I enjoyed the book enough but it didn't wow me. In fact it's kind of forgettable.
The characters felt rather flat. With no reason to really care about who died.
While I did try figure out what happened and why the book felt a little all over the place at times.

Thank you to Bookouture for this Arc copy on Netgalley.

Everyone is a suspect.

This book had me on the edge of my seat for the entire thing! It was so grilling and well written. I very much enjoyed the writing style, it flowed beautifully and felt very natural. The descriptions were perfectly detailed, you could really get a picture of the setting in your head and imagine the scene unfolding without it being over detailed, which is when things can get a bit tedious or boring.

I loved the foreshadowing throughout, “A picture falls off the wall? It means someone is going to die.”

I did feel like maybe we needed more tome to get to know Maura, Seamus, Sorcha and Ferdia, so we could form a bit more of an attachment to the characters. As it would have been a lot more impactful when Maura was found dead and the reveal of the killer and the plot twists would have been more shocking if we had known the characters a bit more.

“Flames of her rich, auburn hair had escaped and now, medusa- like, snaked off at every which angle.”

I did not guess who the killer was correctly, who I thought it was, it was not.

I read this book in less than 24 hours. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

I gave this 4⭐️.

I loved that this book took place on a remote island in Ireland, during a crazy snow storm. Right off the bat, the isolated feelings were set. Parts of the dialogue (even the English parts) were a bit hard to understand right away as they use different words for things than we do in the states, but Walsh’s writing was so easy to follow that I quickly picked it up.

I got a Lucy Foley vibe from this book but without the multiple POV and honestly, better written. Walsh made you connect with the group of characters and share in their heartache which made you second guess who you thought the killer was, multiple times.

Yes, parts of the story were obvious and easy to figure out but it didn’t take away from the overall thrill of the book.

Short chapters, quick to the action, and likable characters made this a quick and enjoyable read.

I will definitely look out for more books from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.