I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by this author, so I was excited to start this. It was kind of a slow burn and i guessed the twist halfway through. It was still enjoyable, but not my favorite by the author.

I loved this book. It grabbed me from the very beginning. I loved the way it was written. I couldn't put it down!

3 out of 5 Stars!

When Jane Sharp’s father unexpectedly passes away, she needs a distraction from her grief. So, she turns to true crime when a case hits close to her home. When doing her research, she stumbles upon some armchair detectives on the internet who teach her how to catch a killer. Within that group, she finds her purpose. So, when the murder of 3 college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, they travel to Delphine to do their own investigation. But the more they uncover, the more confused they get. Clues aren’t adding up. As they uncover more and more, the more they feel like they are in the middle of the investigation. Told one year after the events, Jane is telling her story about what really happened.

As a true-crime fan, the synopsis of “This Book Will Bury Me” by Ashley Winstead had me hooked. I love a good armchair sleuthing deep dive, so this book seemed perfect for me. Right off the bat, learning that this book was based on an actual true crime made me a little uncomfortable. Personally, I am not a huge fan of profiting off criminal cases. Especially when the investigation in Idaho is still unfolding. I did not realize this until reading 'A Note From the Author', which is the page before part one. So, just a fair warning before reading this book! From reaching the synopsis, I did not pick up that the college murders that unfolded in Idaho had anything to do with this novel.

At first, this book really captured my attention. I was interested in Jane’s emotions about losing her father and the first crime that unfolded. I was a little confused about where the story was going after all the introductions, as the true “mystery” didn’t get discovered until well into the book. Throughout the book, I lost some momentum in the middle of the novel. I think as the first case was wrapping up, we lost some of the excited feeling that was keeping us going.

Unfortunately, I did guess the ending before it played out. Of course, I don’t want to spoil it, but I thought it was quite clear early on, which was a shame. I did like how the ending played out, but I still wish I was shocked. Jane was a fascinating main character! I really liked her personal dilemma with losing her father and her determination to figure out these murders. Fair warning, there are a lot of characters in this novel that you should know. To be honest, I had a hard time keeping everyone straight (as they all have online usernames and then real names), and I wish I kept track of everyone a little better.

“This Book Will Bury Me” by Ashley Winstead is out March 25th, 2025!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark, Ashley Winstead, and Netgally for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This Book Will Bury Me is Ashley Winstead’s newest thriller about a group of armchair detectives trying to solve the most famous crime of modern day. Jane, the FMC, is grieving the sudden loss of her father and is looking for something to take her mind off of her new reality. She is accepted into an inner circle of an online, true crime, amateur sleuths group where she quickly becomes a vital part of the group and gets obsessively wrapped up in solving the case with her new found true crime junkies.

This was quite a crazy ride. I really liked the writing style and the use of footnotes and social media formats. The foreshadowing is incredible. I would think I missed something and then the answer unfolded a little later which kept me hooked and made it hard to put down. Like most thriller mysteries, there were several characters, including members in the online message board. Parts of the story is in a social media format, which I liked because it helped drive the plot, but they used the character’s handles instead of names, which made it more authentic, but at times got a little confusing trying to remember who was who. This also made the audio a little harder to understand so I was thankful to have both an ARC & ALC so I could follow along creating a full immersive experience. I enjoyed that it was written so that the narrator is talking directly to the reader, making you even more invested because you feel like you are part of the story. The audio narrator did an incredible job bringing the characters and story to life, delivering a flawless performance from start to finish.

I would definitely check the TW. It did get graphic and there’s been some controversy.

Thank you @bookmarked, @tantoraudio, and @netgalley for the #gifted ARC and ALC. All thoughts are my own.

Okay this book was awesome from start to finish. I could not put it down even though it was actually pretty long. I read it every free moment I had. I loved the way it was told- a tell all where the main character is talking directly to us and telling us the story. She is a true crime enthusiast who works to solve active crimes and aid the police.

I loved the main character and her journey as “searcher” and I loved the side characters too. To be honest, this is a book I wouldn’t mind a sequel to.
Thank you to NetGalley for this free advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

People have many reactions to a parent's death that seem a little strange to others. Jane's grief will leave her searching until she finds a hobby she can lose her sadness in. For her, it's a true crime investigative site with a core group of characters who all have their own reason to be members. So far, their investigative efforts have been carried out from a distance, but now they've found a horrendous event and the FBI has agreed to let them help in the investigation. Yes, the crime is set as a fictional account of the Idaho University murders. FICTIONAL.
The plot is reveled in an interesting manner. Jane is writing a book about the group's interactions with the police and the public as the murders are sensationalized in the media. She's telling the story, after the fact, so it's sometimes easy to see where the group made some costly errors and how close they come to being victims themselves. I really enjoyed this book. At almost 500 pages, it's longer than the usual, but it read quickly as the twists, turns and shocks came pretty quickly.

Ashley Winstead keeps getting better. I read this as fast as I could and I loved every minute of it.

I was unsure of this in the beginning as it was a lot different than I was expecting it to be and a lot different from the author's other thrillers but it was not long before I was completely immersed into the story. I really enjoyed what this story evolved into. I was expecting a thriller surrounding internet sleuths tackling a big pop culture case: think Don't Fuck With Cats x Idaho Murders but this was so much more than that. I mean, we definitely get those elements in this book but I was pleasantly surprised at how much deeper it went.

This entire book is definitely a character study of this found family of sleuths and the plot, while compelling, does feel minimal and like it takes a backseat to the exploration of these characters and their motivations. The author leaves some really fantastic easter eggs about pop culture, true crime and historical figures that were so fun to pick up on. There is also a fantastic exploration of grief in this book that was certainly unexpected but so expertly done and well crafted. I think that the story line with Jane and her father was really powerful but I do acknowledge that it could throw off readers who are just looking for a straight forward true crime thriller. However, that grief story line is really crucial to establishing reasons for why our main character makes, and continues to make, the decisions that she does throughout the book which are, admittedly, choices that may have some readers screaming at the pages as they read.

This book has a lot to say about true crime culture and the ways in which we, as a society, obsess and glamorize these big headline crime cases. I really enjoyed getting such varied perspectives on the topic as the author makes it a point to stay very neutral and paint a picture of the topic from all sides and players. I will say, things unravel with spectacular speed at the end of the story and I was flipping through the pages as fast as my fingers and my eyes would allow me. I also really appreciated how the structure of the story allowed the author at the end to walk us through all the breadcrumbs that had been left throughout the story without it feeling like a monologue or an info dump. I'm also a hoe for footnotes so do with that what you will.

I would say that this could be another one of Ashley Winstead's divisive books in the same vein as Midnight is the Darkest Hour because she certainly took some risks with this book and it may not pay off for all readers but I absolutely loved it. Ashley Winstead remains an auto-buy author for me who hasn't missed yet.

This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead is a true-crime based novel.

"Jane is reeling from the death of her father. She turns to a true-crime forum and becomes immersed in the idea of helping. Her legwork on a prominent case gets her invited to join a long-standing group. Murders of several college students take them all to Idaho. Things don't add up and they believe they're searching for a killer that's smarter than any they've seen before. And it feels like they're walking into a trap."

This story is told from Jane's POV as if she's writing a book about what happened with her and the group as they worked to solve the crime. Jane even shares some things the lawyers tell her not to. This book is longer than Winstead's other books, but the pacing is very good.
Jane is a morally gray character (You expect that from Winstead) She's willing to do whatever it takes to find evidence - she lies...a lot.
There's a big twist at the end. You may guess what's coming but it's just a guess. Interesting ending.
Be sure to read Winstead's response to using a real-life case.

Another good story from Winstead.

This Book Will Bury Me is an incredibly difficult book for me to review. In this fictionalized take on true crime, Jane Sharp returns home from college after losing her father and is drawn into the world of online sleuthing. When her efforts help to bring justice for a murdered woman, a group of “expert” amateur sleuths take Jane under their wing. As Jane beings to bond with this group through regular video chats, a shocking tragedy takes place at a college in Idaho when three sorority girls are murdered in their home. The group decides to travel to Idaho to investigate the murders on the ground, but will their interference in the case do more harm than good?

This was my first Ashley Winstead novel, and I understand that it’s very different from her previous books, but I really enjoyed her writing style. Fans of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, True Crime Addict and other true crime memoirs will likely recognize the intimate style that Winstead employs for Jane’s first-person narration. This is a book that’s as much about Jane’s personal grief journey in the wake of her father’s death as it is about the crimes she investigates. It’s raw and poignant. In her author’s note, Winstead shares that she recently lost her own father, and it’s clear this was an intensely personal book for her to write. Although it’s long, I was completely engrossed in Jane’s world the entire time, and I really liked how Winstead engaged with the way crimes are sensationalized in both the media and in the online true crime community. And although other readers have indicated that they saw the twists coming, they took me completely by surprise, and the way everything played out was satisfying.

But the issue I had, which took this five-star read down to three stars for me, is this: It made me feel incredibly icky how close the crime at the center of this novel follows the real-life University of Idaho murders in 2022. There are way too many similarities to that case – a case which is not yet even resolved – and that in itself feels sensationalistic to me. Winstead could have changed a number of things – the state, the specifics, the victim demographics, a hundred other things – but she didn’t. This feels too close and too soon, and I couldn’t help but think about the victims’ families and how they’d feel if they read this. While Winstead was respectful of the fictional victims in this book, fictionalizing their deaths feels disrespectful to the real victims. This is a well-executed true crime thriller, but it’s too clearly inspired by real events for me to fully recommend it. Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for the early reading opportunity.

Thank you netgalley for the chance to read this!
First and foremost, I'm surprisingly NOT a true crime junkie, given I have an advanced forensics degree. But this book was very gripping from the get go, maybe because its ripped-from-the-headlines, or maybe just from the way Janeway narrates her story. This is told as if its the narration of an autobiography, as we learn how Jane comes to term with her grief by diving headfirst into a triple-homicide with a group of online 'sleuthers'.
I loved that the epistolary style of her narration made it clear that there was always more to the story: it led to a huge amount of foreboding as we moved from solving 1 outstanding crime to looking at a serial killer. I really enjoyed the other characters: Liberty, Mistress, Citizen, and Goku, who learned about from so many different lenses throughout the story. You almost get this feeling like you are meeting them with grief-stricken Jane and with learned retrospective Jane, and that duality is really intriguing.
As a forensic scientist, I thought the case was great. Sure, it's based loosely on a real story and I think based on reviews that bothered people, but I honestly really enjoyed the attention to detail on case-solving, forensics, and profiling. I won't lie, I figured out the 'twist' pretty early, but I thought it was really well handled and still really satisfying, even if I had it nailed.
This is a really enjoyable twisty thriller!

This book buried me all right - and not in a good way.
It wasn't terrible but it just wasn't good. It was slow burn but the kind of slow that was excruciating and painful.
And then to find out it paralleled a real case so closely just didn't sit well with me.
Something felt off and now it makes sense.
2.5 stars (and that's generous)

This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead is a medium paced thriller that shows just how dangerous things can get when you obsess over them. Janeway (Jane) is reeling from the unexpected death of her father, when she learns of a local woman whos chopped up body pieces turn up in a lake not far from her house. From this point forward, her life is never the same. Jane dives into the all consuming world of true crime and quickly finds herself teaming up with an online group of other true crime fans to take matters into their own hands and solve one of the biggest true crime stories of the decade.

This book overs a very interesting look into the true crime groupies you can find anywhere online, including Reddit, and how obsessed some of these people can get over finding the truth. I will be honest, I did not like the main character, but I feel that is supposed to be how the story plays out. Her and her ragtag team of detectives constantly over step boundaries in order to pursue their own agenda and self assured-ness in order to feel some type of way about solving a case. I know some people were knocking this book for Winstead's use of the Idaho Murders and how similar her book is to the real life case. I actually enjoyed her portrayal of the case, and how people on the internet went nuts over it, and completely obsessed over it. I think she mixed in some elements from other famous cases into it as well, so it wasn't an exact rip from the headlines.

All in all, I thought this book really put into perception how viral cases can get now a days, due to the number of true fan fanatics, and outlets for sharing information, It shows what can happen when someone looking for an escape gets obsessed with an outlet to the point they cannot control themselves anymore and the dangers of true crime fanatics.

This book is going to be controversial. Like 2023's Bright Young Women (which I loved), it uses as its foundation a real crime story. Kind of. The difference is, the story this book is based on is still working its way through the courts, not nearly half a century in the past. And This Book Will Bury Me goes far beyond the inspiration case, using it as a starting point, not the entire plot.

Honestly, it's a little bit unsettling to me to use the University of Idaho murder that took place only a few years ago as inspiration. The families of the victims are still waiting for justice for their loved ones and it's all just so very fresh. And yet… the book is good. Damned good.

This Book Will Bury Me gives commentary on the ethics of true crime and armchair internet detectives without being preachy. And it's full of twists and turns that, to be fair, are sometimes a little obvious, but that I still found captivating.

Four stars for this engaging, thriller of a read that I had a hard time putting down once it got going.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

I can understand why some found this book exploitative of the recent Idaho murder case of three college students, however, I found it an enjoyable work of fiction focusing more on internet sleuths than a true crime story.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Tantor Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the latest book by Ashley Winstead, with the audiobook wonderfully narrated by Leslie Howard. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars!

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Janeway Sharp heads home to grieve with her mother. She becomes obsessed with true crime and soon becomes part of an online armchair detective group, finding purpose and friendship. When three college girls are killed in Idaho, Jane and her friends are determined to solve the crime.

Ashley Winstead has once again created a book that you’ll have a hard time putting down, especially if you are obsessed with true crime (and who isn’t?). This book, told in a story-in-a-story format, will pull you into the hunt for a serial killer. It will have you thinking about the online true crime obsessives – good or evil or somewhere in between? It’s also a story of grief and trying to come to terms with losing someone we love.

I simply could not get through the first 100 pages of this book unfortunately. I was so excited about it...

One thing about Ashley Winstead—she never writes the same book twice. Every time I pick up one of her books, I have no idea what I’m in for, and I absolutely love that. This Book Will Bury Me is no exception—a fictional true-crime-inspired thriller, that will take you on a psychological deep dive. It’s dark, unsettling, and utterly addictive.

I loved the way this book played with format—Jane’s story is interwoven with chapter notes and commentary, giving it an almost documentary feel. I originally read the ARC on my Kindle but plan to grab a physical copy because it’s the kind of book where you want to absorb every little detail. I would also be interested in listening to the audiobook to see how the characters were meant to sound.

Told as a book within a book, the story follows Jane Sharp, a college student reeling from her father’s unexpected death. She finds solace in amateur sleuthing, but when a gruesome murder case grips the internet, she and her crime-obsessed friends get pulled into something far more sinister. The story unfolds in hindsight, with Jane narrating a year after the case exploded. From the start, we know she has a lot to unpack—Winstead teases a big reveal, and I felt the payoff was worth it.

I get why this book is controversial—it pulls inspiration from real-life crimes, which will always spark debate. But the best books often do. Winstead doesn’t just tell a story; she examines our cultural obsession with true crime and what it does to us.

On a personal note, Jane’s grief over losing her father really hit home for me. Having lost my dad as a young adult and my mom more recently, her emotions felt raw and real in a way that added another layer of connection. It wasn’t lost on me that this was also a partial love letter to a lost father.

This is my fifth Ashley Winstead book, and she’s officially five for five. Bold, unexpected, and impossible to put down—if you love thrillers that challenge the genre and keep you guessing, This Book Will Bury Me is a must-read.

Thank you Sourcebooks, Net Galley and Ashley Winstead for this ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

It’s a yes for me! 🖤

DeAnn @deannsreadingriot

1⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced copy of This Book Will Bury Me.

After losing her father a woman becomes an internet detective and joins a group that likes to solve murders.

I feel like this book is in very bad taste considering it basically ripped off the Idaho murders. It honestly just gave me the ick while reading it especially since the case has not even gone to trial yet. Also the book was so hard to follow with all of the usernames and real names.

I’ve been hit or miss with Ashley Winstead books, but This Book Will Bury Me is a home run. It’s twisty, idark, and unpredictable, must-haves for me in a thriller. There’s a character in TBWBM that I think everyone can identify with, which is why I predict it will be in beach bags everywhere this spring and summer. Even if true crime isn’t your thing, this peek behind the dark side of sleuthing is so entertaining!