This Book Will Bury Me is one of my most anticipated reads of 2025 and it did not disappoint, it will be on my favorites of the year list! It has all of my favorite things: true crime, a unique found family, obsession, a tell all book, well fleshed out characters that you feel like you know, & 5 amateur sleuths digging into the crime that is taking over the airways.

Jane Sharp is your average college student until the unexpected death of her father leaves her reeling. She stumbles upon a band of armchair detectives convinced that they can do it better. Here she finds her tribe, escapes her unbearable grief, and developed unlikely friendships while chasing down clues to solve unsolved cases. During this time a new case erupts onto the scene stealing everyones attention including Jane and her friends and they embark on solving the crime of the century.

This story is told in duel timelines of what happened a year ago surrounding the murders in Delphine, Idaho of the college girls and what Jane feels really happened being relayed to us present day. We get to follow our 5 amateur sleuths as they become just as obsessed with the case in Idaho as the rest of the country. It tells the story of both the good and the destruction that these individuals can have on a case, families and a town.

I loved everything about how this book was written. It was dark and compelling with every page pulling me deeper and deeper into the mystery. The characters are complex and layered. I felt truly invested in each and every one of them. Everything about this story is a slow build until the crescendo and I bet you will be surprised.

Thank you to NetGalley for gifting me with an ARC of this title for my honest thoughts and opinions.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley, Ashley Winstead, and Sourcebooks for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This Book Will Bury Me was told in such a refreshing and unique way—one I’ve never quite seen before. I really enjoyed the blend of mystery fiction and true crime storytelling, making for a gripping and immersive read.

Although I had a hunch early on about who was behind it all, the journey to the reveal still kept me engaged, and I loved the satisfaction of being right in the end. Beyond the mystery, this story also explored found family, healing from loss, and self-discovery, adding layers of depth that I truly appreciated.

If you're looking for a mystery novel that feels fresh and different, this is definitely one to check out!

Wow is all I can say. The way this book was written was something I have never read before. It was a fiction book written like a non-fiction tell all book, footnotes included! I was hooked from page one. It's character driven, makes you wonder what will happen next, and the plot twists you'll never see coming. I felt the pacing was a little off in Part 2 but otherwise I flew through this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC of This Book Will Bury Me for an honest review.

Quick thoughts on this one: I know you aren’t supposed to compare an author’s other books to each other because each is a stand alone and should be judged on its own merits blah blah, but I’ve had such wildly varied opinions on the other books by Winstead that I’ve read that it was on my mind. This was solidly middle of the road for me. I found it a bit predictable, and it was too long so parts dragged. I also didn’t understand the “legacy” theme she was going for. But the writing was sharp, the atmosphere was palpably tense, and I was sucked in by the premise. So while it may not have knocked it out of the park for me, I still found this engrossing and I’d say it is worth the read.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for this ARC. This Book Will Bury Me is our 3/25

3.5/5

“If you’re reading this, chances are last year you flipped on the news and saw me getting shoved to my knees in the dirt, hand wrested behind my back, gun-toting FBO Agents swarming like ants around me into that three-story house.”
Here are reasons to read the Thriller book:

Loss - After Jane loses her father tragically
Found - She find a new community on a true crime website
Solve - They successfully solve a crime, and the 5 of them join together to take on a mass killing of some sorority girls.
Chase - Then they decide the chase is on to meet and figure it out, but their methods may not be enough to excuse the end results

After loving In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, I had been waiting for a book that I would love as much as that one. It’s almost 500 pages but once you get into the main story, it’s so very fast paced. I could not really put this book down, and was fascinated by their dynamic and the way they encountered clues. The main character is really driven by grief and as such, finding a community to replace it is one of the biggest themes here. However, I was not aware that this book is based on a real case that took place in 2022, and it’s still being tried. This made me feel a little bit weird after the fact, but I don’t know if this is to bring more light to the case or if it’s taking advantage. As a story, I enjoyed it though.

We've all been chasing the high of IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE since it was published, but Winstead's mystery/thriller books since then have been a bit different. I've honestly skipped both of them for various reasons. This book, however, called to me - it felt closer to what I was looking for from her. While I don't think you should come into it hoping for another IMDIHAK, I was definitely not disappointed.

The story does read like a true crime book and breaks the third wall. Our narrator, Jane, is writing a memoir of her time working with online amateur sleuths to help solve a triple homicide on a college campus. (Winstead's authors note does mention that she took inspiration from a lot of real cases including the Idaho murders - it's incredibly similar to that case.) She's "setting the record straight" with her own book, as others close to the case have written tell-all books that, according to her, are not accurate portrayls of the case and her involvement.

We follow Jane in the wake of her father's unexpected death. She finds solace in an online community (think Web Sleuths) and quickly falls in with a group of them: Mistress, Goku, Lightly, and Citizen. The group helps solve a case local to Jane and soonafter, the Idaho murders take place on a college campus. They mobilize in more ways than one and become intwined in the case in ways absolutely no one expected.

(...except for me, as the reader. I was pretty quickly able to figure out what was happening.)

This book reminded me of BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN and I'd recommend it to people who loved it like I did - it has the same "true crime" feel and slow thriller energy. Despite the pace being slower in that way, I couldn't put it down. I read it poolside on vacation in Disney and again when I returned home, getting creeped out late at night in bed. I really liked having this gateway into Jane's brain as she solved these crimes and also figured out the mystery of her father's life, uncovering things she and her mom never knew about him.

I wanted to give this five stars but the predictability was a bit too much for me. Like I said, I figured out the whodunnit part and had lots of suspicions throughout the story. There were a few things in there that I wasn't sure were necessary either.

I think literary mysteries are definitely for me - THE GOD OF THE WOODS is another one kind of like this. It's not fast-paced and thrilling like many thrillers can be, but there's still a pull for me to figure it all out and keep reading. Overall, I'd highly recommend this one if you liked one or both of the books mentioned here. Don't expect a return to Winstead's early style but you will get a complex character study along with the mystery/thriller elements.

This Book Will Kill Me was a solid read with an intriguing premise, but I just don’t fully connect with Ashley Winstead’s writing. The tension and mystery kept me engaged enough that I wanted to finish, and I liked the dark academia vibes, but something about the execution didn’t completely land for me. It wasn’t bad by any means it's just not quite my style. A decent 3.75 star read!

This Book Will Bury Me has an attention-grabbing opening chapter that captured me right out of the gate. Unfortunately, my struggles with the story began shortly after.

Jane's story engaged me from the beginning. Her story, the why of how she was pulled into an obsession with true crime, framed her involvement and investment in a believable way that I needed to follow until the end. The sections focused on Jane, her father, and her personal story were my favorite parts of this book.

I'm sometimes uneasy with the current true crime obsessed culture, and this book illustrated some of the areas that most disturb me. I'm not comfortable with how heavily this story borrowed from the recent University of Idaho murder case.  It feels way too soon to be borrowing details from that tragedy for a fictional book.

This story felt like a mashup of a more graphic cozy mystery and true crime. I struggled with this genre combination. The clash of true crime, which normally has a realistic feel, and amateur sleuths with endless, very convenient resources kept pulling me out of the story. I couldn't settle into the make believe world of online sleuths saving the day or the more gritty, realistic world of true crime and this had a big impact on my ability to get caught up in the suspense and tension of the mystery.

Overall, I enjoyed parts of Book Will Burt Me, but there was also quite a bit with which I struggled. Fans of her past books should still give this one a try as it may work better for other readers than it did for me.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley and for providing me with a copy to read and review.

I don’t know where to start with this one. As an avid fan of Ashley Winstead’s thrillers, I was understandably very excited to pick this up. So confident that I was going to read it and love it that I didn’t even bother to read the synopsis beforehand, so I can definitely say I was surprised when I saw many reviewers criticizing the use of a real murder case (where the suspect has not yet been sentenced) in this fictional story.

I was suspicious at first, but having been provided with an early copy, dove right into the book anyway. This Book Will Bury Me follows main character Jane, a 24 year old college student, as we come to learn of her father’s sudden death. Jane moves back home with her mother, eventually withdrawing from school as she works through her grief. Jane soon finds herself caught up in the world of true crime forums, becoming a vital part of an amateur crime solving team. After helping to catch the murderer in the local death of an older woman, Jane and the group move onto bigger and better things: a high-profile case gaining media attention involving multiple homicides of three sorority girls living at an off-campus house.

To some people, this might sound similar to something you’ve heard of before - the Idaho 4, the Idaho college murders, the King Road killings, etc.
Winstead states at the beginning of the book in an author’s note that she has borrowed from many real life cases and became inspired to make this book from multiple true crime cases, but there is a large number of things borrowed from this exact case, which did occur in late 2022, and, as mentioned, at the current moment, the suspect has not yet been sentenced.
In the book, and the real case:
-Three sorority girls are murdered in the early morning hours at their off-campus rental home
-The girls were known to host many college parties at this home
-Real house address: 1122 King Road
Fictional house address: 8022 Queen Lace Ave
-Before the killings, the girls had been out at a bar and visited a food truck before returning home
-The killer entered the home through a sliding glass door and used a fixed-blade knife as the murder weapon
-There was another roommate in the home who was awake during the killings, and stated seeing the killer leave the home afterwards
-One of the victims was reported calling her ex boyfriend multiple times before the murders occurred
-Due to this, the police and internet crime solvers honed in on the ex boyfriend leading to next level harassment which has had a permanent impact on him
-The main suspect is a criminology student
And many more small details, even down to the fact that two of the girls were killed while in bed together - the family said this small detail has provided them some comfort in their grieving process, knowing that the two best friends had each other in their last, frightening moments, and Winstead goes as far as to use this quote in her book:
“I’m grateful they had each other, at least. She wasn’t alone.”

Taking inspiration from various crime cases is one thing, but having the main focus of your fictional story be nearly identical to a real murder case is not a good look. Though I’m biased to love anything Winstead puts out, I have to be honest with myself about this one. This is a similar issue I had with “Bright Young Women” where trying to bring attention to the victims has the opposite effect, shoving the truth of what these women faced further into the shadows, and comes off as disrespectful to the victims and their families.

Aside from this main issue, the pacing was totally off in this book. This was nearly 500 pages and had absolutely no reason to be that long. The story has a very slow buildup, but I think a good bit could have been cut out and the result would be the same. In addition, I didn’t find the actual plot of this to be very gripping or extremely compelling. Maybe if you are a fan of true crime and following the process of catching a killer, this might be more enjoyable to you.

I enjoyed the examination of internet sleuths and the negative side to true crime content, but overall, this was a flop for me. I am so sad because I don’t think I’ll be able to recommend this book due to the moral debate of creating a fictional crime that very closely resembles a real case, including specific details.

Ashley, I’m sorry, I still love your other thrillers and will patiently be awaiting the next one, but we’re gonna pretend this one doesn’t exist 😭

I have read multiple books by Ashley Winstead and enjoyed them. This one was good but I also think the premise for me was too closely related to the 2022 Idaho student murders.

If you are familiar with the case this story was a bit predictable with a few other details added. I liked the way this was written following one of the internet sleuths and how the final plot lines unfolded. The book is better if you read it from a fictional standpoint and not a factual standpoint.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3.75 rounded up!

After Jane's father dies suddenly, she longs for a distraction from her grief. Like so many of us, she becomes enthralled with true crime (but she takes it way farther than I'd ever want to lol) and she becomes friends with a group of armchair detectives who show her the ropes on how to hunt serial killers from afar.

Hundreds of miles from where Jane lives in Florida, three college girls in Idaho are viciously murdered and Jane and her found family take it upon themselves to do anything they can to solve the case.

I really liked this! I'm a huge fan of Ashley's work and this didn't disappoint. I think some people found this to be a slow start but I was pretty entranced right away. Short chapters, easy to read: I'm in! Plus, I love process. I loved following Jane and her friends around figuring out who the killer was. I wasn't super surprised who it ended up being, but I definitely didn't clock it early on.

Read if you love: true crime, found family, murder mysteries

I highly recommend! Especially if you're a fan of Ashley's previous work. I was SO honored to get an advanced copy from the publisher and Netgalley. Thank you so much!

I was so excited to read this, but knowing that it’s very closely based to the Idaho 4 murders which is still an ongoing and tragic case seems very disrespectful. I simply can’t in good conscience read this or recommend.

3.75 Stars

A super fun and thrilling ride!

After her Jane Sharp's father passing away unexpectedly, she is grieving and in need of an outlet. She buries herself in true crimes stories leading her to hunt killer from behind the keyboard. This will prove to be the only the start. When 3 colleges girls are murdered, Jane and her detective friends are in race against everyone else to solve the murders.

Wow! This book Will Bury Me was such a wild ride! I love true crime stories so I grabbed this ARC so fast! I kept a close watch on the Idaho murders and this book was very similar - I could not put it down. There were so many twists and turn, gory at times, but overall a fantastic read. Broken into 3 parts, I was never bored even the book was lengthy. The ending is wild, I did not see that one coming! I enjoyed Ashley's writing, this was my first book by her but it will not be my last. If you are looking for a fun and thrilling ride, I definitely recommend This Book Will Bury Me!

Note: Off page animal abuse.

OH MY GOD. This book was unputdownable for me. From page one, I was hooked and I felt like I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I liked the look at armchair detectives, the advantages/disadvantages they can bring to an investigation and also the look at which victims get more attention from law enforcement and the media and why. I think anyone who enjoys true crime will get an absolute kick out of this book. I loved Jane as the MC and loved how she was searching (you’ll find this funny later) for her own answers about her father while she was investigating the murders. I will say this, I figured out the twist before it was revealed, but even so, I was still on the edge of my damn seat because IT IS A GOOD ONE. As it was clicking in my brain, I was so excited to see if that’s where it was going and guys, once it starts going, WOW. It was such a ride. Trust me, read this one as soon as you can.
CW: violence, murder, mentions of sexual assault, mentions of animal death

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmarked for an advanced digital reader’s copy!

y favorite book yet by Winstead. My reading has slowed down a ton since having my baby girl, but I finished this one in just three days, which says a lot! Definitely one I could not stop thinking about when I wasn’t reading it. The suspense, pacing, online dialogue/Internet chats – all it was so very entertaining. I did not see the big twist coming, which I enjoyed highly recommend! More thorough review coming soon on IG.

This was a very good read. I love every book I have ever read by Ashley. It was a slow burn, which is not what I usually love. A little different than her others BUT it was SO good. Had me hooked and I could not put it down.

Thank you Netgalley & Sourcebooks for the opportunity to read this ARC.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
**Engaging and Thought-Provoking**

*This Book Will Bury Me* by Ashley Winstead is a captivating thriller that blends dark themes with sharp commentary on the obsession with true crime. The story follows Jane Sharp, a college student drawn into the world of online sleuths after her father’s mysterious death, leading her down a dangerous path. Winstead’s writing is gripping, and she masterfully builds suspense throughout the novel. The characters are complex, and the exploration of online detective culture adds an interesting layer to the plot. While the pacing slows a bit at times, the book remains an intriguing and well-crafted read for fans of psychological thrillers.

This book fell short for me and I can't pinpoint exactly why. I related to the main character in many ways, loved the premise of the story, and continue to recommend Midnight is the Darkest Hour. The twists were there, the psychology, the layout with the online dialogue, "chef's kiss" However something fell short of me loving it. Maybe it was the main character repeatedly reminding us about the previously written book, maybe I guessed the red herring too quickly. Overall This Book Will Bury Me is recommendable for me, just not one of my favorites.

"This Book Will Bury Me" is an addictive and compelling thriller/murder mystery. From the first chapter, I was utterly hooked. I am such a huge fan of the amateur sleuth and true crime tropes, so I couldn't wait to read this one. The story started off so strong and fast-paced, and I absolutely devoured Part One. It got a bit slower after that, and I wasn't really sure how to feel about the "ripped from the headlines" plot. The book is also quite long, and I think a couple of the subplots could have been eliminated without taking away from the main storyline. Regardless, I couldn't put it down and stayed up way too late to finish reading it. The twists were surprising and well-done, and the characters were so endearing. I would love to see Jane's fellow sleuths get a book of their own. Overall, an entertaining thriller that true crime fans will love.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this one---started out slower for me, maybe because there was less romance than I am used to but the last 30% or so I could not put the book down and even had trouble sleeping. SO good!