I was up and down and up and down on this one. I loved the premise of losing her dad and finding her way into true crime. I was also a fan of the internet group trying to solve crimes.

It was a little slow for me and I had never heard of the real life case it is based on, which is all on me, but made it so I didn't have the connection to the story others might have.

Maybe with a little more action and a little less information on the crimes, I would have been all in.

Leslie Howard did a good job narrating this and working with the story to bring the crime and intensity to life.

Let’s start with addressing the elephant in the room. Winstead has been under scrutiny over her use of details from a real crime that occurred in Idaho - the murder of a sorority girl. I wasn’t familiar with the case until looking into this book and I will say there are a lot of details taken from the real case. It just felt lazy to me. This author has written other novels in the genre and hasn’t felt the need to pull heavily from real tragedies so why start now? She could have easily kept the whole plot fictitious especially since the story deviates from the real one quite heavily as the book goes on. It’s borderline disrespectful to the victims and their families and ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth.

Outside of the controversy, I had multiple issues with the book. It was just way too long. There was loads of extraneous detail that might be interesting to a die hard true crime fan but did little to move the story forward. I enjoyed the ending and the final twist but getting there was a slog. I also didn’t love the memoir format. I forgot multiple times that we were supposed to be reading our character’s memoir since there were large gaps between references. I think die hard true crime fans would enjoy this but I think there’s better options out there to scratch the itch.

I love Ashley’s writing and her books always entertain me! It’s hard to not compare her books but this one didn’t hit like her others. I figured out the murderer really on and that was kind of disappointing. But none the less I was still entertained.

I’ve enjoyed Ashley Winstead’s previous novels, but this one was way more emotional. The story follows Jane, a woman grieving the recent loss of her father. She turns to true crime as a way to cope, and what starts as a distraction quickly becomes an obsession. Jane is lost and hurting, and you can feel her grief on every page.

As Jane gets deeper into the world of true crime, she meets others online who share her passion. And slowly, these people become her chosen family. It was emotional watching her form real connections and find purpose again.

When Jane and her new friends start investigating a recent murder, the tension builds fast. The search for the killer is intense and had me completely hooked. It felt like I was on the hunt with them. Every clue and every wrong turn made my heart race.

This book wasn’t just about solving the murders. It was about Jane’s emotional journey and her grief. And there’s something really powerful in the way the book explores loss and the ways we try to make sense of it. If you’re looking for an emotional read that is full of tense moments, this is a great pick.

This was my first book by Ashley Winstead, and although I’d heard mixed things about her earlier work, This Book Will Bury Me instantly drew me in. It’s a dark, twisty, slow-burn thriller that not only delivers suspense but also smartly critiques the culture of online true-crime obsession. The story follows Jane Sharp, a college dropout haunted by her father’s sudden death, who finds a new kind of family in a tight-knit online forum of amateur sleuths. What starts as an emotional distraction quickly spirals into a deep, dangerous dive into murder cases—especially when the group sets its sights on a high-profile triple homicide in Idaho, clearly inspired by the 2022 University of Idaho murders. Unlike some novels that fictionalize real tragedies without care, Winstead treats the case as a thematic backdrop rather than the book’s core, which worked well for me.

What really sets this novel apart is the unique mix of character dynamics and internet sleuthing. Jane and her quirky crew—a retired cop, a tech whiz, a librarian grandmother, an ex-army investigator—feel like an oddball found family bonded by grief and obsession. Their parasocial connections and fractured motives made for a compelling, layered ensemble. It was entertaining, well paced and I couldn't put it down

The narrator did a good job in impersonating all the characters, and her voice drew me to the story even more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Media for the ARC!

This Book Will Bury Me is a great slowburn thriller. The FMC has lost her father and afterwards drops out of college and joins a true crime society online. There she tries to solve different cases and is welcomed by virtual strangers. They became a tight-knit family even though they've never met in real life. Our FMC has an own true crime podcast and this was an element I really enjoyed. I'm a sucker for the multimedia aspect. The mystery part was interesting and made me second guess several people and decisions. The ending caught me totally off guard. The book had a good pace and had me biting my non-existent nails nervously at times.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

No one should be at all shocked that I absolutely LOVED this book. Ashley Winstead is truly a favorite of mine - I've loved nearly all of her thrillers and this was no different. She handles sensitive topics so beautifully such as internet friendship, grief, loneliness, and more. The biggest criticism I've seen of this book is how she used the Moscow, ID murders as a backdrop and PLEASE, seek out an interview with Ashley explaining her choice in doing so. I think she's received so much unnecessary flack for her choice.

This Book Willy Bury Me is dark, sad, medium-paced, fantastic on audio. It's absolutely worth the listen/read.

I know there is a lot of controversy around this book, and while I value those opinions, they did not take away from my experience with the book. Using a real and relatable story set in modern day was a bold move, but I don’t think it was a wrong move.

The story revolves around Jane, who upon losing her father becomes entangled with a group of people that do some amateur detective work on murder cases and find themselves in the middle of a dangerous situation. People who love true crime and devour true crime podcasts will love this book. Some parts moved a little slower, but the backstories of characters were well thought out and explained, and I think it helped the overall orchestration of the ending, which was left pretty open ended.

I love a buttoned-up story, but the questions remaining at the end really worked for this book. The audio worked well, narrator Leslie Howard fit the vibe of the book and made the audio flow well. Great fun

This Book will Bury Me is a psychological thriller about Jane Sharp and her team of amateur sleuths who meet on an online forum. After three college students are stabbed to death they decide to take on the case and travel to Idaho to investigate.
Great for fans of true crime who also consider themselves to be detectives. Unfortunately, I found the ending a little disappointing.

I've heard a lot about Ashley Winstead's books but hadn't read one yet, and she's a favorite of my daughter. So when I had the chance to listen to this one, I decided it was time. And I'm glad I did - apparently it's written a bit differently from her usual style, nevertheless it has me interested in reading more of her backlist. There's a lot going on here - how grief and depression can affect a person and lead them to do uncharacteristic things. The current obsession with true crime and how podcasts and social media can affect police investigations for better and for worse - and whether the good outweighs the bad. The internet in general - another cautionary tale, and not a bad thing because we never really learn, do we? Then there's also the relationship between parent and child - and whether what we think we know about our parents is entirely true. There's a lot going on in this story of a young woman who goes down a true crime rabbit hole after the sudden death of her father. And it leaves the reader with a lot to think about. I listened to the audiobook, and the narration by Leslie Howard was excellent.
My thanks to Netgalley and Tantor Audio for providing a digital copy for an unbiased review.

Wow.

Ashley Winstead blows me away every time. I feel like my eyes may fall out of my head while reading/listening.

This story was very close to the Idaho murders. I feel like it may be a little too soon to write that story or have someone benefit off that tragedy. It even takes place in Idaho!

Our main character, Jane, has faced some challenges and seems quite lost. Her father died and she’s having a hard time coping. She becomes obsessed with a murder case of 3 girls in Idaho. She joins online forums and it takes over her life. She even takes the sleuthing off the computer and hunts clues down in the real world. The forum really works hard and doesn’t believe the police are doing enough.

This did keep me on the edge of my seat & also left my jaw on the floor a few times. But I had a hard time getting past the Idaho reference. I watched that all unfold in real time. The killer hasn’t even been sentenced yet so this felt icky.

I was fully prepared to DNF this book around 30%, but I wanted to give a fully informed review.

The main plot point of this book is a fictionalized version of the "University of Idaho Massacre" that happened in Moscow, Idaho, in late 2022. When the case is first introduced, the facts are directly ripped from the real case, with some half-hearted name changes. The author then goes and creates a completely fictional second crime. With how much the second half of the book goes into the realm of fiction, this book could have been so much more palatable if Winstead simply made the crime happen in a different location. If she wanted to have 3 sorority girls stabbed to death, fine, that could be any crime, but keeping the setting as a small town in Idaho and making the university they attended Northern Idaho made the crime far too recognizable.

This book could have been a decent thriller and an okay commentary on the true crime community, police procedure, and mob mentality. The fact that she ripped off a recent crime that hasn't even finished going through the court system far overshadows any potential constructive conversations this book could have prompted.

A similar one-star review has been posted to Goodreads, Fable, and Storygraph.

Jane and several other amateur sleuths work to solve a crime. I could not stop listening! I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.

This book is a work of fiction based on true crimes inspired by the University of Idaho case. I really enjoyed the social commentary placed throughout this book regarding racism and how the police force dropped the ball by not acting quickly. This book also weaves elements of grief throughout the story, which serves as the MFC’s driving force for getting involved with a gang of amateur sleuths. I really appreciated how Ashley Winstead came full circle by answering the question of who wrote the story within the story and why it will “bury her.”

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the opportunity to listen to an Advanced Listener’s Copy (ALC) in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

I really wanted to like this book but unfortunately it was a miss for me. I don’t mind longer books but this one really seemed to drag. I enjoyed the true crime/online forum aspect of the investigation, but the characters didn’t seem real enough and I found it hard to believe they would have been given as much authority in the investigation that they were.

I know the author said she had taken inspiration from the Idaho 4 murders, but there were way too many similarities to the case and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was such an intriguing storyline. Jane is grieving her father's death and, as a way to cope, she links up with online true crime sleuths to solve other people's deaths. She never expects it to take over her life and her identity the way it ends up doing. I listened to the audiobook, which was so well done - it really brought the story to life. A great take on the armchair detectives that are so prevalent these days!

Creepy, compelling, and emotionally gutting in the most satisfying way—This Book Will Bury Me isn’t just a title, it’s a promise. Ashley Winstead delivers a slow-burning psychological thriller that burrows under your skin and refuses to leave. And the audiobook? Absolutely haunting.

Listening to this story unfold felt like being trapped inside a gothic ghost story and a grief-soaked confessional all at once. The narrator nails every twist of dread, every sharp edge of longing, and every slow revelation with a performance that’s both chilling and intimate.

Winstead masterfully blurs the line between past and present, truth and illusion. It’s lyrical and eerie, with that signature emotional depth she brings to every book. By the time the final chapter whispered through my headphones, I was emotionally wrecked—and somehow still begging for more.

3 stars.

I'm a big fan of Ashley Winstead and wanted to read this book so bad when I first met her in person at a book signing event. This was very different and I overall really enjoyed the story but it didn't stand out to me compared to her other books in the past.

What a ride! This book started out a little slow, but picked up the pace after a few chapters. Serial killers, internet crime sleuths, grief, friendships. Enjoyed this one quite a bit!

The story follows Jane Sharp, a grieving college student who finds solace in online sleuthing communities. When a series of brutal murders shocks the nation, Jane and her fellow amateur detectives dive into the case, uncovering disturbing truths that blur the line between justice and danger. Winstead's masterful storytelling combines suspense, emotional depth, and sharp social commentary, making this novel a compelling exploration of grief, morality, and the human fascination with crime. A must-read!