Dead of Winter

Review to come.

Review here now.

So, this was fun enough. It wasn't great. But it wasn't boring. I was expecting supernatural, and it's more thriller. So there's lots of overthinking and paranoia and strange deductions because of the paranoia and overthinking. In the Rockies. In the winter. So major isolation thriller. Winter isolation horror is my catnip. This, again, was more thriller, but it was still fun and had some nice grue. I approve of the violent, horrible murders–fictionally speaking, I mean. Exactly what I wanted.

Basically, our hero Christa is traumatized and dragged on a winter trip by her boyfriend, whom she adores. There are 11 people plus the tour guide on the bus as it chugs through the Rockies. In the winter. In the snow. A tour bus. The Rockies. Yep. The road to their lodge ends up blocked by a big tree, so they all get out of the bus to see if there's anything to do about it. Whilst the tour guide is pondering the tree, Christa's boyfriend drags her on a walk. Along ledges. In the Rockies. In the winter. In a snowstorm. In enough feet of snow that when she falls, she's not broken to bits, just a bit sore and frost-bitten.

When she climbs out of the snow, her bf has disappeared. She manages to bungle to a cabin, where she finds the other passengers–but no boyfriend. And then people start dying. And decorating the big old pine outside like so many Christmas ornament glass orbs. Who is doing this? Why? And how can the survivors trust each other?

Christa, gods love her, just isn't that smart. She fits the traumatized thriller heroine to a T. She's not that interesting, but she's an all right person. The characters all feel fairly tropey, but they aren't cardboard cutouts. But there were a couple characters I could have told her from the very beginning she should trust. Her judge of character is lacking. Sure, maybe it's the circumstances, but I'd argue that she just isn't good judging people at all for her whole life.

Still, that sounds like I hate her. I don't. I was just frustrated by her thought processes. I quite liked some of the characters, like nice guy Hutch. He's actually pretty decent and datable. I also liked Denny, to an extent.

But adding to Christa's distress is not only the murders and murder displays, but the fact that her boyfriend has disappeared in the storm. Then...spoiler...they find his body, with an engagement ring in the pocket. Poor Christa cannot catch a break.

There's mistaken identity, gore, murder, improbabilities found only in thrillers, and some fun frozen isolation distress. No matter the flaws, this was a grand time. If you actually LIKE thrillers, you'll probably like this quite a bit. It goes down very easily, although some might balk at the Christmas ornament heads–but I'm a horror girl, so I like that.

Even for me, who reads thrillers and almost always hates them–with a few rare exceptions–enjoyed reading this. Probably because Ms. Coates can write horror too. My main issues are mostly because of the genre itself, not because of Ms. Coates. I think she succeeded with the expectations of the thriller genre. The horror elements I loved. The thriller elements will never be my favorite, but again, that's not her fault. She succeeded in characterization, mystery, and action. She succeeded in improbably thriller plot whilst juggling multiple characters.

There were a couple grammatical errors that would just need to be corrected. Nothing major. The main issue would be actual travel through the Rockies in winter. There are places where it's impassable. I'm guessing wherever this takes place would also be impassable. Even in New England, there were places growing up in the White Mountains where the roads would be closed for the winter, because travelling was too dangerous. You would legit need a Snowcat, just like in The Shining. Which is not what they had. I'm guessing they would never have made it as far as they did in the winter in a bus. So logistically, this doesn't work. Nor is it that easy to decapitate someone, drag their carcass through feet of snow to a whole new place, and shove their decapitated head onto a tree branch. But I like the visual.

So good for thriller fans. For this not-fan of thrillers, still incredibly entertaining. Goes down easy, provides some grue, reads fast.

Thank you to the publisher and author for providing a digital ARC in exchange for a fair review.