In the Winter Woods
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Declan Kensington isn’t really in the mood for Christmas. His latest mystery book sales are tanking, his finances are in a dismal state, and his spirits are anything but festive. Perhaps spending the holidays alone at his family lakeside cabin in the small village of Maplewood, Vermont, will provide him much-needed peace and quiet. Then he might finally get to work on a new book and (hopefully) jumpstart his stalling writing career. When he starts receiving anonymous letters threatening him to leave, Declan realizes his solitary writer’s retreat isn’t at all what he bargained for. And if the threats aren’t enough, a killer strikes, casting Declan in the role of the most likely suspect. Now it’s up to him and the handsome local Public Safety Commissioner Curtis Monroe to find out the truth before Declan spends Christmas (and the rest of his life) in jail. But as dead bodies pile up and dark secrets are revealed beneath Maplewood’s picture-perfect facade, Declan’s heart may yet be in more danger than his life…
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This is a murder mystery taking place in small town Vermont in the middle of winter. Declan, a well-known but declining writer running from NYC to try to get his next best seller out, is a bit of a snob. He spent his summers with his family at this cabin but now that both his parents have passed, the cabin is left to him and his sister and is Declan's last place to go with his money and fame running low.
Declan wasn't a character I really cared for and couldn't relate with. The central relationship was also a bit of an insta-romance with a small town cop-not-cop (with the writer jumping on recent anti-police rhetoric that hardly felt realistic for a small Vermont town). I found myself much more interested in solving the murder and felt Declan's self-insert into the investigation and the town's business was more annoying than helpful. I think Adler was going for a “Castle” (the TV show) type set-up but it fell flat.
There's also no more than a few stolen kisses in the entire book which made Declan's constant knobslobbering frustrating in the end.
This book might be interesting to readers just dipping their toe into M/M and interested in murder mystery plots, but those looking for a more intense experience will be disappointed.
It has some good ideas here and there, but they're never really developed because that's not what the story is about. The key moments seem to be a compendium of pre-cooked moments. I never really get to care about the mystery, the romance or the people in town. I was looking for a Christmas-set romance, I found it with an extra on thriller, and this book certainly delivered but, unfortunately, it was also a bit far for from satisfying.
