REVIEW: Dead of Winter (book) by Darcy Coates

Dead of Winter is horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Christa is trying to recover, emotionally, after an incident in her past that left her struggling with depression. She's in therapy, and she now has a wonderful and supportive boyfriend, Kiernan. Kiernan convinces her to join him on a two-week trip to the Blackstone Alpine Lodge to have the kind of winter experiences he grew up with. Christa suspects he's going to propose to her.

Unfortunately, the bus to the lodge encounters a tree on the road. While the group's guide, Brian, stops to try to deal with the tree, Christa and Kiernan wander off a bit. They don't intend to go far, but the weather soon becomes worse than either one of them expects. They're suddenly lost in the snow. Then they're separated, and the only one the tour group finds is Christa. The tree couldn't be moved, so everyone is now holing up in an abandoned hunting cabin.

Christa, who almost certainly has frostbite, desperately wants to go looking for Kiernan. Brian tries to humor her, but it's already too dark and visibility is just too bad. He tells her they can try again in the morning. Unfortunately, when morning comes, it's discovered that Brian has been beheaded - his head is in a tree near the cabin, and his body is nowhere to be found. 

Is there a murderer among the survivors, or is someone outside hunting them? As more people turn up dead, no one knows who can be trusted.

This was like a slasher movie in book form, and, although it wasn't amazing, I enjoyed the tension as Christa dealt with her own fragile emotional state and tried to survive. Everyone was literally trapped - there was no way to call for help, and no one had any idea how far away Blackstone Alpine Lodge was and if it was even possible to reach it on foot. Christa came across as extra vulnerable, what with her frostbitten fingers and whatever it was in her past that she was still struggling with.

This is one of those cases where the killer is nuts and you just have to accept it. It was a bit much for me, but I enjoyed the bulk of the book enough to want to read more of Coates' works.