Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Fear of Winter

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The Fear of Winter by S.C. Sterling

8 reviews

bearystarry's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

A very quick and time-passable read if you're into this type of thing, but definitely check trigger/content warnings before you pick it up. Also there were some mistakes that I think could've used editing, weird turns of phrase and typos and a few clunky sentences. I think the character POV switching was a little much at times, too.

Overall this was Fine for me. The characters are very trope-y and the plot is pretty typical.

The motive the killer gives at the end feels very... flimsy. Your dad is a cop so you have to die? Ok.

And the whole book had a kind of conservative air to me. But I do think it was very readable.

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kuritsahreads's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I won this book in a StoryGraph giveway. All opinions in this review are my own.

This was a very quick read that I enjoyed overall. The intrigue definitely had me turning the pages, as I tried to figure out how the different POVs connect to each other.

This is a very dark book, and I can't say that the ending left me happy. The book touches on a handful of topics in gloomy details, from self-harm to alcoholism to how families can fall apart after losing a child. After each reading session, the story weighed on me, but I must say that I like how to author described and navigated through these topics.

Two things I sadly did not enjoy were the POVs with time changes (I think ? There were 2 really bizarre passages about

Kevin

), as well as the first few chapters that felt like the author was trying to cram in as many American brands, bands and locations as possible. While naming all the roads and highways makes sense, I could have done without all the food brands and album names. I felt like I was reading a commercial.

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ziemia_do_nany's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

It was an amazing read! And I say it as a person who generally hates crime books!
~ I won it in Storygraph giveaway

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lavenderbtcpodcast's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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skillyillian's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

For starters, I won a digital copy of this book from a storygraph giveaway. It's not my usual genre, but I do like true crime, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The first thing I want to say is, holy shit, trigger warnings. Check the trigger warnings. Sexual assault and abuse, self harm, domestic violence, suicide, drug addiction, it's checking all the boxes. I didn't realize this would include graphic, detailed descriptions of someone self-harming, otherwise I probably wouldn't have read this. I skimmed those parts but it was very detailed. The same with someone committing suicide, and someone else contemplates it multiple times, considering multiple ways to do it.

The plot isn't bad, the writing is fine, but some stuff was oddly specific while other things were extremely vague. Every time music was playing, it was listed by specific songs, albums, and artists. Which is fine, other than it being the same 5-10 artists no matter who was playing music or where. But there were almost no actual character descriptions? Like we know Tom has a beard, but not his hair color? The best description we got of the murder victim was when her mother saw a missing persons poster at a liquor store, and it just said "hair: brown" etc and that was it. We know almost nothing about what these people look like.

It became clear pretty early on where the story was going and what had happened to Megan, but I don't think the author was going for some big, surprise plot twist anyway.

One thing I found odd was the way the POVs switched. Another reviewer said it would've been easier to divide the POVs into their own chapters, and I agree. Having eight long chapters feels unnecessary when you're switching characters every few pages. Another thing I found odd was that it was almost impossible at times to tell how much time had passed, or what day it was. For example:

Katie gets captured by Nathan and we find out she's been there for days, but when we go back to someone else's pov, it doesn't seem like days have passed, like it goes back and forth, instead of one clear timeline everyone follows.

Early on, Tom thinks Kevin Strand killed Megan, and after we hear about Kevin, it cuts to a summary of Kevin's career as a serial killer? And says something like "he would be executed x amount of time later" but why tell us Kevin's future? It would make more sense to let the reader wonder if it was Kevin, without us knowing what happens to him until later. Even then, I don't think Kevin's fate is relevant. We learn later when Tom interviews him that he's on death row and set to die, so why specify earlier? I feel like that could've been cut. But anyway, after that, we go back to another pov, and then back to Kevin, but it's Kevin's past, where he was burning a purse. Like, I guess, but?? Why in the past? And why not clarify that was in the past? We just had to use context clues to realize it was before Kevin was caught.

Anyway, overall this is fine? Not my favorite, the story didn't feel like it flowed super well. Minor details were very specific while important things were left too vague. Some things could've been taken out but they didn't necessarily ruin the story? But yeah, not my favorite.

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abbigirl97's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

It just feels sloppy and unfinished. The characters don't feel like real people, there are certain details given that don't add anything to the story. It jumps around pov's quite frequently and with no rhyme or reason. It felt very much like a first draft. And there's really no mystery. It's very obvious from the start what happened to Megan.

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knkayaktel's review against another edition

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1.5

what don’t they contact the freaking police? this book was confusing with many characters being focused on and most of them had no resolution. I’m embarrassed to say I wasted time reading this book. Check out the TW, it basically covers everything you could think of in such a short book.

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Finished reading: January 29th 2023

"Marshall believed lying was a skill, like playing the guitar - the more you did it, the better you became."

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by BookSirens and No Bueno Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

There was something about The Fear Of Winter that spoke to me immediately. I do love a good thriller with a cold case angle, and I was intrigued by the disappearance and the promise of secrets and a hidden second life. The Colorado winter setting was a bonus, and I fully expected to have a great time with this first book of a new series. Sadly, it turns out that it simply wasn't ment to be. Don't get me wrong, I still love the premise of The Fear Of Winter, but there were certain elements about the execution I simply couldn't get past.

Like I said before, I still think that The Fear Of Winter has a strong premise, and the cold case itself is fascinating. Megan's disappearance hardly left behind any clues, and you wonder how the truth will ever be unraveled... And this is where private detective Marshall and his assistant Hannah come in. Unorthodox methods indeed! I could really appreciate the investigation part of the plot, with the characters not being afraid to face danger and turn to less legal methods to discover the truth. There is also plenty of action especially in the second half of the story, helping speed up the pace which was surprisingly slow in the beginning.

BUT. And here comes were it went wrong for me... One of the main issues I have with The Fear Of Winter has to do with the writing style itself. The story uses a multiple POV structure, which I usually don't mind, but in this case there were just too many different POVs to juggle. On top of this, the switches happened too often within the same chapter (some POVs are hardly a page long before abruptly switching to the next POV), and this both slowed down the pace considerably and made it very hard to create a proper connection to the characters. It took me a long time to keep them all apart, and even after I did the short POVs and constant switches kept bothering me considerably. It just felt like I never got to spend proper quality time with any of them, which is a shame because some of the characters had potential.

As a direct consequence of the plot structure, I felt that I never got to know any of the characters in play well, and their development was mostly riddled with cliches and the most dramatic problematic private life and past possible. Every single one of the main characters had serious issues, which were constantly displayed in a graphic and over the top way... It just didn't feel credible and even bordering the tasteless line at times. I'm not sure how some of them are even functional or capable of investigating something with the state they are in... Trigger warnings are in place for topics including addiction, drugs, alcoholism, self harm, suicide, mental illness and abuse.

I did like how The Fear Of Winter tried to show how everbody grieves in a different way, and how losing someone close to you can affect you. I can imagine the 'not knowing' being even worse, and it eating at you while you desperately try to get answers... I could have done without the cheating angle though, and the consequent emotions displayed didn't feel natural at all either. At least the final part had a lot of action to spice things up a little, but as a whole it wasn't enough to redeem the story for me. I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy The Fear Of Winter as much as I thought I would... Which is a shame, because the premise did have a lot of potential.

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