Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Fear of Winter

I liked it okay, but it didn't leave me feeling that great. It had a lot of triggering content (the self-harm scenes were too much for me, I had to skim through the text to avoid reading that in detail). It read a lot like a true crime series but without any particularly exciting twists. It was still very well written, I just personally like my thrillers to be a bit more surprising in what concerns the crime solving parts of the plot line. If you're a fan of Law and Order and the like, this might be for you

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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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emory's review

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dark sad medium-paced

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

2.75

Some of the best writing I've seen in my adventures through middle to low quality thriller books recently. It was especially refreshing to read a book with multiple POVs that was able to keep them distinct and the characters moving through independent investigations. It had a very nice flow and tone to it (although one of my complaints is that this tone, while compelling at first, never changes and grows a bit flat).

The plot itself is pretty decent (even if I found it a bit annoying to make the case a cold case but then have three different characters discover the culprit independently through three different extremely simple investigative avenues); however, it lacks the suspenseful turns of a gripping thriller and also the character interiority that drives a tragedy about grief. Since I'm not sure exactly which one this book is going for, I'm not sure which to be more disappointed about. Hannah's character shone through (I would assume the series will follow her investigations, with this installment serving as a bit of an origin story), but even in her segments of narrative, we're told her emotions bluntly and clinically rather than shown through actions or relayed with any kind of warmth. Though emotional turmoil makes up a large part of each character's story, both the narrator and the characters themselves talk about them in the same flat tone as the rest of the novel. The death of

the main investigator in the case had absolutely no emotional impact, trimmed of all detail or decorum

. It just felt empty and one note. Time and space are nebulous, with little description of any space the characters inhabit and random moments within a chapter that mention it has now been weeks or months worth of time since an event. I think if the story leaned a bit harder into its characters rather than formulaic thriller speak--the killer actually says "your precious Megan" at one point--it really couldve shined! I especially would've liked more focus on Hannah's OCD(?)(that isn't represented for once as a nagging desire to wash her hands and nothing else; it's a miracle, even if the depiction could've been better in other ways), or Tom's feelings of guilt over "causing" his daughter's disappearance. As it was, though, the characters felt a bit cardboard.

One last little reservation I have is a bit of an odd tone surrounding vigilantism and the PIs using aggressive tactics that cops cannot. It's nothing you won't see in a typical police procedural, but still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Overall I had my criticisms, but I did like the style of writing even with my reservations about the details it chooses to give or withhold. I wouldnt rule reading out more of the series.

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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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