Hello everyone! I am not great at review posting, and I am hoping to do a little better this year. I am going to try to post a mini-reviews post for every three books I read, and see how that works!

This book was my first book of the year, and it was absolutely perfect to begin with. It was mystical, magical, and full of mystery. The characters were so richly written, with so much insight and love, that they felt so real to me.

Carrie is a Morgan woman, and the Morgan women have always been able to harness the mountain and make it do their bidding. But for a price. Always a price. She left her small town in the mountains ten years before this story begins, and is returning, under the suspicious eyes of townsfolk. She has left people who loved her behind: Jess, her best friend; Cora, her great-aunt, and she has to face them as well as the town. She also meets the mysterious Matthieu.

This book feels so fey and atmospheric, with an edge of sadness and darkness. It is about love and sadness and friendship and sacrifice, and I felt so many things reading it.

One thing: One thing bothered me almost the entire book – I could not figure out where it was set! As an American reading it, it felt so Appalachian mountains region to me, but I knew that could not be right because the terminology was British, with takeaways and biscuits. Near the end I found something that pointed to it being set definitively in England and my brain settled down.

My first read, and my first five star of the year!

Dead Voices by Katherine Arden. I really enjoyed this one too! I am all about the snowed in trope, and this one that involved a haunted ski lodge/inn sounded right up my alley. This book is part of the Small Spaces series, and while it did have multiple points of view, the main character in this book was Coco. It was neat to see things from her perspective more this time, as the least brave of her trio of friends, comprised of herself, Ollie, and Brian.

This book was the perfect wintry read for January. I love a good ghost story, and this one had a few cool twists. Katherine Arden is a genius at creating an atmosphere and her middle grade is no exception. I could feel the cold creeping in at night, the darkness that comes all too quickly.

Great story that was a fun read on a chillingly cold day!

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates was my least favorite of the these three. It was not a bad book, but not quite the perfect thriller for me.

Let’s start with the good, because it did have a lot of good stuff. I felt like the characters were very interesting and well written, with fantastic back stories that all pulled in the way they were supposed to with the overall plot. The setup was really good too – a group of travelers on their way to a vacation, away from it all in the mountains, gets snowed in at a remote cabin – and then people start dying.

The not-so-good: Ok, skip this if you don’t want spoilers because it might be spoilery.

I figured out who the killer was almost immediately. Like within 50 pages. Then it felt like I was just following the clues through the book to confirm it, and to me the clues felt kind of obvious. I don’t say this like I am some great mystery solver either – I am no Miss Marple over here. The other thing was that the book sort of dragged out and became repetitive. It is pretty bad when gruesome murder feels repetitive but it did.

However, this book was not a terrible read. I really enjoyed the arc of the main character, as she navigates through what is happening. It just lacked a little subtlety, in my opinion.

I would give this one 3 out of five stars.

Have you read any of these? What did you think?