Books to read in winter

I’m here today to share some books that I think are the perfect read to curl up with this winter season. This winter seems especially cold and if you are stuck inside due to snow or just no desire to brave the cold temperatures these books will fully immerse you into their stories while you sip on your hot beverage of choice. Or, perhaps, you are on the other side of the world and are craving the reprieve cold weather will bring to your hot summer and are in the mood to check out some frigid reads.

My thoughts: If you have been around here for awhile then you know that I am not a big fan of how this book ended (because it had a good ending spot and yet went on for another fifty or so pages) but I still think Ruth Ware nailed the claustrophobic feeling that being snowed in can elicit. Disclaimer: I have never been snowed in so I’m only assuming that the feeling is similar.

Synopsis:

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

My thoughts: I only gave this book three stars when I read it a couple of years ago but when I think of books that would make a great weekend read this one comes to mind. I’m not a huge fan of young adult fantasy but the world that Christelle Dabos created is fascinating and the strongest part of the story.

Synopsis:

Long ago, following a cataclysm called “The Rupture,” the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands. Known now as Arks, each has developed in distinct ways; each seems to possess its own unique relationship to time, such that nowadays vastly different worlds exist, together but apart. And over all of the Arks the spirit of an omnipotent ancestor abides. 

Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls. Beneath her worn scarf and thick glasses, the young girl hides the ability to read and communicate with the souls of objects, and the power to travel through mirrors. Her peaceful existence on the Ark of Anima is disrupted when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan. Ophelia must leave her family and follow her fiancée to the floating capital on the distant Ark of the Pole. Why has she been chosen? Why must she hide her true identity? Though she doesn’t know it yet, she has become a pawn in a deadly plot.

My thoughts: This book is set a research center in Antarctica during the winter and you don’t get more isolated than that. I read this last year and have been sitting on my review for it which I will try to put up next week but this is a locked room type mystery that I think a lot of people will enjoy. The first half of the book is all set up though but once you get past that the plot moves at a pretty good pace.

Synopsis:

ONE DEAD BODY
TWELVE SUSPECTS
TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR DARKNESS

In the most inhospitable environment – cut off from the rest of the world – there’s a killer on the loose.

A&E doctor Kate North has been knocked out of her orbit by a personal tragedy. So when she’s offered the chance to be an emergency replacement at the UN research station in Antarctica, she jumps at the chance. The previous doctor, Jean-Luc, died in a tragic accident while out on the ice.

The move seems an ideal solution for Kate: no one knows about her past; no one is checking up on her. But as total darkness descends for the winter, she begins to suspect that Jean-Luc’s death wasn’t accidental at all. And the more questions she asks, the more dangerous it becomes for them all . .

My Thoughts: I’m sure you can tell by the cover that this is yet again another isolated snowy setting book. However, half of this book takes place in an isolated area in Scotland but the other half takes place in London and follows our potentially doomed couple’s marriage over time.

Synopsis:

Think you know the person you married? Think again…

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. 

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts – paper, cotton, pottery, tin – and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.

My Thoughts: This book differs from the others because it doesn’t have a wintery feeling although it does partly take place in an isolated forest. I put this book on the list because if the goal is to find a book that you can curl up with over the course of a weekend than you don’t get much better than one of the Wesolowski’s Six Stories books. This is the first in the series of 6 (maybe more) standalone books that use the podcast format to tell compelling and fast paced stories. I have read three of them so far and each one I struggle to put down because I just want to know what is going to happen next.

Synopsis:

1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an Outward Bound center. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who embarked on that fateful trip, and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby. 

2017. Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivaled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure. In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries’ mysterious death. As every interview unveils a new revelation, you’ll be forced to work out for yourself how Tom Jeffries died, and who is telling the truth.

~Cassie