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.
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?
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.
I enjoyed curling up with a cozy blanket and a cup of hot chocolate for this one! I think anyone looking for a read that matches what you’d expect from the cover and title will be highly satisfied.
I loved how the author wrote, with the fast pacing, a very in-the-moment, spontaneous, almost fleeting style which I devoured in one sitting.
I liked the short time frame for this one, the straightforward descriptions, the ones used when something thrilling is going on and you can’t wait, speeding up your reading pace, and keep turning the pages.
I loved the ambiance created, the setting, being the snowy mountain, the plot, it was all perfectly aligned to tell such a great story.
I will say I did experience a little ambivalence at certain points, likely because I wasn’t really enamored right away. It actually took me a bit to get into it. I didn’t understand the details, the backstory, the relationships, and their little character quirks. I had a hard time keeping them all straight. I did receive an ARC, so it’s possible that a little rearrangement in between now and final publication could easily offer a little more guidance for readers like me.
And there was one, single line in the book that I just can’t anymore. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I know some of my fellow readers are going to cringe much like I did coming across it. My feelings, so strong about it, it’s all in good fun though, maybe it’s actually becoming a joke at this point.
There was a lot of conversation in the story. Perhaps for the setting, I would have enjoyed a bit more related to the ski activities themselves, as in depicting conversations about what makes good powder, something to that effect to add some more connection and common ground between the characters.
I wanted them to sit around the fire more to warm up, as in also warming up the story, and drink smooth French hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was mentioned of course, but maybe I would have been a bit more captured by the unfolding of scenes if there were more bonding experiences or times of reminiscence, memories, maybe some kind of internal conflict, or application of some stereotypical company team-building exercise, something like that to play into the lovely, yet mysterious scenery and actions a bit more.
Something where the characters, other than the main ones, were a bit more distinguished. To feel drawn to caring about them. And there were a lot of characters to care about, but maybe I would have liked them to be more identifiable, with traits. Traits that would have fed into the scene a bit, and into their dialogue, and to the way they went one by one accordingly. I didn’t expect a deep, emotional connection, but I wanted a bit more dimension to the plot from that standpoint.
The last 20-30 pages had more of this type of character development and I liked the ending as a whole as a result. And though I had my suspicions of the ending bit a little earlier on, it didn’t spoil the rest of the story for me, but, then when confirmed, I was pretty much ready to put the book down. So I suppose for those last few pages, the wrap up was a little lingering than it needed to be for my particular taste in the moment.
But even then it was all done very carefully which made for a very compelling read!
