The Explanation:
I try to do a lot of themed reading. Not only does it help me get out of reading slumps, but it also helps me to get through books that I might not otherwise have picked up with any sort of quickness. So I’ve compiled a lil list of Winter Horror!
(I didn’t even watch that show. Or read the books. I tried – I just found the books intensely boring, and I don’t have HBO. But I love me some Sean Bean, and the message is appropriate. So there you have it.
Winter is imminent, so I’ve put together a Winter reading list. I’m going to roll with it throughout the season. So hopefully that won’t be too much pressure and will still allow me some time to go off script too. But who knows. 2020 has been a shit show of epic proportions so far, and I don’t imagine that will wind down too much in the coming months. With that said, maybe I’ll crack under the pressure – who knows?
Without further ado (because holy shit – there has already been waaaay too much ado, amirite), I present to you my Winter TBR which now includes brief synopses.
I am actually already reading one of these – you might notice the bookmark. But we’ll still go in order of appearance.
*Note: I will place Bookshop affiliate links for all books at the bottom of the post in case you want to pick any of them up, and help me keep the site in material while you’re at it.
First up is A Little Yuletide Murder. Did you know I’m a little obsessed with Murder, She Wrote? It’s true.
I have several of the books in this series, although not in any real order (I’m working on collecting them since I didn’t even know they existed until about 2 years ago). This is actually book 11 in the series.
Synopsis:
Jessica Fletcher is planning to spend a cozy Christmas in Cabot Cove. But when Rory Brent is found shot to death on his farm, there will be no peace on earth until his killer is found. Snooping into the small town’s past for a motive, Jessica is determined to deliver the killer before Christmas. The trouble is, the next sound she hears this silent night may be a scream—her own…
This is another series I own quite a few of. Have you read any Rizzoli & Isles? How about this – have you ever seen the show? I haven’t, but I think it’s on Hulu, so maybe I will some day! Anyway, I like this series quite a bit, and this one has been languishing on my shelves for a while.
Like most series I read, I’m woefully behind. But now – that name! It promises wintery feelings! See – I told you the themed reading thing works for me.
Synopsis:
In Wyoming for a medical conference, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles joins a group of friends on a spur-of-the-moment ski trip. But when their SUV stalls on a snow-choked mountain road, they’re stranded with no help in sight.
As night falls, the group seeks refuge from the blizzard in the remote village of Kingdom Come, where twelve eerily identical houses stand dark and abandoned. Something terrible has happened in Kingdom Come: Meals sit untouched on tables, cars are still parked in garages. The town’s previous residents seem to have vanished into thin air, but footprints in the snow betray the presence of someone who still lurks in the cold darkness–someone who is watching Maura and her friends.
Days later, Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura’s charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow. As horrifying revelations come to light, Jane closes in on an enemy both powerful and merciless–and the chilling truth about Maura’s fate.
Published in the UK as THE KILLING PLACE.
This one feels like the outlier. I’m pretty sure I tried reading it at lease once already since I bought it, and maybe even listened to it on audio, and just didn’t get into it. But try, try again. Oh, and did I mention it is 566 pages for some reason (I know I didn’t. I asked for dramatic effect).
I love the Laura Palmer-esque cover on it, anyway. But look – the AB series went off the rails a long time ago. I just keep buying them out of habit, I think. But, I am nevertheless reserving judgement for one more go.
Synopsis:
Anita Blake has the highest kill count of any vampire executioner in the country. She’s a U.S. Marshal who can raise zombies with the best of them. But ever since she and master vampire Jean-Claude went public with their engagement, all she is to anyone and everyone is Jean-Claude’s fiancée.
It’s wreaking havoc with her reputation as a hard ass—to some extent. Luckily, in professional circles, she’s still the go-to expert for zombie issues. And right now, the FBI is having one hell of a zombie issue.
Someone is producing zombie porn. Anita has seen her share of freaky undead fetishes, so this shouldn’t bother her. But the women being victimized aren’t just mindless, rotting corpses. Their souls are trapped behind their eyes, signaling voodoo of the blackest kind.
It’s the sort of case that can leave a mark on a person. And Anita’s own soul may not survive unscathed . . .
This is the one I’m already reading. Well, I’ve read the introduction, anyway. I’m really looking forward to it, as well as picking up the other 3 in the series!
Synopsis:
Victorian-era Christmas ghost stories are associated primarily with Charles Dickens and other British writers, but for this new volume, editor Christopher Philippo has discovered that the tradition of telling and publishing ghostly tales at Christmas flourished in the New World as well.
These tales are set in places that are familiar and yet foreign to us—Gold Rush-era San Francisco, old New Orleans, the barren and frozen plains of Iowa and the Dakotas, the early days of the Puerto Rican commonwealth. Like their British cousins, these stories make perfect winter reading by candlelight or the fireside. This selection includes more than a dozen rare tales, most never before reprinted, along with a number of macabre Christmas-themed poems, and features a number of contributions by women and African-American authors.
I don’t remember when I bought this, but it’s been here a long time. So…time to throw it in the mix!
Synopsis:
Be careful of the dark, dark wood…
Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.
Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.
But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.
For as long as there have been fairy tales, we have been warned to fear what lies within the dark, dark woods and in Winterwood, New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw, shows us why.
I paid $1 for this book at the Dollar Tree, and I am fully on board. I would have paid several more dollars based on that very promising synopsis!
Synopsis:
In the spirit of John Carpenter’s The Thing and Jacob’s Ladder comes a terrifying, icebound thriller where nothing is quite what it seems.
Badly battered by an apocalyptic storm, the crew of the Arctic Promise find themselves in increasingly dire circumstances as they sail blindly into unfamiliar waters and an ominously thickening fog. Without functioning navigation or communication equipment, they are lost and completely alone. One by one, the men fall prey to a mysterious illness. Deckhand Noah Cabot is the only person unaffected by the strange force plaguing the ship and her crew, which does little to ease their growing distrust of him.
Dismissing Noah’s warnings of worsening conditions, the captain of the ship presses on until the sea freezes into ice and they can go no farther. When the men are ordered overboard in an attempt to break the ship free by hand, the fog clears, revealing a faint shape in the distance that may or may not be their destination. Noah leads the last of the able-bodied crew on a journey across the ice and into an uncertain future where they must fight for their lives against the elements, the ghosts of the past and, ultimately, themselves.
I got this exclusive Thunderstorm Books edition in a Night Worms package a while back.
Synopsis:
Todd Curry wants nothing more than to spend Christmas with his son. But when a brutal snowstorm cancels his flight from Chicago to Des Moines, Todd and a few other stranded passengers decide to rent a Jeep and make the trip on their own.
During the drive, they pick up a man wandering through the snow, who claims to be searching for his lost daughter. He is disoriented and his story seems peculiar. Strangest of all are the mysterious slashes cut into the back of the man’s coat, straight down to the flesh…
When they arrive at the nearest town, it appears deserted. Windows dark, cars abandoned, fires burning unattended. But Todd and the rest of the travelers soon learn the remote town of Woodson is far from deserted, and they are being watched…and hunted.
It looks like Amazon or other aftermarket sellers is the only place you’ll be likely to find this one. It might be out of print.
