Title: Cold Snap

Author: Lindy Ryan

Release date: October 15th, 2024

*Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the digital ARC of this one!*

How much do I sound like a broken record, when I mention that I love books that are set in the snow and involve creatures? Have you heard me say that before? If you haven’t, this must be the first review of mine that you’ve read! Because that’s every other book I read and every other book I write, ha!

And for those reasons, that’s precisely why I jumped at requesting this one on Netgalley and was super excited when I was actually approved! I’ve not read much of Lindy’s work, so I was looking forward to seeing what she’d conjured for this story of loss, coldness and isolation.

What I liked: The story follows Christine, and her fifteen-year-old son following the unexpected death of her husband, as they head to an isolated cabin. Her husband had booked the cabin for them for Christmas, prior to his death and Christine decides that they should still go there, and try to put some distance between them and the death and the house that no longer feels like home.

Ryan does a solid job of setting up the sorrow the duo feels, the trauma response Christine is having and just how remote and isolated the cabin is. She also sets up the guilt that Christine has coupled with the divide growing between her and her son perfectly. Christine believes her son hates her, and that he wished she’d died instead. And because of that, Christine plays the last moment of her husband’s life – before he slipped and fell from their roof – over and over in her head.

It takes a bit for the creature to appear, and when it does, Ryan takes a maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not approach. It makes for a very unnerving shadow aspect, one that you look forward to seeing again, and when the ending arrives, the true machination of its why is horribly revealed.

What I didn’t like: I’m firmly in the minority category on this one, but this novella says its for fans of The Babadook, and I actually didn’t mind the kid in that movie. I’m probably one of only a dozen in the world who can say that. So, when this story was linked to that one, I knew there’d be a similar aspect and in this case, it’s the fifteen-year-old. And while I didn’t mind that kid, the teenager here drove me bonkers with his constant grunts and non-responses. I know that it how many of them are – literally – but it made this reader scratch there head over why it needed to be so excessive.

As well, the ‘is she-isn’t she’ losing her mind aspect became a distraction quickly. Often it left me confused and wondering if something was actually happening or if Christine was imagining it, but not in a good way. In a way that had me constantly having to go back and reread the section previous, which completely reduced the propulsive story Ryan was trying to deliver.

And lastly, with this being marketed as a creature-feature, the actually page count featuring the creature was excruciatingly low, even considering this novella wasn’t a large page count to begin with.

Why you should buy this: Overall, I had fun with this one, but struggled to connect with it and have it hit home with me and I think part of that was the inability for the book to make up its mind whether it was a pure trauma response and grief exploration, or if it was, in fact, a creature-feature set in a snowy, isolated location. Ryan’s writing was great throughout, but the story didn’t feel as fleshed out as I was hoping for.

If you’re looking for a quick, solid blast of winter misery, this’ll be right up your alley.

3/5