Book Review: Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan
Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this after seeing some of the reviews, but even with that in mind I was left feeling disappointed by this ‘festive’ horror. I quite like when books deal with grief and isolation and think when handled well, these are incredible themes for horror. Unfortunately, Cold Snap keeps it all too surface level and never really digs deep.
After the death of her husband, Christine takes her son to a cabin her husband reserved for the Christmas holidays. Of course, strange things happen, and Christine bumbles around a bit until the end of the novella. There’s a lot of repetition. We’re constantly reminded how her husband died. We get Stephen King references because of course we do (sidenote: SK references in horror have become so overused they should be their own trope, and they’re incredibly cliché). It’s not clear why Christine thinks dragging her teenager and their cat into the woods is a good idea. She’s even reminded about the no pet policy, and told it’s due to the dangers animals can get into in the woods. Reasonable and fair. She sneaks her cat in anyway. It doesn’t end well.
A lot of the book was just messy and unclear. I’ve read grief horror that has had me sobbing by the end, feeling like my heart was squeezed. This is not one of them. It’s never really clear what’s actually happening, and Christine just seems so incredibly unlikeable, with the character’s thought process really hard to follow.
I only finished this because it’s so short. I wouldn’t recommend this one – there is much better horror out there dealing with grief, and this one fell incredibly short, not just due to the length.
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt
Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social
I received this ebook from Titan Books via NetGalley for review consideration.
