Book Review: SHIVER by Allie Reynolds

 

Shiver

Standalone

by Allie Reynolds

Thriller

Release Date: January 19, 2021 from G.P. Putnam's Sons

ebook, Hardcover, Audiobook, 400 Pages

Blurb:

In this propulsive locked-room thriller debut, a reunion weekend in the French Alps turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm.

When Milla accepts an off-season invitation to Le Rocher, a cozy ski resort in the French Alps, she's expecting an intimate weekend of catching up with four old friends. It might have been a decade since she saw them last, but she's never forgotten the bond they forged on this very mountain during a winter spent fiercely training for an elite snowboarding competition.

Yet no sooner do Milla and the others arrive for the reunion than they realize something is horribly wrong. The resort is deserted. The cable cars that delivered them to the mountaintop have stopped working. Their cell phones--missing. And inside the hotel, detailed instructions await them: an icebreaker game, designed to draw out their secrets. A game meant to remind them of Saskia, the enigmatic sixth member of their group, who vanished the morning of the competition years before and has long been presumed dead.

Stranded in the resort, Milla's not sure what's worse: the increasingly sinister things happening around her or the looming snowstorm that's making escape even more impossible. All she knows is that there's no one on the mountain she can trust. Because someone has gathered them there to find out the truth about Saskia...someone who will stop at nothing to get answers. And if Milla's not careful, she could be the next to disappear...

My Review:

Five arrive for a reunion, but they won't all leave it alive.

It's been ten years since Milla gave up snowboarding. Ten years since the cruel, yet magnetic Saskia disappeared. Ten years since Milla has seen any of the people she spent that winter with. But when Curtis, Saskia's brother and Milla's crush from back then emails her inviting her back to Le Rocher for a reunion she jumps at the chance to see him again.

Also arriving are Brent, the talented snowboarder Milla warmed the sheets with that winter, Dale - another of their snowboarder friends, and Heather, now Dale's wife, who was a bartender Dale was sleeping with that winter. They've all changed so much and gone their separate ways. Because of the tragedy of that winter? Or because someone doesn't want the others to know what they did?

Shiver is a locked-door thriller perfect for fans of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The tension is high as the group of five realize someone brought them there for a much more sinister reason than they could have imagined. Someone who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth about what happened that winter. But is it one of them? Or is there a sixth person hiding in the shadows waiting to strike as the others turn on each other? Could Saskia still be alive?

I loved this book! It alternates between the present and the events of ten years ago, explaining the events that lead up to Saskia's disappearance on the morning of the British Championship. Saskia was not a good person, and a lot of people had a reason to want her out of the way and the reader will constantly question which of the characters could have killed her. And the ending was definitely a twist worth waiting for. This is the kind of story where nobody is truly innocent, everyone is kind of morally gray, and I really didn't want to put it down. 

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟.75

4.75 of 5 Stars!

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