Heading off to a remote cabin to forget your worries seems like such a great idea on paper, the issue with a lot of these type of stories is they don’t end well in fiction.
Recently we have seen this with the reboot of The Strangers, but literary form we have Lindy Ryan’s Cold Snap.
Ryan is an award-winning author, and this novella is definitely evidence of why.
We follow a grieving mother (Christine) who has recently lost her husband in a freak accident as she tries to forget his horrific demise while entertaining her only son and their cat.
What they all hadn’t bargained on was something sinister being in the woods near the cabin they are staying at.
Cold Snap is as much a story about trauma and PTSD as it is about animal/supernatural attack horror in an isolated location.
Ryan is able to make us feel Christine’s helplessness and her want to just break down and let it all out, while trying to stay alive in this unquestionably intense scenario.
At 128 pages it is a brisk read, that depending on your reading speed, you could finish in a handful of nights, which is a testament to its page-turning quality and the gripping nature of the story.
Definitely one for the cold and dark nights that lay ahead.
Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan is available now in various formats from Titan Books.
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