Snowblind

3.5/5 stars.

The small New England town of Coventry is hit by a blizzard. People hunker down for the night, prepared to ride out the power outages and snow with their loved ones. Other people ride through the night, protecting the citizens of Coventry. And some people, some very unfortunate people, encounter the things that live inside the blizzard, and those people die.

Long years later another blizzard is coming, and the people of Coventry who lived through the earlier blizzard are naturally apprehensive. But no one is prepared for what this blizzard will bring because with it comes the dead and those things who are chasing them.

Snowblind was eerie and enthralling. I enjoyed the different ways people coped with the tragedy of the first show more blizzard and how that shaped them into the people who were able to battle the second. As a New Englander who has been through many a blizzard I can say that Golden captured the frightening feeling of being alone in the dark with only the sound of the falling snow to let you know that anything else exists. Great book.

(Provided by publisher) show less

If ever there were a winter in Michigan to read this book, it is this one. Last week temperatures plunged below negative 20, and this week, the sky opened to dump 6 inches of snow on us, in just a few hours! I drove to work today in a whiteout!

I read this book last week, on a snow day from work. It was so cold, and I was bundled up in a sweater and slippers, reclined on the couch covered by a blanket and an English Setter. Yet as I read, I felt colder and colder, the drafts more and more noticeable.

This book is written from the multiple viewpoints of a few different characters. It begins with a snowstorm, a nasty one that drives everyone indoors and off the streets. Yet not everyone is cowed by the blizzard, and those who do venture out show more for whatever reason, whether it is sledding, a knock at the door, running for help, or doing the neighborhood patrol, either never return, or are never the same again. Even those standing too close to an open window suffer.

After twelve years of grieving and trying to move on, another storm strikes the town of Coventry. Everyone remembers the casualties and horror stories from the storm that hit twelve years ago, and again the town pulls up the streets, and townspeople hide indoors. Or at least they try. Those most affected by the previous storm return as the main players, and find out the shocking, terrifying truth behind the nightmare. This book focuses on these people, and every single one of their stories drew me in. Usually in a book like this, with multiple viewpoints, there is usually one that I am bored by and that doesn't interest me. However, in this book, I loved them all.

This book scared the hell out of me. It was like I was 8 years old again, laying in bed at night, with little noises freaking me out!I hardly slept the night I started this book. It definitely put me in mind of a Stephen King book, and it makes total sense that he has a little endorsement blurb on the front.

If you like to be scared, then read this book.

If you want to be terrified, read it during a blizzard! show less

Twelve years ago, in the New England town of Coventry, a blizzard raged, taking the life of several of the town’s residents. Among the dead is a small boy, Isaac, who fell out of his window after claiming to see monsters in the yard…except his older brother claims that the boy didn’t fall, that he saw the monsters reach through the screen and yank the little boy out.

The town has never stopped mourning these horrible deaths, the loss of their parents, their children, spouses, and friends. And lately strange things have been happening in the town: a respected politician suddenly forgets how to drive, a police officer is acting strangely, a little girl suddenly starts behaving like an old woman, the best friend of a woman who died in show more the storm suddenly falls for the dead woman’s husband, a man she never much cared for before, and a young boy has disappeared after his parents die in a car crash. As the police hunt for the boy, the town is bracing for another big storm…and for whatever came with it last time.

Snowblind is a particularly chilling horror tale in more ways than one. It is creepy and atmospheric and guaranteed to send more than few shivers down the spine. It also helps that author Christopher Golden has created a fairly large but likable cast of characters to ensure that we, the readers, become invested in their stories and all the possible and frequently deadly outcomes.

One caution though: I read this story at night during one of the worst blasts of the Polar Vortex (-41C with wind chill) which may have made the story a tad more compelling as I listened to the wind howling outside as I read about the wind howling inside. I really don’t recommend this as it did have a detrimental effect on my ability to sleep. show less

I feel like this was a great book to start with to begin my Halloween reading odyssey. Scary, but not too scary. Mostly suspenseful, but with horrifying elements. It really felt more like reading an old fairy tale.

Story is definitely plot-driven. There are far too many characters to have any of them drawn in great detail. But I liked having all of the different stories, like windows in the neighbors' houses.

This really feels like classic horror. The kind that is terrifying while you're reading it, but that you can walk away from with only a slight, lingering unease. Until the winter storms come. Then I'll be up all night.

A chilling offering featuring a group of spirits that visit a small Connecticut town during a major blizzard. It seems for the last 12 years there is a blizzard with bizarre happenings that no one can explain taking place. The reader encounters the horrors in the very beginning of the story with the original horror-show inflicted on the town and then the aftermath the residents must somehow live with. The question for the town folk is what will come out of the blizzard this time and who will be left?

This book is a stunning piece of storytelling and scene setting. The author really knows how to make it three dimensional, and in a horror piece, that gets to ya. Through a seamless integration of description, dialogue, and atmosphere, Snowblind comes alive in such a way as to make the ghosts, monsters, and lost ones breathe with detail. Something has to be said for the pacing as well. There is not one place in this novel that is wasted storytelling. Every paragraph serves a purpose and draws you ever further into the tribulations of Coventry and its inhabitants.

I loved the horror elements in this book. It was at times in your face but also it could be very subtle. A wisp of snow on the wind, a voice on that same wind, a faint figure show more dancing in the distance… More times than I can count I was shivering in more than just cold and leaving my light on. I also liked how not every character got their happy ending; some of the innocent bystander characters were lost along the way. And the end was very ambiguous. I loved that! The reader is left not knowing if all the lost souls got to “cross over” or if something else entirely happened. And the very end scene with the blue eyes? Yeah, still makes me ponder and grin at the great suspense and horror.

The characters are as three-dimensional as the settings in this novel. Everyone has their virtues and vices, their goals, ambitions, and drive. I was enthralled reading how everyone dealt with their own horror experiences and seeing how it changed them twelve years later when the next big storm hit. How each character dealt with their losses and seeing how it changed them and their relationships was the meat of the story for me.

This novel is a shining example of how horror should be. Intricate storytelling, atmospheric scene setting, three-dimensional characters, and horror elements that keep the lights on, this novel has them all. Highly recommended for a read in this Halloween month, just don’t forget the blanket to hide under. show less

In the midst of a raging blizzard, more than a dozen people in the small New England town of Coventry lose their lives. A young boy falls from a window, a teen is electrocuted while sledding and others simply wandered into the snow, their bodies discovered only after the storm passed, though some are never found at all. Twelve years later another blizzard approaches the town and with it comes the memories of that dark time..and something else.

Despite the heatwave my town is currently enduring, I experienced chills running down my spine as I read Snowblind. This supernatural horror is a slow building psychological thriller, that builds on feelings of unease and dread until it culminates in a fierce life or death battle. The book begins show more with the deaths in the first storm, hinting at a sinister force, before jumping ahead twelve years as another major storm descends on the town. Here Golden explores the consequences of the previous blizzard for the family and friends who survived before revealing their terrifying fates.

The cast is large and varied, though intrinsically connected by their experiences and losses in the first storm. I found it fairly easy to track them as Golden reveals each character, their fears, their flaws and their desires. They mostly typify small town residents, ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary event. In particular focus is Jake, a photographer, whose youngest brother died in the last storm, and Detective Keenan, who has since felt he failed his community. Both witnessed something during the storm that they have tried hard to forget and now are confronted with something they can’t hope to understand.

This came close to a five star read for me except that Golden fell into the trap of trying to explain the inexplicable which blunts the mystique, and quite frankly, once all is said and done, why would the characters not immediately be thinking of relocating to somewhere, anywhere, it doesn’t snow, ever?

Still, if your city is currently in the grip of a snowstorm I would recommend caution before reading Snowblind, you may never listen to the howl of the wind or watch the snow fall without apprehension again. This is a gripping chiller. show less