Cold Snap

by Lindy Ryan

Genres: Horror
Pages: 144
Rating:

Synopsis:

A grieving mother and son hope to survive Christmas in a remote mountain cabin, in this chilling novella of dread, isolation and sinister spirits lurking in the frozen woods. Perfect for fans of The Only Good Indians, The Shining and The Babadook.

Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire’s husband slipped off the roof while hanging Christmas lights and fell to his death on the front lawn. Desperate to escape her guilt and her grief, Christine packs up her fifteen-year-old son and the family cat and flees to the cabin they’d reserved deep in the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to wait out the holidays.

It isn’t long before Christine begins to hear strange noises coming from the forest. When she spots a horned figure watching from between frozen branches, Christine assumes it’s just a forest animal—a moose, maybe, since the property manager warned her about them, said they’d stomp a body so deep into the snow nobody’d find it ’til spring. But moose don’t walk upright like the shadowy figure does. They don’t call Christine’s name with her dead husband’s voice.

A haunting examination of the horrors of grief and the hunger of guilt, perfect for readers of Stephen King, Christina Henry, and Chuck Wendig.

Lindy Ryan’s Cold Snap is a horror novella that doesn’t really give many answers, revolving around a shocked and grieving mother (Christine) and her attempt to connect with her equally shocked son (Billy) after her husband’s death. They go away to a remote cabin for Christmas, as her husband (Derek) had originally planned, but Christine is hearing voices, seeing constant intrusive visions of Derek’s death.

There is a creepy atmosphere to the story, helped along by the sense of unreality Christine falls. As a portrayal of PTSD and its repetitive patterns is really well done, in my opinion, and that might be the best part.

The reason I didn’t rate it higher is that I didn’t really feel the creepiness of the actual spirit/monster/whatever it is. I rather liked the final page, though it leaves things very ambiguous, but I think Christine’s fragmented experiences actually sapped the sense of threat. It’s hard to tell what’s supposed to be real; sometimes that can enhance the weirdness, but here it was just hard to tell what was happening.

Rating: 2/5