Twisty and Chilling: Read our Review of Shiver by Allie Reynolds

They don’t know what I did. And I intend to keep it that way.

In this propulsive locked-room thriller, a reunion weekend in the French Alps turns deadly when five friends discover someone has deliberately stranded them in a deserted mountaintop resort.

When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.

The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth.

In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.

How far would you go to win? Hyper-competitive people, mind games and a dangerous natural environment combine to make the must-read thriller of the year. Fans of Lucy Foley and Lisa Jewell will be gripped by Allie Reynolds’ spectacular debut novel Shiver.

In our Q&A with Reynolds, she states that her experience as a professional snowboarder inspired her to write Shiver, and this really shows throughout the novel – particularly through her detailed depictions of the snowy mountain setting.

Reynolds’ character-work was also on point here, and each character was complex and fully fleshed out. Reynolds makes great use of alternating timelines here, dipping back and forth between the past, when they were training as athletes for a snowboard competition, to the present, where they’re stranded on a mountaintop, fighting to survive.

Throughout the novel, I constantly kept changing my mind, and every twist and turn came out of nowhere, making for one heck of a ride. Reynolds keeps the story moving with some fast-paced action scenes and chilling revelations.

With a fantastic setting and a propulsive mystery that will shock even the most seasoned crime readers, Shiver is a spectacular debut, perfect for readers of Agatha Christie. It’s also the perfect book to add to your TBR list this summer.