A good plot line overall but for me personally it really didn't deliver, nor was I keen on the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Headline books for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

A possibility of two shorter novellas. Two stories, a decade apart, friends and rivals. The snowboarding set, in their heyday, when nearly everything done was groundbreaking.

The rich that, don't worry, the sponsored who manage by video and photo shoots and the poor that work three jobs throughout the closed season to be able participate.

Following a group of friends, with the ups downs, downright dirt and the death or thought of murder of one of their own. Regrouped at the last place that they were all together. Here's where the fun begins, played with, manipulated and left to stew.

A debut, that has you wondering just what was going to happen next,a good old fashioned 'who dunnit'.

Status: Completed

Rating: 4.3/5.0

Shiver is an intense, atmospheric thriller perfect for the dead cold winter. The story follows snowboarder Milla who goes to a reunion with four old friends at a French Alps resort. The friends haven't seen each other in a decade since the disappearance of the sixth friend, Saskia. When they get to the resort, it seems more abandoned than it should and things aren't quite right. Who gathered the friends there and why? Everyone has secrets to hide. The story has dual-timelines taking the readers back to right before Saskia disappears bringing to light more information than anyone lets on. If you're looking for a solid, locked-room mystery, Shiver is an excellent book to check out. It will certainly keep readers guessing. Highly recommended!

Quite simply, I loved Shiver. We are transported to the French Alps for a fabulous tense and thrilling corker of a book.

Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps, the resort saw the peak of her snowboarding career so she jumps at the chance. Although she’d rather forget what happened ten years ago, the thought of seeing Curtis again spurs her on. Last time the five friends were together was shortly after the disappearance of the enigmatic Saskia but when the reunion takes a menacing turn, the group quickly realise they don’t know the true identity of who really invited them. In a deserted lodge up a mountain it becomes a fight for survival as secrets are slowly revealed.

Quite simply I loved this book. It’s well written and I enjoyed it going between the present day and ten years earlier. I’ve snowboarded in the past so this book certainly appeared to me but this will appeal to many I’m sure especially with the nice little twists.

Thank you to NetGalley, Headline and the author for the chance to review.

Shiver
By Allie Reynolds
Pub date 21 jan 2021
Well I absolutely loved this book such a good read every page a turn over that I enjoyed. I loved the aspect that it goes from present day two ten years ago I loved learning about the characters on how they met ten years ago and the snowboarding competition I loved learning about each character and the story the suspense of the mystery in this book I loved the excitement that people went missing and the story you learnt from each character and I didn’t expect two find out what happened at the end x such a brilliant read and the writing style was beautiful written such a five star read from me.

Shiver by Allie Reynolds is one of the most intense thrillers I have read this year, and I am so glad I came across it. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher – Headline, for approving me the ARC copy. Also thanks to the team at Tandem, for letting me join the readalong and chat with amazing people while reading the book.

Synopsis:

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.

My Thoughts:

Shiver is set in two timelines; one in current day, and the other 10 years ago. The story is told from Milla’s point of view, but we get to read about all the other characters in great detail. As you dive into the book, you start to get a very good idea of what goes in people’s heads and what they are like.

I used to be a professional karate athlete for the Macedonian team for many years. This experience made me feel connected to Shiver in a much deeper level. The competitive spirit, the rivalries, the effort they put into everything they do – it all came back as a deja-vu to me. Even their fears of failing and their anger when injuries prevented them from competing.

The winter setting is so well written.
I could picture them on the snow so easily, imagine their jumps and their warm sports gear. The snowboarding setup for the competitions, the people watching, the ice rink, and the glaciers – it was so vividly written!

“There’s something about fresh snow that brings your inner child to the surface.”

The mystery was amazing as well, and it was also my favorite part of the book. To gather a group of people and be around them alone. All while knowing one of them is capable of doing horrible things is quite scary. And this feeling lingered throughout the whole book. I had many different theories of the ending and the reveal, and they kept changing as I was reading. In the end, I did manage to predict it, but it still caught me off guard when the reveal happened.

I also enjoyed the romantic element in Shiver as well. I didn’t expect a romantic part, but it was quite pleasurable to read about. It brought a nice balance between the many intense moments. And it wasn’t too much as well, which I also liked.

I loved Shiver and would never have guessed this was Allie’s debut novel. If you love winter, snowboarding, thrillers and people that are quite good in keeping secrets, you shouldn’t miss this one!

I was really intrigued by the premise of this one, and thought it would be the perfect chilling read to curl up with now the weather here has taken a turn for the colder!

Ex-snowboarder Milla is invited to stay in a mountain lodge with 4 friends that she hasn’t seen in 10 years. The last time they were together was tinged with tragedy after the disappearance of fellow competitor, Saskia, and Milla had thought she’d never her friends again.

When they arrive, the mountain is deserted, the cable car is inaccessible and it seems that someone is intent on tormenting them into revealing the truth about what really happened. Each member of the party clearly has something to hide, including Milla. And someone is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, no matter the cost.

Shiver is, at its heart, a classic locked door mystery: who has invited the group to the mountain lodge and why are they being tortured? The dual timeline takes us back to the months prior to Saskia’s disappearance, where we discover that any number of people could have had a vendetta against her (because she was pretty horrible!). Like in any locked door novel, I really enjoyed trying to guess what really happened to Saskia and who was behind the strange present day happenings. When I was three quarters of the way through I desperately had to find out what happened and whether my theories rang at all true, so stayed up way too late to finish it.

I’d say the book is quite heavy on snowboarding chat, which you will definitely love if you’re into the sport, but in all honesty I found a little bit too much. However, it did get me thinking about the types of people that might compete in certain competitive sports and how far they might go in order to win. I thought the snowy mountain setting was very atmospheric, and like most books at the moment, it left me craving a holiday!

With thanks to Headline for gifting me an eARC for review.

I started this one last week...and finished it the same night!

I absolutely loved this one! The writing was brilliant, it was tense and twisty but also so easy to get into. The characterisation was very well done too - all of the characters felt individual and distinctive. I did predict the big twist but that didn’t really impact my enjoyment!

I’d recommend this one to fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley - it definitely has that fast-paced, twisty, locked-room mystery feel to it!

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading. Shiver by Allie Reynolds is the author’s debut book.
It was a very intriguing and refreshing story about snowboarding and the effects it has on a young group of people who meet up to perform their craft in competition. There is a disappearance and a serious incident, when one of the snowboarders are seriously injured, which highlights the danger of the sport.
Then we meet the remainder of that group ten years later. Who will survive and who will never leave the mountain? There are plenty of twists and turns to the storyline and I enjoyed reading this first novel by Allie Reynolds.
Recommended

Amazing book - I was hooked! Read it in two days and now I have that remorse when you wish you’d taken longer to read something to enjoy it more. Best murder mystery book I’ve read in a long time.

I loved the 10 year flashbacks and seeing how much the characters had changed in those years, from being risk taking young adults to grown ups with more responsibilities and more of a survival instinct. The setting was brilliant - it actually felt ‘cold’ reading the book. I’ve never been skiing or snowboarding and honestly I’m not sure I’d want to try anymore after reading this... even the last two words of the book made me shiver.

Five old friends are invited to le Rocher glacier - a place where they spent a ski season ten years ago performing their half pipe tricks.

When they arrive the accommodation is deserted and the gondola has stopped running. They are alone.

They soon discover that all is not as it seems and the disappearance of Saskia, Curtis’s sister, may not have been what they thought it was after all.

This was a great fast paced thriller set in the French Alps on a fictitious (I think!) glacier. I love snowboarding myself so this had me hooked from the beginning. There was just enough suspense and the rotation between present day and ten years ago helped build this.

Of the present day characters Milla and Curtis were the ones I felt most towards. They both were close to Saskia and there was real chemistry between them. You could cut it , it was so tangible. Heather and Dale seemed an unlikely married couple who had a their own problems deep rooted by Saskia all those years ago. Brent was a lost soul. I felt for him as I don’t think he ever got over Milla all those years ago.

This is the kind of book where you suspect everyone and the end result hits you with an ice pick (see what I did!?)

A real gutsy debut novel and one is definitely want to pick up again!

The setting in the French Alps and the competitive world of Snowboarding. A reunion 10 years after the disappearance of Saskia will lead to murder. Who has really sent the invitations? The reunion takes a nasty turn immediately people have changed everyone is suspect. This starts as a very intriguing mystery with very competitive people in personal and professional life. The characters are very complex you don’t know who to trust. The truth will wait till the very last page.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting debut - set in a remote area of the French Alps in the present time but looking back ten years when this group of snowboarders gathered for training and a competition. These dedicated people formed friendships but several of them were single-minded and put their sport and their desire to be the best ahead of friendships, relationships and even family. How far were they prepared to go to come first? Did their competitiveness override their belief in fair play? And was this reunion just a reunion or payback for someone?
Many thanks to Netgalley/Headline/Allie Reynolds for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

One of my most anticipated reads and it did not disappoint. I was supposed to read this as part of a group read but once I started I could not stop, and read it all in one sitting.
The characters are believable even if at times irritating and annoying but this is part of the thrill of this book.
Set in two time lines I kept telling myself just one more chapter but that was never enough.
This book is fast paced, an edge of the seat thrilling ride and I absolutely loved it.
All the stars from me.
Thank you Netgalley and Headline for this to read.

This is easily one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Set in a remote mountain lodge, a group of friends gather to reminisce a decade after one of their number disappeared and was presumed dead. As their time together progresses, it becomes clear they all have secrets - and some of them may be murderous.

Fast paced and well written, I was kept constantly guessing over what was really going on and what happened all those years ago - as well as who was behind the reunion. Absolutely fantatic!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

I found this such an atmospheric read! The perfect wintery book to curl up with, it’s bursting with pace and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. For fans of Lucy Foley/Ruth Ware, and readers who love being transported into a whole different place, I loved the icy mountain setting, the characters you can-and-can’t trust, and the way the author blends the past and the present in such a seamless, suspenseful way.

Great classic murder mystery with a equally as great reveal at the end. Its everything you could want in a murder mystery book along with snowboarding thrown in. What more could you want.

I always find authors struggle with endings and most are ok at best, this one is just right.

A very easy, quick read. I enjoyed the first half and was hoping for a different reveal to what i expected to happen - but no exactly what I thought happened and from that moment on it rather descended into a lot of nonsense.
Its a perfectly ok read but the characters were not very likeable and it was hard to have any real investment in their outcome.
Not something I would recommend to anyone but I have read much worse this year.

This started as a bit of a slow burn which didn’t grip me but about a third of the way in I was hooked. Mila was emailed and joined four friends in a weekend getaway. The getaway takes a sinister turn when they realise they’ve been abandoned at the top of a ski resort, in the French alps, with no one to help. Someone wants to know what happened to Saskatoon who disappeared the last time they were altogether, ten years before. The group of six were all competing in a snowboarding competition
The book is written both in the present and the past. Gradually all the characters come to light as you read the past and the characters in the present trying to figure out who’s out to get them.
I liked all the characters and was gripped to figure out what happened to Saskia although she herself is no5 a likeable character,
Can’t wait to read the next book by this author.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
#Shiver #NetGalley

With a chilling setting and a promise of a shiver worthy plotline i was so excited to have been approved for an advanced copy of Shiver. Sadly, for me it didn't live up to the sinister expectations I'd crafter around the thought of it. I loved the setting, it was cold, claustrophobic, isolated - it felt like an Agatha Christie location and locked room mystery mixed with the essence of I Know What You Did Last Summer. The mystery around a missing girl and the competitiveness within the snowboarding competition world had all the potential. Unfortunately, I just didn't feel like I liked any of the characters, they felt all closed off and borderline two dimensional to me. I also understand that the author used to live in the world of competitiveness snowboarding, but I didn't feel we needed all the information as the reader. I am so sad not to have enjoyed Shiver as much as I'd have liked but not every book is for everyone.