Review: The Winter Sister

The Winter Sister by Megan Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a Feb 2019 Book ot the Month selection. It was billed as thriller, but to be honest, it wasn’t all that suspenseful.There was not a lot of suspense because we already know there was a murder 16 years ago, but there is a mystery, because the murderer has never been identified. Nevertheless, I did find it very interesting; almost ‘unputdownable’. I would call if more of a family drama with a touch of mystery.

The story reminds me a little of All the Missing Girls and The Long and Faraway Gone, where young woman solve confront cold case murders from the past. In this story, Sylvie is the younger sister who was 14 at the time of the murder of her older sister, Persephone, and Sylvie feels responsible. Her mother, who she was formerly close to, abandoned Sylive emotionally after Persephone’s death, submerging herself in drugs and alcohol.

There was a twist to the story that I guessed early on, maybe 50 pages in. But while I guessed the twist to the family drama, it could have gone 2 or 3 slightly different ways and I wasn’t sure which way it would go. The murderer was a little harder for me to figure out. The author did a pretty good job of playing ‘it was him….wait, no…it was him….wait, maybe it WAS him…’.

While I enjoyed the story, it left a few questions unanswered. These were not directly related to the murder, so it’s fair to say the story ended, but an epilogue telling a bit about the characters 5-10 years down the road would have left me feeling more satisfied with the book.

This is a great pick for readers who enjoy occasional mysteries and family dramas. This book will give book clubs plenty to discuss. There are discussion questions on the publisher’s website.


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