#darcycoates

I started reading Ghost Camera by Darcy Coates Monday. It’s a collection of short stories. One of them is about a house that appears out of nowhere. Inside the house with it’s open doors and windows is a Christmas tree with unopened presents and boxes in the open garage that are all labeled toys or games. A group of kids goes in and I won’t tell you what happens to them but I will tell a story…

My big dog sleeping right by my bed. Last night I accidentally dropped my shoe on him and all he did was look at me, then go back to sleep. Yesterday I bought more books. I am determined to fill up that bookshelf. The boys and I want to the mall last night and just walked around. It was a rough afternoon and we all needed a brain break. Tonight after I work I have to take my youngest to work,…

Today’s trivia question. I finished Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury yesterday. I was a good story of a father believing his son and helping him overcome evil. Then I bought three more books, Ring by Koji Suzuki, Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub and I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones. I also still have Hunted By Darcy Coates that I bought a few weeks ago. I am…

I had a good day yesterday. I needed new jeans, so we went to Target, and I bought two pairs and a jean jacket. I said I was going to wear my new jeans and jacket and change my name. I asked my middle son if he knew what I was going to change my name to, I was just going to say Jean, but he said, “Billie Jean.” I liked that, that’s what I’m going to use. After Target, we picked up my youngest…

A snowstorm, a hunting cabin, and a killer in the dark—Darcy Coates brings us another claustrophobic, spine-freezing survival horror.

PRE-READING THOUGHTS

Darcy Coates always delivers a tightly wound horror: gothic houses, supernatural dread, or survival terror. This one promised a snowbound nightmare, and I was bracing myself for blizzards, paranoia, and death in the drifts.

POST-READING

As I thought…

The atmosphere is relentless. Every creak of the cabin, every gust of icy wind, every snowflake feels lethal. The realism of the survival details—how cold eats away at you, how snow muffles sound and sight—made the horror visceral.

It surprised me by…

How long I stayed uncertain about the killer. Darcy Coates is a master at red herrings, and just when you think you’ve guessed, suspicion shifts. The claustrophobia wasn’t just physical—it was psychological. The dwindling numbers kept me on edge, flipping pages like I was racing the storm myself.

🎵 MUSIC PAIRING

Featured Song: Whiteout Conditions — The New Pornographers (icy, fast-paced tension)

Vibe Album: Lost Themes — John Carpenter (chilling synths perfect for survival horror)

Artist Recommendation: Chelsea Wolfe again (she’s practically the patron saint of claustrophobic dread)

🎨 VIBE CHECK

Colour Palette: Icy white, slate grey, and blood red

Soundtrack: Wind shrieking through gaps in wood, the crunch of boots in snow, and the sudden silence when breath stops

Season: The dead of winter (of course)

Mood: Desperate survival with a killer watching

Scent: Smoke from a dying fire mixed with metallic blood in the snow

🃏 TAROT PULL

Five of Pentacles (Dark Wood Tarot): Two figures stumble through snow, exhausted and shut out from safety. This card embodies the novel’s freezing isolation, the desperate fight to endure against both the storm and the unseen killer. It’s a reminder that survival isn’t just physical but mental—and the cold can be as merciless as any murderer.

FOR FANS OF

Book: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Film: The Thing (1982)

DISCLAIMER

🌕 Trauma, terror, and a terrifying island legacy in this chilling cult-horror survival thriller.

Pre-Reading Thoughts

I've read enough Darcy Coates to know that atmosphere is her superpower — whether it’s a haunted house or a forest that breathes wrong, she always delivers the creeping dread. So the idea of her writing a book about cult trauma and social media excess on a cursed island? I basically ran to read this, flashlight and emotional preparedness in hand.

Post-Reading

As I thought...

The atmosphere is thick — you can practically feel the humid air, the uneasy quiet, and the way the shadows press in. Prosperity Island feels like it’s watching you. The cult backstory is handled with surprising sensitivity, but Coates never lets you get comfortable. Even the moments of calm feel like the eye of a storm.

It surprised me by...

…how fast it went from unsettling to utterly gripping. Around the halfway point I had that exact moment: “Nope, I’m not sleeping until I know how this ends.” I needed answers — not just about the disappearances, but about the main character herself, and whether she was going to be able to break free from the story she’s been living in for twenty years.

The themes hit hard: legacy, memory, and whether we’re doomed to repeat the past just because it’s carved into our bones. But don’t worry — there are also blood sacrifices and possibly sentient islands.

🎵 MUSIC PAIRING

🎵 Featured Song: “Bury a Friend” – Billie Eilish

Dark, twitchy, and crawling under your skin. That strange whispery menace perfectly mirrors the vibe on the island and inside the protagonist’s head.

🎶 Vibe Album: The Turning: Official Soundtrack – Various Artists

Moody, modern gothic, with a constant undercurrent of dread. It hits the same eerie nerves as this book — especially tracks like “The Brume” and “Mother.”

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Chelsea Wolfe

If Prosperity Island had a house band, it’d be her. Haunting, atmospheric, and always one breath away from a scream.

🎨 VIBE CHECK

A colour palette: Slashed crimson, decaying gold, seaweed green

A soundtrack: A mix of wave sounds and distant screaming

A season: Summer — but the wrong kind. Muggy, haunted, untrustworthy.

A mood: “I should leave, but I can’t.”

A scent: Salt, mildew, old blood, and sunscreen that no longer feels comforting

🃏 TAROT PULL

The 6 of Cups – from the Dark Wood Tarot

This version of the card is shadowy, with ghost white lilies and a crow peeking from behind trees — an image of nostalgia that’s turned just a little bit rotten. That’s exactly what this book plays with: childhood memories, trauma, and the illusion that the past is safely behind us.

The 6 of Cups is often about memory, but in the Dark Wood it warns us that memory can be a trap. And on Prosperity Island, what’s buried never stays buried for long.

For fans of:

📚 The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

📚 My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

🤿 Rezi 🤿

🌊 Tief unter der Meeresoberfläche wartet ein Friedhof ...

1928 verschwand der Ozeandampfer SS Arcadia auf der Fahrt von den USA nach Großbritannien spurlos. Obwohl noch drei Notrufe gesendet wurden, die seltsamerweise schnell wechselnde Koordinaten übermittelten, konnten weder das Schiff noch Überlebende gefunden werden.

60 Jahre später wird das rostige Wrack auf dem Meeresgrund geortet – mehr als 300 Meilen vom ursprünglichen Kurs entfernt ...

Ein Taucherteam will herausfinden, was mit dem angeblich unsinkbaren Schiff passiert ist.

Aber die Arcadia hat noch nicht genug vom Tod: Etwas Dunkles und Hungriges wartet in der Tiefe.

🌊 Meine Meinung 🌊

Do you like horror/thriller books with winter settings?

How about locked room thriller/mysteries?