Saturday, August 14, 2021

Review: Wind Chill by Rita Herron

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Title: Wind Chill
Series: Stormwatch
Author: Rita Herron
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: December 19, 2019
Publisher: Beachside Reads
ASIN: B07YLY99DP

Freezing temperatures can kill...

Winter storm Holly is the worst in eighty years bringing high winds, subzero temperatures and snowfall better measured in feet than in inches. The weather paralyzes everything in its path, but in this storm, weather isn’t the only threat.

A serial killer the press has dubbed the Christmas killer is taking lives…and he’s not finished yet.

All Special Agent Gia Franklin’s sister Carly wanted was for Gia to come home for Christmas.

But Gia avoids the holidays, using her job as an excuse to stay away. For weeks, she’s been tracking The Christmas Killer, a cold-hearted monster who strangles his victims and poses them with one of the Twelve Days of Christmas ornaments. With nine women dead, and only four days until Christmas, she must stop him before he kills again.

Then he makes the case personal by kidnapping Carly, and Gia must go home.

Aware she may be walking into a trap, she teams up with sexy, local Sheriff Murphy Malone to stop the madness, and save the holiday for her sister and the town.

But the clock is ticking.

And the CK has his own holiday plans—ornaments eleven and twelve belong to the Franklin sisters, and he won’t stop until they’re dead...

My rating:

Ever since her mother's death three years ago, FBI Special Agent Gia Franklin doesn't do Christmas and doesn't visit her hometown in Nebraska to see her sister. This year, she has the perfect excuse with the serial killer, dubbed Christmas Killer, because of the time of year and the ornaments he lives with the bodies, on the loose.

But then the killer changes everything by going to Gia's town and kidnapping her sister. Gauntlet thrown, challenge accepted.


Again, I much preferred the suspense part than the "human" part of the story. The serial killer angle provided the requisite tension and danger, keeping the reader and characters guessing and wondering. The explanation for him turning out the way he did was plausible and him targeting Gia and her sister was definitely not out of the realm of possible.

I liked it, it kept the pages turning, and the brutal winter storm providing a desolate background also didn't hurt.

I didn't like the other stuff, though. Gia's constant moping and woe-to-me-ism about her not being there for her sister while it might already be too late, got old very soon, while the hero got the short end of the stick in the characterization department, making him appear cardboard-cut and bland, without much agency except standing by the heroine and pine. This imbalance nixed any kind of chemistry they might have had, making their "romance" quite a drag.

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