Winter at the Door

Perfect for fans of Jenny Milchman, Linda Castillo, and Lisa Gardner—the first book in a suspenseful new crime thriller series featuring the tough but haunted police chief Lizzie Snow, a big-city cop with a mission, taking on a small town with a dark side.

Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn’t homicide cop Lizzie Snow’s idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister’s fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece’s disappearance. Lizzie hopes to find the mysteriously vanished child here, amid the coming ice and snow. But in the Great North Woods, something darker and more dangerous than punishing winter is also bound for Bearkill.

The town is a world apart in more than distance—full of people who see everything, say little, and know more than they’ll share with an outsider. The only exceptions are the handsome state cop who once badly broke Lizzie’s heart and desperately wants another chance—and Lizzie’s new boss, sheriff Cody Chevrier, who’s counting on her years of homicide experience to help him solve his most troubling case, before it’s too late.

A rash of freak accidents and suicides has left a string of dead men—all former local cops. Now the same cruel eyes that watched them die are on Lizzie—and so is the pressure to find out what sort of monster has his hooks in this town, what his ruthless game is, and just how brutally he’ll play to win. Whatever the truth is, its twisted roots lie in the desolate backwoods of Allagash County: where the desperate disappear, the corrupt find shelter, and the innocent lose everything. It’s there that a cunning and utterly cold-blooded killer plans the fate of the helpless lives at his mercy—one of whom may be the lost child Lizzie will do anything to save. As a blizzard bears down, and Bearkill’s dark secrets claw their way to the surface, Lizzie gears up for a showdown that could leave the deep, driven snow stained blood red.

Advance praise for Winter at the Door

“Fast and dangerous, an extraordinarily entertaining read, Winter at the Door grabbed me from the thrilling first page. Sarah Graves paints a vivid picture of remote Bearkill, Maine. She’s created a likeable, endearing heroine in Lizzie Snow, who’s everything you could want in a cop hero: quirky and fun and fallible, but when the chips are down you know she’s got your back. I’ve no doubt Snow will quickly become a reader favorite.”—Linda Castillo, New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Will Tell

“Sarah Graves writes with grace and intelligence, and a love for her state shines through in this stylish debut of a new series set against Maine’s dark and foreboding forests. I’m hooked!”—Margaret Maron, New York Times bestselling author of Designated Daughters

“With Winter at the Door, Sarah Graves has pulled off a small miracle. Through artfully precise language and a plot that kept me turning pages well past my bedtime, she transported me to a North Woods village that seemed utterly real in the vividness of its details and yet almost dreamlike. I got out my map of Maine, looking for the backwoods town of Bearkill, and was surprised when I couldn’t find it. What a fantastic setting, and what a great character in Lizzie Snow. I can’t wait for the next book.”—Paul Doiron, author of The Bone Orchard

Sarah Graves lives with her husband in Eastport, Maine, in the 1823 Federal-style house that helped inspire her Home Repair Is Homicide books. The series and the author’s real-life experience have been featured in House & Garden and USA Today.