As the Snow Gathers by Mere Joyce
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
As the Snow Gathers was such a hugely-anticipated 2026-release for me. Sadly, I walked away disappointed.
Ah well, we can’t win them all.
This is a historical novel set in the village of Aplin Shade, deep in the remote corners of the Canadian wilderness. We follow Dominic, a native of Aplin Shade, and Lex, his boyfriend, who works at the logging camp near town.
As a young adult, Dominic is now the head of his family. His father was killed in a carriage accident, and his sister, who suffered head trauma in the accident, will never make a full recovery. She’s never been the same. Thus, Dom is left to provide for his mother and his sister on his own.
Life is not easy in Aplin Shade, and Dom and Lex have dreams of moving somewhere less bleak, buying a farm and taking Dom’s family with them.
The odds are stacked against them though, as even their love for one another must be kept a secret. They also both have enemies in the town, and outside of town dangerous beings known as the Fanteur, lurk in the woods.
The Fanteur are known to steal the bodies of the dead of Aplin Shade, only to return them later, drained of blood. They’ve never been known to take the living. Until now. Now something has changed, but the townsfolk have to clue as to what it could be.
It seems the Fanteur are on the attack, and no one is safe, particularly the men of the logging camp, entering the forest to cut down the trees.
We follow Dom and Lex as they fight to survive, and try to make their dreams come true. With dangers around every corner, both human and not, will that ever be possible?
Y’all, I’m so sad I didn’t enjoy this one. In the opening bits, the first 10%, I was definitely intrigued. I liked the cold, unforgiving atmosphere that Joyce was bringing to the page.
By 30%, I was scratching my head. There was a lot of romance happening, which fine, but not what I signed up for. I was losing the intensity of the atmosphere to the intensity of the feelings between Lex and Dom. Again, fine, but where was the atmosphere? Where was the Horror?
By 48%, I was almost ready to give up. Nothing was happening. Every page felt so slow, just crawling along in detail. I think a lot of it for me was that I found Dom boring. Just as a character in general, I couldn’t care less about him.
No offense, Dom.
Additionally, the Fanteur as the big bad was equally disappointing. I just wasn’t feeling it. I probably should have DNFed, but I just kept waiting for the stuff to hit the fan.
There is a couple of scenes, where we did get action and in those moments I did like Joyce’s more gorier descriptions. I think she did well in that area. I just needed 89% more of it to pull this out of the 2-star read territory.
I think at the end of the day, it just wasn’t the right fit for my tastes. It felt like the longest 368-page book I’ve ever read. For me, the romantic relationship overshadowed everything else, and that’s not what I wanted.
I know there’s gonna be a huge readership for this novel, but I’m just not part of it. I’m happy I gave it a shot, but am disappointed it didn’t work out differently.
Thank you to the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I never write an author off after just one book, so look forward to seeing what Mere Joyce comes up with next.