The Off Season

For fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware, a destination thriller about a woman who accompanies her new husband to a remote hotel during the off season to do renovations—and uncovers deadly secrets behind every door, from the author of the “endlessly entertaining and fiendishly clever” (Christina McDonald, USA TODAY bestselling author) thriller Last One Alive.

The Venatura Hotel desperately needs a facelift. Too bad renovations are murder on a marriage.

While recovering from a professional setback, documentary filmmaker Jane Duvall stays at a remote hotel during the off season with her new contractor husband, Dom, and his daughter, Sienna. Surrounded by an immense forest and the mighty Fraser River, Jane wants nothing more than to bond with her new family. But she’s unsettled by the cold, quiet presence of the hotel’s owner, Peter, who is overseeing Dom’s renovations. When she starts asking questions, Dom grows distant and Sienna becomes belligerent. Undeterred, Jane uncovers secrets that make her question exactly who she married, including a series of strange disappearances at the hotel in previous seasons. When a rainstorm of epic proportions threatens to flood the banks of the river and claim the Venatura Hotel, Jane must solve these mysteries if she’s to survive the off season.

Amber Cowie is a novelist living in a small town on the west coast of British Columbia. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Globe and Mail, CrimeReads, and Scary Mommy. Her first novel, Rapid Falls, was a Whistler Book Awards nominee. She holds a history degree from the University of Victoria and is a mother of two. She likes skiing, running, and inventing stories that make for a questionable internet search history. Visit her at AmberCowie.com or on Twitter and Instagram @AmberCowie.

ISBN: 9781668023518
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: May 14, 2024

“A fragile family comes to stay at a grand, deserted hotel. But they become more and more disturbed as they confront buried secrets—and murder—in this atmospheric thriller. Highly recommended!”
— SHARI LAPENA, #1 bestselling author of Everyone Here Is Lying“Action-packed and twisty. With dark family secrets and an ominous setting, The Off Season is a decidedly modern take on Rebecca.”
— ROBYN HARDING, #1 bestselling author of The Drowning Woman“In a style reminiscent of Ruth Ware, Cowie transports the reader to a stunning but isolated resort full of twisted menace and dark secrets. It’s a gripping and addictive read!”
— DANIEL KALLA, internationally bestselling author of High Society“Amber Cowie has done it again—The Off Season is hauntingly atmospheric, claustrophobic (in the best way), and deliciously twisty. Impossible to put down.”
— SUZY KRAUSE, author of Sorry I Missed You“Nobody writes haunting isolation like Amber Cowie. Fans of Lucy Foley will love The Off Season, a riveting tale of deceit and regret where no one should be trusted, nothing is what it seems, and even the weather might kill you.”
— S.M. FREEDMAN, author of Blood Atonement “With her signature atmospheric setting that will chill you to the bone, Amber Cowie has once again written a terrifying, exceptionally structured, mesmerizing suspense. Staying with her new family in a beautiful yet ominous hotel in a remote location where bodies drop and disappear, Cowie's determined heroine risks her love and life to uncover the skeletons lurking in every corner. The Off Season is an exhilarating thriller that will electrify you.”
— SAMANTHA M. BAILEY, USA TODAY and #1 bestselling author of A Friend in the Dark“Oh my gosh – with every chapter Cowie builds and builds the tension in the lodge. There was no way I was going to stop reading! The plotting is great – I had no idea how things were to going to play out. Cowie kept me guessing right through to the last pages.”
— A Bookworm's World“A timely and atmospheric thriller that deftly dovetails a Hitchcockian plot with the TikTok generation. Amber Cowie writes with heart and crafts gripping tension with both precision and panache. A dynamite read.”
— A.J. DEVLIN, award-winning author of Five Moves of Doom “A well-written book with references to some good Golden Age mysteries. . . . Just who and why and what is happening to the people who went to the Point and who will be the last person standing is as clever a twist as Ms. Christie ever envisioned.”
—The Globe and Mail