Ten years ago, 33-year-old Milla Anderson was a pro snowboarder at the top of her game. Along with a crowd of other young athletes, she came to Le Rocher, a ski resort in the French Alps, to train while pitting herself against the best of the best. Amidst the tense, sometimes vicious, competition, friendships were formed, rivalries heightened, and enemies created. The season ended with Saskia Sparks—the most beautiful and conniving snowboarder among them—missing, presumed dead.

A decade later, Milla receives an invitation from a former Le Rocher friend to reunite at the resort. Although reluctant to return to the site and revisit the trauma she experienced there, she can't help but be intrigued. She hasn't seen or spoken to anyone from that fateful season on the mountain in the intervening years. Is it finally time to put the past behind her? Time to renew friendships, even rekindle a past flame? Despite her misgivings, Milla goes, only realizing too late that nothing about this mysterious reunion is quite what it seems. The resort is deserted, save for her and four others; their cell phones have disappeared; an innocent-seeming icebreaker game turns sinister; and everything is going bump in the night. With the threat of an oncoming snowstorm looming over the uneasy group, it's becoming quickly apparent that none of them is safe. Someone wants the truth about what happened ten years ago—and they'll stop at nothing to get it.

Shiver, a debut novel by Allie Reynolds, is my favorite kind of thriller. I mean, an atmospheric locked-room type mystery set in a remote location that features dangerous old secrets coming to the fore as nasty weather threatens to trap all the victims together in one place? Yes, please! Those kinds of stories always get my imagination whirling and my heart pumping. Although there are many things Shiver is not, it is a page turner. The story is a crazy, addicting thrill ride that kept me racing through the pages. Even though I figured out who was behind the reunion setup about halfway through the book, I still wanted to know what was going to happen next. While Shiver's plot kept me engaged, its characters are not a likable lot. They're admirable for their athleticism and determination, but not for their fickleness, petty jealousies, cruelty, and cold-hearted competitiveness. A good deal of the story, in fact, revolves around who slept with whom ten years ago, which I absolutely could have done without. Although we do see some growth in a couple of the characters, overall they're just a very messed up group. That, plus the fact that the story's a mite predictable, made Shiver less enjoyable for me. Still, for pure entertainment value, it's not a bad read as far as thrillers go. It definitely kept me engrossed.  

(Readalikes: Reminds me of One By One by Ruth Ware; In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware; The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse; The Guest List by Lucy Foley; And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, etc.)

Have you ever gotten so caught up in a book that you end up racing through it in one sitting, hardly daring to breathe, let alone get up and go to the bathroom?  What kinds of reads are most likely to have that effect on you?  I've zipped through plenty of books in one go, even taking my book with me to the bathroom, the kitchen table (I always read when I eat alone anyway), and to a college football game that I'm told was pretty exciting.  Usually, the books I literally can't put down are in the mystery/thriller genre.  Not always, as you'll see from the list below, but most of the time.  The way they're written—usually with short chapters, lots of action, snappy dialogue, and cliffhangers all over the dang place—makes them ideal for whipping through in one sitting.  Today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is all about these kinds of reads.  I looked through my recent reading notes to find the last ten books that I sped through in one go (more or less).  Since I love me a good page-turner, I'm excited to see everyone's answers.

If you want to jump on the TTT train (and you do!), click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl for all the details.

Top Ten Most Recent Books I Read in One Sitting   

1.  The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm—Middle-grade books are easy to read in one sitting since they're generally short and written with kid-sized attention spans in mind.  This one, the first I had read by Holm, charmed me with its warmth and feel-good story.  I loved it so much that I proceeded to zoom through three more of the author's books.  I'm currently listening to another of hers.

2.  The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson—I'm a big fan of Jackson's warm-hearted Southern family dramas/sagas.  I somehow missed reading this one, which came out in 2016.  It tells a compelling story about a woman seeking answers about her estranged mother—and the surprise she left behind when she died. 

3.  The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton—Although this mystery/thriller—about a mother and daughter traveling through the Alaskan wilderness in search of their missing husband and father—is a pretty tense read, I'm not sure I would have buzzed through it in one sitting if it weren't for the fact that I needed something to entertain me while my daughter got her hair done.  Getting a silk press, then having your very thick, curly hair straightened is not a quick process.  Needless to say, I got a lot of reading done during that appointment!

4.  The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman—I've read all of Steadman's thrillers, so I knew this one—her newest—would have me flying through the pages.  It did.  The story is about a British actress who comes to Hollywood during the chaotic pilot season.  She meets an enigmatic American actress, who later disappears.  At least it seems like she did.  Did she really vanish?  Or is the Brit going crazy?

5.  The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian—This debut Southern mystery kept me totally riveted.  It's about an impoverished, abused young woman whose life changes irrevocably when her father is killed in a very unexpected way.  Suddenly, she finds herself in an unlikely partnership with a stranger, who has her own stake in covering up the man's death.

6.  The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny—The Inspector Gamache books are more about the characters than the mysteries at their centers, so I don't generally buzz through them in one sitting.  However, since I took this one on a trip with me, I spent a lot of time with it in airports and on airplanes.  It's another compelling installment in a series that I love.

7.  Shiver by Allie Reynolds—Despite the fact that this thriller is filled with unlikable characters, it's still a gripping read that had me burning through the pages with bated breath.  It's a locked-room mystery set in an isolated ski lodge with a storm bearing down on a group of acquaintances who are already feeling uneasy in each other's presence.

8.  Atomic Habits by James Clear—I don't read a lot of self-help books, but I found this one so engaging and inspiring that I read it in a matter of hours.  It gives some excellent advice on how to break damaging habits and create healthy new ones.

9.  The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher—This one has such a crazy, can't-look-away premise that I just...didn't.  I don't want to say too much about the story because the less you know going into it, the better, I think.

10.  We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin—Gritty and atmospheric, this thriller was so absorbing that I read it pretty much in one go.  It's about a haunted detective who's desperate to solve two different, but seemingly connected, cases in her small Texas town.

There you have it, ten books that I read in one sitting.  Have you read any of these?  What did you think?  Which books kept you glued to your seat?  Which are your go-to authors for riveting, one-sitting reads?  I'd truly love to know.  Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Happy TTT!